Live Jazz

This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Nate Lepine

Jazz is plenty fractured, and the natural inclination of jazz musicians to absorb the music of their environment has, over the course of time, resulted in a vast array of prevalent sounds.  There no longer is (and maybe there never was) a solitary Chicago Sound.  But if you’re looking for an example of music that has a legit claim to being referred to as the Chicago Sound in jazz, right here is what you got.  On his upcoming September 2016 release Quartet:Vortices, Chicago mainstay Nate Lepine offers up music that goes a long way to encapsulating one segment of the Chicago Sound.  The blues comes pouring out, just not quite as smoothly as your old-school jazz quartet would serve it up.  And that’s right in line with a lot of the Chicago scene, which is a strong incubator of modern avant-garde, experimental and free improv.  Melodies with jagged edges and tempos more likely to stomp than bop are common in the Chicago post-bop expressionism.  That familiar old-school sound gets kicked out with a casual fury, an intensity that’s sometimes driven, but sometimes just seems so off-the-cuff as to render harmless any negative impact of aggressiveness.  That’s important, because if you’re gonna light a flame under the blues, damage its soul and you’ve lost the song.  This isn’t the first example of Lepine representing this knowledge.  Same goes with the rest of his quartet, with Nick Mazzarella on alto sax, Clark Sommers on acoustic bass and Quin Kirchner on drums.

The quartet will be performing Saturday, Sept. 3rd at 2pm at the Jazz & Heritage Pavilion.

Here’s a preview track of their upcoming album Quartet:Vortices, releasing in September on Ears & Eyes Records…

Read more about the artist and the upcoming show on the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

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The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site

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This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Charles Rumback

One way or the other, I will be at this show.  I will be (likely) badly hungover and dropping f-bombs at the sun for possessing the audacity to shine its light on me, but I will be at the Von Freeman Pavilion on Sunday at the ungodly hour of 1:10pm to see Charles Rumback.

I really can’t tell you what it’s gonna sound like.  Rumback has a fascinating diversity of projects, each with their own distinct personality, often sounding beholden to many genres simultaneously, which, I suppose, is the primary quality to transcend them all.  His most recent release is the 2015 album In the New Year, a recording that has come closest to finding a middle ground between his tendency toward rough edges and an adept craftsmanship of sharp melodies.  This music possesses a warped beauty, where melodies waver and tempos stretch and contract with a curious flow.  The album’s personnel of guitarist Jeff Parker, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, alto saxophonist Caroline Davis and bassist John Tate were birds-of-a-feather for this kind of odds-evens blended imagery.  Here’s a cool video of the album’s opening track…

But here’s where it gets complicated trying to predict what this show will be like.

Rumback has some earlier recordings on the Clean Feed Records label, and they were right at home with the predilection toward dissonance and opaque melodicism.  And then there’s his intoxicating Colorlist, an ambient electronica collaboration with Charles Gorczynski.  There’s also his membership in the avant-rock trio Stirrup, along with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and bassist Nick Macri.

And then of a more recent vintage is his contribution to the Whirlpool trio, with saxophonist Caroline Davis and guitarist Jeff Swanson, where they dive into the deep end of a melody and don’t bother ever coming up for air.  This, actually, may provide some hints with what’s to come at their 2016 CJF performance, because trumpeter/cornetist Ron Miles will be sitting in on this one.  Miles, who pretty much should be universally known as one of the best modern artists on his instrument, possesses a sound that proves dreams have souls, and whether it’s in collaboration with guitarist Bill Frisell, pianist Myra Melford or with Whirlpool on their 2015 release Dancing on the Inside, Miles locates the heartbeat of that melody and makes it his own, like blood.

Joining Rumback and Ron Miles for this CJF set are saxophonists Greg Ward and Tony Malaby, pianist Jim Baker and bassist John Tate, each of whom are reason enough to show up as if nothing else I’ve said thus far has floated your boat.

Ultimately, what it all boils down to is here’s an outstanding musician who exemplifies the boundless creativity one can express if they just open themselves up to all possibilities and influences and crosscurrents of ideas, whether their own or inspired by their collaborators.

This show takes place on Sunday, September 4th at 1:10pm at the Von Freeman Pavilion.

Read more about the artist and the upcoming show on the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

*****

The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site

*****

This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Chris Greene Quartet

Saxophonist Chris Greene is one of those starting pitchers that nibbles around the corners of the plate with change-ups and off-speed pitches, never wasting any and never straying too far from the strike zone.  How that translates to his music is that when he’s working a post-bop sound or a contemporary fusion or adds some rock or pop or hip hop, the music is always keeping close to the heart of jazz.  As a cerebral concept, it’s fun to think about the shortest distance experimentalism needs to actually travel, but it’s far more interesting to focus on the ultimate quality of this approach is very tuneful, seriously enjoyable music.  It’s also helpful to consider that, for the most part, this has been a working quartet for the past decade, and that kind of time invested in the creative visions of one another is going to lead to a seemingly endless supply of interesting conversations between the artists.  That quartet, along with Greene and his saxophones, are Damian Espinosa on piano, Marc Piane on bass and Steve Corley on drums.

Also worth noting that the local jazz scene doesn’t end at the Chicago borders.  The CGQ calls the town of Evanston home turf, so don’t think you have to turn south at Howard Street to go looking for some good music.

The Chris Greene Quartet are performing Saturday Sept. 3rd at 2:20pm at the Von Freeman Pavilion.

Here’s an album track from the Chris Greene Quartet’s 2014 Music Appreciation.  It’s a very cool rendition of Wayne Shorter’s “Deluge.”  It honors the original while carving out some territory of the quartet’s own…

Read more about the artist and the upcoming performance on the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

And go listen to more of the Chris Green Quartet’s music on their Bandcamp page.

Also, be sure to check out the right side of your screen.  We’re featuring a free download of a Chris Greene Quartet performance at Chicago’s very own Mayne Stage.

Here’s a nifty video of the Chris Greene Quartet performing the song “Future Emperor of Evanston” live, in studio, on WLUW 88.7…

*****

The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site

This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Pharez Whitted Quintet

Trumpeter Pharez Whitted finds a middle ground between past and present.  His 2012 release For the People had the echoes of hard bop crossing paths in opposite directions with post-bop flurries, while his 2014 release The Tree of Life had some modern soul and some old-school funk a la the CTI jazz era.  The thing that binds them up nicely is Whitted’s delivery with his long, slow exhalations of melody.  Even during the higher tempos, Whitted holds the melody in place, up for everyone to see, before rejoining the charge ahead.  It’s an appealing characteristic, and leads to some pretty thrilling moments.  Whitted has Chicago ties that go back to CSU and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble and now with the CYSO.  His 2012 release For the People was stocked with Chicago personnel like guitarist Bobby Broom, yet further evidence that Whitted’s roots are buried deep in the Festival home turf.  For the 2016 Fest, Whitted is performing with saxophonist Edwin Bayard, bassist Jon Wood, drummer Greg Artry and pianist Lovell Bradford.

The Pharez Whitted Quintet is performing Friday, Sept. 2nd at 3:30pm at the Jazz & Heritage Pavilion.

Here’s an album track from his 2014 release The Tree of Life…

Read more about the artist and the upcoming show at the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

Here’s a nifty video of Pharez Whitted performing live at Chicago’s own, Andy’s Jazz Club…

*****

The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site

This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Ghost Train Orchestra

There’s a spellbinding quality to the 2015 release Hot Town from the Ghost Train Orchestra that grows stronger with successive listens.  Brian Carpenter‘s arrangements of hot jazz compositions from Roaring Twenties Chicago and Harlem is warm sunshine given sonic form.  The up-tempo nature of Hot Town, even at the peak of its velocity, possesses the casual ease of a Summer day in the shade.  And it’s that friendly handshake of easy-going enthusiasm and abounding good cheer that makes return visits ever more compulsory.

Baritone and bass saxophones are as light on their feet as banjos, clarinets and drums.  The de facto triangulation of tuba, viola and banjo create appealing contrasts of tone as accompaniment to an otherwise straight-ahead traditional sound.  Some vocals maintain the album’s galloping cadence and lazy river ambiance without stifling the vocalist’s emerging presence.

It’s pretty hard not to fall for this album once you’ve accepted its invitation.  In a live setting, the effect is likely to be amplified.  This is old-school jazz for those who don’t require an updated sound or modern techniques for their daily jazz fix.  The new-school fans, too, are gonna feel plenty at home with this music, because really, the echoes of jazz past reverberate through much of the music of the modern scene, no matter how tenuous its connection may seem at first blush.  But it’s how someone like myself who is as immersed in the modern jazz scene as anybody can still become immediately transfixed when a McCoy Tyner or a Red Garland or a Charlie Christian recording pops up in the digital shuffle.  That sense of time travel along the jazz lineage, of joyful sound the result of the collision of past and present, it’s as compelling as anything gets.

They’re scheduled to perform at 3:30pm on Friday, September 2nd in the Von Freeman Pavilion.

According to the schedule, it appears the Orchestra will consist of most all of the album’s personnel, minus a string or two and the guest musicians (sorry, Colin Stetson fans, but he’s off touring with Sarah Neufeld these days).

Your album (and mostly your CJF) personnel: Brian Carpenter (trumpet, harmonica, arrangements), Dennis Lichtman (clarinet), Andy Laster (alto & baritone saxophones), Petr Cancura (tenor & alto saxes, clarinet), Curtis Hasselbring (trombone), Mazz Swift (violin, vocals), Jordan Voelker (viola, musical saw), Cynthia Sayer (plectrum banjo), Ron Caswell (tuba), Rob Garcia (drums) and guests: Colin Stetson (bass sax) and Andrew Stern (tenor banjo).

Read more about the band and their upcoming performance on the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

And here’s a nifty video of the GTO performing live…

*****

The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site