Music

Pacifica Quartet – Mandel Hall – January 27, 2024

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The last time I saw a concert at Mandel Hall, over fifty years ago, it was Chuck Berry singing and playing his guitar for three straight hours, while throwing in an impressive display of duckwalking across the stage.

The old place looked much the same to me, only nicer, and more comfortable. Sure enough, I found that it had been renovated in 2013.

The Pacifica Quartet, the 2023-24 Ensemble in Residence, stayed in their chairs and didn’t sing about school days, but, like Berry, they probably have something Beethoven in their repertoire, and sure can pluck those strings, though they only deal with four each, while Berry had six.

Behind the quartet, the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra barely squeezed onto the stage, leaving no room for duckwalking even if they wanted to. They probably had to pick pieces with short bow strokes to avoid hitting each other.

The two groups combined beautifully for Paulus’s Three Places of Enlightenment, while the orchestra nicely opened with Montgomery’s Starburst and closed with Suk’s Scherzo fantastique, Op.25.

I didn’t leave with an earworm of Berry’s double-stop licks, unison bends, and major-minor modal shifts, but felt very entertained, relaxed and satisfied.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Symphony Center – October 24, 2023

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What a great program, starting with Barber’s The School for Scandal Overture, followed by a short break to raise the grand piano to center stage from below, which for some reason I always get a kick out of. I wouldn’t mind them bringing the whole orchestra up from below, maybe with the aid of a fog machine.

We were then treated to Conrad Tao playing Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, which reminded me of Michelle Cann’s rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue I saw a few months ago in the way that the music seems to enliven the musician. I kept envisioning a Tao bobblehead giveaway day, but the CSO failed me in that regard.

Tao started choking up before his encore when telling the audience how much he appreciated their applause, having grown up going to concerts at Symphony Center. He then favored us with his transcription of the 1953 (as opposed to 1939) Art Tatum recording of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I love Tatum and Tao did him justice.

After all that, we were just getting started, coming back after intermission with Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, complete with finger snapping, and ending with Sensemaya by Silvestre Revueltas, an enjoyable piece that was new to me.

Chicago Live – Navy Pier – September 23-24, 2023

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Navy Pier, it’s not just for tourists. Well, maybe most of the time, but not at Chicago Live.

Important information I picked up.

From Theo Ubique Theatre – how they pronounce Ubique. Their presentation of Sondheim songs, including Not Getting Married Today, led me to watch again, online, the great rendition by Katie Finneran.

From the Filament Theatre two-person presentation of something (I don’t what, I was just passing by the stage when they caught my attention) that “It’s hard to balance on invisible legs.”

From the young lady at the Hot Tix booth with an acting degree who currently works as a carpenter at local theaters, that the Nacirema (Society), in the name of the current play at the Goodman, is American spelled backwards. Doh!

Also, it sounds like Hot Tix is considering a membership that would allow you to pick your seat, something I could get behind.

From the marvelous Lucy Darling, that she is going to be the emcee of the new Teatro ZinZanni show opening in October. Lucy did a standard empty bag trick, while insulting audience members in a way that would make Don Rickles proud. The contortionist, Ulzii Mergen, also appeared, being attractive, impressive and cringeworthy all at the same time.

Other stuff I saw.

Porchlight Music Theatre promoting its upcoming Cole Porter Festival, which, I am excited to say, will feature Meghan (Big Red) Murphy in the role of Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. I have it on good information that playing this part has been on her bucket list. I liked Porchlight’s rendition of Now You Has Jazz better than Bing Crosby’s in High Society, though, I admit, having Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet did work in Crosby’s favor.

Lots of percussion – from third Coast Percussion and from a Chicago Philharmonic trio, whose sound was such that I kept waiting for dancers wearing big construction boots and carrying large trash cans to appear.

Dancers did appear for me at Culture Shock Chicago and Chicago Tap Theatre (as my readers know, you can never have enough tap).

Victor Garcia giving a master class on the use of the trumpet mute.

A DJ at a classic show tunes stage presenting a geographical music tour – I heard Kansas City (Oklahoma), Iowa Stubborn (Music Man), and Ohio (Wonderful Town).

Chronologically, the American Blues Theater’s road trip had me from the 50s opening Chuck Berry guitar riff of Johnny B. Goode (though sadly no duck-walking) and cemented my interest with the 60s CCR hit Down on the Corner (which was the song that sustained me while poring over the course catalog junior year of college looking for a new major). I’ll skip ahead to the 2000s to mention Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off because her appearance at the Bears game was apparently the biggest news in the NFL Sunday and thankfully overshadowed the high school team wearing their jerseys against Kansas City.

I love the Black Ensemble Theater but I have to say that I would have liked to hear the performance of Piece of My Heart emulate, not Janis Joplin, but rather the original Emma Franklin version.

Dee Alexander was new to me, but smooth as could be (with a great band behind her). I’ll watch for her in the future and be back at Chicago Live for more next year.

Friday Noonday Concert – Fourth Presbyterian Church – September 15, 2023

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I haven’t been bowling in many, many years, but today I went Bolling, Claude that is, the famous French pianist, composer, arranger and conductor, a couple of whose compositions made up the program presented by the Richard Sladek Trio (plus one).

Bolling’s jazz compositions have been on my radar for a while but I haven’t worked up the nerve to try to learn one of them after listening to his recordings. My fingers don’t function on that level.

Listening to Sladek at the piano seemed like a much better idea. And it paid a psychic dividend of a sort. In reading his bio in the program, I first was struck by the fact that, among his past gigs, he had been a staff accompanist for the Second City Touring Company. My kind of guy.

Reading further, skipping over all his other credits, something else caught my eye. He’d been a musical composer/conductor for 16 years with the theater troupe Wavelength. I was there when Wavelength was born, having taken improv classes with its founder, Jim Winter, with whom, and two others (one of them being Paul Raci, the Academy Award-nominated actor I wrote about two years ago), I actually sang the Banana Boat song on the Second City stage during a skit (as previously reported), which goes a long way toward explaining why I wasn’t invited to join the new group being formed at that time.

If I had only hit one or two notes correctly, who knows. But things turned out pretty well, so I was satisfied with introducing myself to Sladek after the performance and sending my regards to Jim, my long-ago friend from another life.

Chicago Jazz Festival – Millennium Park – September 3, 2023

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In some year before I started writing this blog I saw Petra’s Recession Seven somewhere, I think. And I’ve seen clips of them on YouTube, I think. I liked their music, I think.

Probably good enough, when combined with their promotion as performing traditional jazz and swing from the 20s, 30s and 40s, for me to brave the heat and potential crowds to go see them. And then, surprise, I read that bandleader and singer Petra van Nuis is married to guitarist Andy Brown, whom I have enjoyed and written very favorably about on several occasions, I know.

So, it was off to the Von Freeman Pavilion for an hour of smooth nostalgia, with a seat in the shade, including songs from Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday and Cole Porter and appropriately finishing with King Oliver’s Doctor Jazz, a song I fondly remember hearing the Ezra Quantine Ragtime Memorial Band play many times in local clubs in the 1970s, I think.

Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert and Chicago Jazz Festival – September 1, 2023

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At the church, Ashley Ertz (oboe) and Lillia Woolschlager (piano) treated us with a Samuel Coleridge-Taylor piece I can’t remember the name of, possibly because I never looked at it in the program. 

I didn’t stay for the rest of the concert, featuring composers unknown to me, and compositions from the latter half of the 20th century, a potential red flag for me, though, I admit, the music wafting through the Sanctuary as I left sounded like something I might have liked. But I had other fish, or beignets, to fry and so headed for the Jazz Festival.  

As promised to myself last week after seeing the Juan Pastor trio at the Noonday Concert, I went to see Pastor’s Chincahno, expecting a quintet, but pleasantly surprised to hear a septet, whose sound filled Millennium Park with Peruvian-inspired top-tapping rhythms.    

And, as with any music festival worth its salt, a wide variety of overpriced t-shirts were available for purchase.  

More interestingly, there was a creole food stand, whose offerings included the aforementioned beignets. The last time I had one of those, it was with a cup of coffee and chicory, sitting outside at the original Cafe du Monde (there are now 10) on the banks of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, where the beignets are served in threes in case eating just one of these deeply fried treats is not enough to clog every artery in your body. The approximately 60 million steps I’ve taken since then hopefully have negated that indulgence, but I decided not to risk further damage this time, even though there was a medical vehicle stationed not too far away.

Chicago Jazz Festival – Chicago Cultural Center – August 31, 2023

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I was drawn to this program by the fact that it was promoted as Zack Markstet, Performing Horace Silvers’ 1966 release “The Jody Grind”. My interest may have been surprising as I had never heard of Markstet or The Jody Grind.

However, I have three CDs (remember them) of Silver’s music, two of them featuring The Jazz Messengers. The third is entitled Jazz . . . has . . . a Sense of Humor (his final studio album), a title that fairly reflects part of why I’m a fan of his music.

That said, for all I knew going in, Markstet’s sextet was make up of guys from downtown street corners who would turn the six-track album into something resembling the theme song from The Jetsons. I still don’t actually know anything about the musicians, but they sounded good and, as far as I could tell, remained true to the original recording, though they substituted a trombone for the second saxophone that the Blue note label gave us in 1966.

I don’t write music, so I found a website that told me that a trombone can read alto sax parts by reading as in bass clef and adding 3 flats to the written key. Unless those changes are written out ahead of time, it sounds like playing blindfolded chess to me, which would be a real grind.

Coming Attractions (or not) – September, 2023

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I was berated today for not telling people about events before they happen. So, for all of you out there who haven’t yet learned how to use your computer, and since I have a little time to kill, here are some ideas for things to do in September.

First, and foremost, and before you tire of my sarcasm, you must go to the Porchlight Music Theatre’s Icons Gala on the 8th at the Athenaeum Center. It will, as always, be a very entertaining evening and, if you buy one of the top-tier tickets, you get to mingle with me at the pre-show cocktail reception. Also, the guest of honor, Ben Vereen, will be in attendance.

As I alluded to in an earlier post, the Chicago Jazz Festival comes to town the first few days of the month. You’re on your own as to which acts might interest you. I stopped going years ago, as I tired of the modern, atonal nonsense they inappropriately call music, but there are a few acts on the calendar this year that I either have seen before and liked or am confident enough about to risk a trek down to Millennium Park or the Cultural Center for a look-see.

The Fourth Presbyterian Church takes its Noonday Concerts indoors starting this Friday, which seems premature to me, but allows them to put to use their big honking organ, though, fortunately for my tastes, not until the end of the month, so, again, why not keep things outdoors until then.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is celebrating its 20th Anniversary (seems like 40 years taking into account having to traverse all those stairs) on the 9th in Millennium Park. The unprecise schedule makes it hard to know when I might want to drop in, though the likelihood of families attending the afternoon sessions is fair warning to avoid those.

The Printers Row Lit Fest is that same weekend (both days). It always presents a plethora of interesting exhibitors and programs, if you can find them in the event’s labyrinth (watch out for the Minotaur).

And, not finally, but I’m tired, the American Writers Museum is hosting Get Lit: Grown-Up Book Fair on the 12th, which will feature refreshments, carnival games, and an Adult Spelling Bee, which, I assume, means either dirty words and/or easier ones than the obnoxiously well-prepared kids at the real one have to tackle.

Juan Pastor Trio – Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert – August 25, 2023

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The Juan Pastor Trio treated attendees to a wonderful last outdoor Noonday Concert of the year. This group was new to me, but I’m already hoping to see Pastor’s larger band, Chinchano, which adds two saxophones to the trio’s bass, piano and drums, at the upcoming Chicago Jazz Festival.

Chinchano is promoted as “Pastor’s modern instrumental jazz group that fuses the traditional North American jazz harmonic palette with exciting rhythmic concepts drawn from Central and South America.” Sounds good to me.

Pastor is Peruvian by birth, I assume from the Chincha Province, based upon his group’s name. Chincha means ocelot in Quechua (an indigenous language spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes), which confuses me because chinchillas, historically, lived in Peru (and Bolivia and Chile), but are rodents, not felines, which makes me think about a different kind of fusion, that of two different orders of mammalia, rodentia and carnivora, which might produce a very atonal product.

Eschewing Dancing Shoes – MCA & St. James Cathedral – August 22, 2023

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I won’t dance, don’t ask me (it’s a knee thing), but I’ll watch, or listen. So I had to decide between the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Tuesday on the Terrace program featuring the Puerto Rican Bomba dance music of Bomberxs D’Cora of La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón, and Bongani Ndodana-Breen – Two Nguni Dances, the first piece being played by Trio Diorama at the St. James Cathedral Rush Hour Concert.

I decided to start with the outdoor event (knowing that I likely would be staying indoors most of the next two days due to the expected thousand degree temperatures).

I found joyful music and a fun atmosphere at the MCA once I talked my way in through the “wrong” door, but not before pointing out to staff all the flaws in their entry system, which, I’m afraid, left a sour taste in my mouth (and possibly my name on Santa’s naughty list), so, after 15 minutes, I headed for the church, not for absolution, but rather for Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, timing my arrival perfectly to catch the excellent performance in the venue’s last concert of the summer (groan).