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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Digging Our Roots videos, speakers inspire engagement

Billy Branch watches Sonny Boy (Rice Miller) Williamson II. Photo by Alan Frolichstein
Billy Branch watches Sonny Boy (Rice Miller) Williamson II;
photo by Alan Frolichstein

Nearly 100 Chicagoans (maybe some visitors?) watched Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and other heroes of the blues on videos at the Cultural Center Thursday night (5/23/19), with harmonica star Billy Branch and WDCB program host Leslie Keros telling stories and participated in lively interplay with knowing attendees. It was the fifth Digging Our Roots: Chicago’s Greatest Hits “listening session” this spring, co-presented by the Jazz Institute of Chicago and Jazz Journalists Association.

Full disclosure: I sit on the JIC board, am president of the JJA, curated and moderated this series. Let that not invalidate this report! Because since cold last January, our once-a-month, free, public music show-and-tells have drawn a steadily growing, diverse and highly engaged audience to both revisit and discover anew jazz/blues favorites of the distant and recent past, pointing to culture of this city now.

I don’t say that to brag, just to confirm that small budget, low cost, all-ages-and-sophistication-level presentations can raise the profile of local musicians and journalists working together, expose successful (entertaining!) if perhaps forgotten artists to awe and encourage younger music lovers, and generate fine content for posting, such as Mashaun Hardy does for the Jazz Institute’s social media streams by video streaming portions of the proceedings, live — like below:

The economical nature of the production is thanks to the Cultural Center (overseen by the Mayor’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events) providing space and staff, as well as the amazing banquet of video performances online (we watched clips selected by the panelists, including this dynamite performance by Billy Branch and Lurrie Bell with an early version of their band Sons of the Blues).

The Jazz Institute provides promotion online and a staffer or two who help with production, harvest attendee’s email address and sign up new members. I contribute my efforts on behalf of the JJA, and have enlisted members as speakers.

For instance, in April photographer/writer/visual artist and saxophonist Michael Jackson joined tenor saxist Juli Wood to celebrate the Chicago Tenor Tradition represented by Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin and Von Freeman (pianist Michael Weiss, at the Jazz Showcase that week with saxist Eric Alexander to celebrate Grif’s birthday, sat in). John McDonough, a longtime writer for DownBeat and the Wall Street Journal, created a medley of historic versions of “King Porter Stomp” for a presentation of Jelly Roll Morton’s classics in February with roots Americana pianist Erwin Helfer performing two of Jelly’s tunes.

Veteran broadcaster Richard Steele, just hours back from a tour of Cuba in company of trumpeter Orbert Davis, talked with saxophonist Eric Schneider about the collaborations and careers of Earl “Fatha” Hines (with whom he’d toured) and Louis Armstrong. Ayana Contreras, producer for WBEZ and Vocalo Radio, provided in-depth commentary about the jazz influences and nuances of Curtis Mayfield, Minnie Riperton and Earth Wind and Fire in the March Digging Our Roots, which climaxed gloriously: as keyboardist Robert “Baabe” Irving III played EWF vamps on the Cultural Center’s piano, audience members started singing along, Maggie Brown (Oscar Brown Jr.’s daughter) rushed to the stage, grabbed a mic and started wailing — dancing erupted! It was grand.

At the May session, Branch spoke admiringly of the musicianship of his elders he had known, especially including Sonny Boy Williamson II, as slyly understated harmonica man Rice Miller called himself while touring from the Mississippi delta to the capitols of Europe, having appropriated repertoire and reputation of John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, who had hit records but was murdered in 1948. Keros introduced an excerpt of a film of Maxwell Street, Chicago’s fondly remembered outdoor market at which Blind Arvella Grey, guitarist Robert Nighthawk, Big John Wrencher (don’t the names summon their images?) held forth.

One fan corrected my impression that Bill Broonzy was playing from his own doorstep — actually the clip was from a film shot by Pete Seeger. Another suggested that the way to return blues to popular music today is have a deejay/producer grab it for presentation to the EDM audience. Apparently that gent was unaware of previous attempts to turn that trick, such as the Elektric Mud Cats — Chuck D and Common with guitarist Pete Cosey — doing a number on Muddy Water’s “Mannish Boy.”

The next Digging Our Roots session, at 6 pm on Saturday June 29, highlights Chicago’s singers, starting with Dinah Washington, Oscar Brown Jr and Johnny Hartman. The panelists are Aaron Cohen — former DownBeat editor and author of the forthcoming Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power — and singer Bobbi Wilsyn. The venue changes to the Logan Center, in Hyde Park on the edge of University of Chicago campus, which is hosting two free days of Jazz Institute programming, noon to 10 pm, as a 50th anniversary Birthday Bash reveling in the breadth of JIC and our local scene’s concerns and activities.

As part of the JIC’s year long 50th engagement and fundraising campaigns, a series of jazz movies programmed by the Chicago Film Society kicks off Monday, May 27 with Mickey One (starring Warren Beatty, directed by Arthur Penn, with music by Stan Getz, shot in Chicago) at the Music Box. Further flicks include Ornette: Made in America, Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues and Les Blank’s Always for Pleasure.

The drift is: Mutually beneficial partnerships for free or modest-fee events featuring local celebs at readily accessible venues can advance the mission of medium to small not-for-profit arts groups (like the Jazz Institute and the Jazz Journalists Association). Knowledgable people who have insights into pre-recorded media can offer curious listeners and viewers an interactive experience (all Digging Our Roots sessions included q&a time) that bonds most everybody present, like any successful performance. I’m thrilled to present music I love to anyone who’s got the time and inclination to enjoy it and hope to continue this series in autumn in Chicago.

Billy Branch, Leslie Keros, Howard Mandel;
photo by Alan Frolichstein

Might I suggest Digging Our Roots-like programs as a model for arts journalists and arts organizations spotlighting arts-near-us, contemporary or historic? All you need is a public space, time, date, and speakers able to be enlightening about great content. That last is the main thing. We’re lucky here to have such enduring jazz and blues.

Chi jazz fest 2016, details in photos and words

My DownBeat overview of the 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival, comprehensive as I could make it, didn’t go into depth on any of the couple dozen performances I heard from Sept 1 through 4 in downtown

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Bassist Tatsu Aoki’s Myumi Project with pianist Jon Jang, cellist Jaime Kempkers, tenor saxophonists Ed Wilkerson and Francis Wong, baritone saxist Mwata Bowden, Tsukasa Taiko with soloist Kioto. Photo montage by Marc PoKempner.

Millennium Park and the Cultural Center. So here, with imagery by my photojournalist colleagues and friends Marc PoKempner and Michael Jackson (whose photo of drummer Dave King of the Bad Plus graced that DownBeat review) are some previously unreported details.

  • Tatsu Aoki‘s Miyumi Project continues to evolve as the Tsukasa Taiko Legacy troupe with soloist Kioto leans ever-closer into the rhythms of his jazz-oriented ensemble — driven by traps drummer Avreeayl Ra and hand-percussionist Coco Elysses. On this date Aoki’s Bay Area Asian Improv colleagues Jon Jang (piano) and Francis Wong (tenor sax) — who performed a stunning mouthpiece-only solo — joined Jaime Kempkers, cello; Edward Wilkerson, tenor sax; Mwata Bowden, baritone sax, for no-holds-barred give-and-take.
  • Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, with the late founder’s bass chair filled by his one-time student Scott Colley, performed new arrangements by conductor Carla Bley that managed to be simultaneously free for roaring and transparently structured, genuinely patriotic and suffused with sad/defiant critical expression. Trumpeter Michael Rodriguez was probing on most of the brass solos, but his section-mate Seneca Black crowned “American the Beautiful” with a gleaming high note.

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    from left: Curtis Fowlkes, Vincent Chancey, Joe Daley in Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Carla Bley. Photo by Marc PoKempner

    Tenor saxophonists Tony Malaby and Chris Cheek presented a contrast of solo styles — the former voluble and gruff, the latter selective and bell-toned. Bley was understated when conducting, and deliberate at the piano; her charts applied high and low voices artfully, for clarity. Alto saxist Loren Stillman, guitarist Steve Cardenas, drummer Matt Wilson should not go unmentioned; trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, french horn player Vincent Chancey and tuba player Joe Daley supplied colorful depths.

  • Ornette Coleman’s 1971 album Science Fiction is one of my all time favorites, as related in Miles Ornette Cecil – Jazz Beyond Jazz. The Bad Plus with guests Tim Berne (alto sax), Ron Miles (trumpet) and Sam Newsome (soprano sax) did a mitzvah bringing to life Coleman’s seldom-attempted compositions “Law Years,” “Civilization Day,” “Street Woman,” as well as two originally sung by Asha Puthli, “All My Life” and “What Reason Could I Give.” Those two unusual ballads are gorgeous, were capably sung by Bad Plus bassist Reid Anderson (who does not usually sing in performance), and pianist

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    from left: Ethan Iverson, Sam Newsome, Ron Miles, Tim Berne, Reid Miles, Dave King. Photo by Michael Jackson, who despairs of the image’s size.

    Ethan Iverson performed an awesome episode on “Reason,” stating the melodic theme slowly with his left hand while with his right, independent of his bass rhythm, he touched on high notes as if lighting stars.

  • Cameron Pfiffner and five other Chicago-identified reedists in his occasional group

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    Cameron Pfiffner in Preston Bradley Hall of the Chicago Cultural Center, Howard Mandel listening — photo by Marc PoKempner

    Adolph’S AX blew without amplification, walking through the crowd under the Tiffany dome at Chicago’s Cultural Center, to explore the glorious room’s acoustic properties. Although it may look otherwise from my expression, I was intrigued, not displeased.

  • Africa and Maggie Brown, daughters of the late singer-songwriter Oscar Brown Jr., sang their father’s lyrics with delightful high spirits and a casual back-and-forth as if they were in a private home or cabaret.

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    from left, Maggie and Africa Brown, photo by Marc PoKempner


 

 

 

 

  • Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson chose not to play some of his best known compositions — no “Killer Joe,” no “Along Came Betty,” no “I Remember Clifford.”

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Benny Golson, with Buster Williams; photo by Marc PoKempner.

But accompanied by pianist Mike LeDonne, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Carl Allen, Golson did essay a perfectly lovely version of his song “Whisper Not.” He claimed the title had no specific meaning, that he’d chosen the words at random. Hard to believe, but he wouldn’t lie. And if Duke Ellington’s theme song “Take the ‘A’ Train” is Golson’s usual set-ender, at age 87 he’s got his reasons and they deserve respectful consideration.

  •  I’m still trying to figure out how I liked the music of Christian Scott a Tunde Adjuah. He’s a powerhouse on trumpets and bold onstage, which shook things up. His “Stretch music” label is supposed to encompass jazz and other genres, though of course I heard it as jazz beyond “jazz” —

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    Christian Scott a Tunde Adjuah, in front of the Pritzker Pavillion’s giant video screen. Photo by Marc PoKempner

    an attempt to get at the real excitement in the art form’s essence that is too frequently forgotten amid the accretion of history, tradition, convention, rote performance, tired blood, call it what you will. It seems obviously a descendent of Miles’ post-Bitches Brew, but more than just that. Flutist Elena Pinderhughes provided a cool contrast to overtly physical Adjuah; pianist Lawrence Fields played one affecting solo on Rhodes piano. The leader’s street style and bountiful energy makes him seem outsized.

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Scofield and Lovano, photo by Marc PoKempner

  • Guitarist John Scofield and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, on their final date of a Stateside tour, kicked out the jams like comfortably rambunctious best old friends. Bill Stewart drummed, Ben Street played bass, Joe and Sco’s tunes served to get them into and out of the blowing, during which all four seemed connected at the hip (by the hip?).
  • Candido Camero, conguero, capped the festival with Latin jazz all-stars. Conga drums (Sammy Figueroa filling

    chicago-jazz-fest-16-9264-candido-4x6-1

    Candido Camero, 95. Photo by Michael Jackson

    in behind Candido) and  clavé are integral to any 21st century fest comprehensive representation of present-day Western Hemisphere music. We got that from a master.

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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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