{"id":1692,"date":"2014-08-21T12:19:41","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T16:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=1692"},"modified":"2014-08-23T15:08:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T19:08:23","slug":"new-hyde-park-venue-tests-chicago-north-south-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2014\/08\/new-hyde-park-venue-tests-chicago-north-south-split.html","title":{"rendered":"New Hyde Park venue tests Chicago north-south split"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"_BAW6238\"<\/a>

Tom Tom Washington conducts the South Side Big Band at the Promontory. Photo by Bruce Williams<\/p><\/div>\n

The Promontory, a large, flexible, shiny new performance hall in Chicago’s upswinging Hyde Park neighborhood<\/a> (home to the Obamas) opened for music last weekend with the South Side Big Band, directed by veteran composer\/arranger Tom Tom Washington<\/strong>. It’s an audacious attempt to restart commercial entertainment in an area that for decades has mostly been served by University of Chicago events. It’s also a test of the city’s South Side\/North Side \u00c2\u00a0(read: black\/white) divide.<\/p>\n

For the musical launch (The Promontory restaurant<\/a> has been open for a month) an estimated multi-racial 500 patrons sat at tables, milled about the bar and gathered on a balcony terrace. Washington, who earned his spurs as a composer-arranger for mostly jazz\/soul\/r&b talents including Earth, Wind and Fire starting in the ’60s, conducted players known\u00c2\u00a0from 50 years of locally based ensembles and studio sessions, as well as blues-oriented guests, most notably singer\u00c2\u00a0Maggie Brown<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0(who performs a tribute to her late father, Oscar Brown Jr.<\/a>, tomorrow at north suburban Ravinia. In the night’s first set, the repertoire included the theme song of\u00c2\u00a0late local radio show host Daddy-O Daylie (was it “Midnight Sun”?),\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“My Funny Valentine,” “Don’t Go To Strangers” and “Moody’s Mood for Love” — standards especially beloved by South Side audiences of a certain age.<\/p>\n

The new establishment is\u00c2\u00a0owned and operated by principals who also run Space<\/a> in north suburban Evanston, the North Side’s\u00c2\u00a0the Empty Bottle<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Thalia Hall<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0in near-South Side Pilsen (known for its Mexican community).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Chicagoans are rather proprietary about their immediate cultural surroundings, as seems to be unfortunately natural for a city with such a history of segregation. Though you can drive pretty much from one end of Chicago to another — approximately 27 miles — in 40 minutes if the traffic is light, only hardcore fans go across town for their jollies. Too bad, because there’s a lot of good stuff all over.<\/p>\n

Decades back\u00c2\u00a0the South Side was home to famous venues including the High Chaparral<\/a>, Roberts Show Lounge<\/a>, the Regal Theater<\/a> and Grand Terrace Ballroom <\/a>(also corner blues taverns such as\u00c2\u00a0Theresa’s<\/a>, the Checkerboard<\/a> and Pepper’s<\/a>). They’re all gone now. In 2012 U of C opened its\u00c2\u00a0Logan Center for the Arts,<\/a> and before that it hosted high level and long-running student activities such as an\u00c2\u00a0annual folk music festival,\u00c2\u00a0Court Theatre<\/a> (my parents introduced little me to Shakespeare there) and concerts like early ones by members of the AACM.<\/a> But the U of C is virtually an integrated island on the greater South Side, where\u00c2\u00a0performances in small watering holes\u00c2\u00a0such as City Life<\/a> and the Fifty Yard Line <\/a>are typically visited by outsiders during\u00c2\u00a0the August Jazz Club Tour <\/a>sponsored by the Jazz Institute of Chicago (Aug. 27<\/a>, preceding the 36th annual Chicago Jazz Festival<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The South Side Big Band has been convened as an antidote to all that. Washington called it together in\u00c2\u00a02010 as much\u00c2\u00a0for rehearsals as\u00c2\u00a0performances,which he explains\u00c2\u00a0in a video produced by the\u00c2\u00a0Chicago Sun Times.<\/p>\n