Music

Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square – Washington Square Park – July 30, 2022

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“Things aren’t what they used to be and probably never were.” – Will Rogers

The ACLU was handing out flyers, but there were no soap boxes in the park. No anarchists in sight. No spectators shouting down speakers.

There were people hanging around, perhaps waiting for an argument to break out, but, times being what they are, the Newberry staff had to be happy to have a docile event, where the biggest controversy was the position taken by Northwestern professor Bill Savage that it was okay to put ketchup on hot dogs. Even I booed at that.

Savage had some interesting, less hot-button things to say about Edward Brennan and his years-long effort to successfully rename many streets and renumber addresses throughout the city, accomplishing things that many mistakenly credit as being part of Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago.

The only other speaker I heard any of was Katie Prout, a freelance-writer, who, amazingly, had a lot to say about pigeons, a fairly safe topic.

I then headed over to the Documents Bureau table where Society of Smallness clerks listened to a random complaint I came up with for the moment and issued me a certificate granting me the authority to do something about it. I was going to snap a photo to attach to this piece, but when I got home I discovered that they, ironically, had given me somebody else’s document. Next year’s complaint.

Back to the main stage for Sheryl Youngblood and her blues band, who did a sweet half hour before more talking heads appeared and I disappeared.


Jonathan Zeng – Music by the Fountain – Fourth Presbyterian Church – July 22, 2022

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The concert was promoted as Jonathan Zeng, voice and piano. Zeng sang, but someone else, who was introduced, but not promoted, and didn’t speak, but did wave to the audience, played the piano.

Zeng’s voice was fine, but I found him boring. I would rather just have listened to the piano and heard in my head the voices of the performers who made famous the mostly Broadway show tunes he led us through. I was not surprised to learn, afterwards, that his resume includes a lot of work with opera companies, and not one musical theater credit I could find. Note to self, next time look at the resume before going.

Zeng’s patter, so important in cabaret type acts, was lackluster, and less than spontaneous, as evidenced by him being guilty of misreading his notes to say that a song had been indicted into some hall of fame, before correcting himself to say inducted.

He also admitted to not knowing, prior to including a song from it in his act, that Kiss Me Kate was based on Taming of the Shrew, or why Judy Garland had such a large fan following, until a friend of his took him to see A Star is Born (there wasn’t one today).

Piece of advice, Don’t admit these kinds of things when trying to work a room (or courtyard), unless you know how to make them funny. He didn’t.

Lights on Broadway – Millennium Park – July 7, 2022

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Rehearsal. Almost any seat I want. Close enough so that I could see that the guest conductor, Kimberly Grigsby, wasn’t wearing shoes, but not close enough that I could tell whether her feet smelled.

It made me wonder what she would have on for the actual performance. Heels would change the angle of appearance of her baton from the musicians’ vantage point. Would they be confused? They were when she accidentally dropped her baton. She and the rest of us were amused.

Vocals were performed by Capathia Jenkins and Sam Simahk. Wait. I just saw him last weekend, playing Freddy in My Fair Lady. I hope he told someone he’s going to skip a couple shows.

Phew. They must know. Sitting a couple rows in front of me at the rehearsal were Colonel Pickering and the housekeeper Mrs. Pearce. But no sign of Professor Higgins or Eliza Dooliitle. Perhaps they’re at the races.

As listed in the program, the second half of the concert, except for one song, didn’t particularly interest me, so I left early, the operative rhyming couplet being “If I’d paid, I’d have stayed.”

Epilogue

The Grant Park Music Festival now informs me that Jonathan Groff (aka George III on Broadway) will be appearing to sing that one song, You’ll Be Back, my favorite song from Hamilton and one of only two from that show that I actually remember.

So, he was right, I’ll be back.

Cirque Goes to Hollywood – Millennium Park – July 6, 2022

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Hoorah for Hollywood, whose music the Grant Park Orchestra played as the backdrop for Troupe Vertigo, a dizzying group that creates an atmosphere, its website says, “where reality bends, expectations twist and the body embraces the imagination.”

I’ve given up on reality, as I hear it’s not so great, and try not to have any expectations, so as to avoid being disappointed, but I assure you that the manner in which the cirque performers’ bodies were bent and twisted into dangerous and sometimes painful looking positions, while hanging above the stage dangling from ropes or doing handstands on gymnastic equipment, transcended anything I routinely imagine.

The feats executed during the theme from Mission Impossible fit that bill. but, when three performers came out wearing horse heads while performing to the theme from The Magnificent Seven, I thought they should have done so for the prior number, the theme from The Godfather. I wonder if they were asked to do so but found the courage to refuse.

A little over three years ago I wrote about the Chicago Philharmonic playing classical music to accompany the Cirque de la Symphonie. How many more combinations like this do I need to see to complete a full cirque[it]?

Courtyard Concert – Fourth Presbyterian Church – July 1, 2022

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Eric Schneider and Andy Brown were back together again. Last year, while praising the music, I highlighted Schneider’s song introduction shortcomings. Maybe he read my piece, as this year he didn’t even try to tell us any background information, except that he did know that Hoagy Carmichael wrote the song New Orleans, but was from Indiana, which was a prime example of what Schneider thought was funny. I disagreed.

In my opinion, Brown is the better musician of the two. Perhaps I just don’t have a refined ear, but on a couple of occasions, Schneider’s playing this year reminded me of Commander Riker’s trombone issues in Star Trek – just never could hit that note in Nightbird.

Whereas Riker admitted it was his fault, Schneider, at one point, regaled us with his version of the creation of the clarinet, which, according to my research, was maybe 50% accurate, and why therefore it was so hard to play, which, in any event, would not explain the one particularly alarming note that emanated from his saxophone, rousing me from my contemplations in the church courtyard’s idyllic setting.

Still, the rain held off, and thanks to Brown the concert was well worth its free price of admission. I will go back to see him performing solo in a couple weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Concert for Chicago – Millennium Park – June 27, 2022

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My kind of program. No world premieres, just terrific standards, Shostakovich’s Festive Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F Minor.

As good as the Grant Park Symphony is, even a heathen like me felt like I could appreciate the step up with the CSO playing. They were crisp, just like the air on this beautiful evening, when the gods also turned off the competition from the helicopters and sirens.

It was so magical that everyone around me actually listened to the music rather than orally exchanging recipes or whatever it is they usually find it necessary to discuss during a concert.

Admittedly, there was a woman coughing about six seats away, but even she did so in tune and time, so as to come off as a new kind of percussion instrument.

And, unsurprisingly, with the biggest crowd of the year in attendance, there were a few seconds of a crying baby, but the parents, unlike the ones on my recent flight, had the grace to remove themselves with child from the scene. To be fair to the people on the plane, however, there wasn’t anywhere they could get off at 30,000 feet, and the overhead bins were full.

The only real downside for me was that Conductor Riccardo Muti found it necessary to speechify afterward about how culture could bring us all together and solve all the world’s problems (sounds good, but maybe he should pay more attention to the news), and do an infomercial for the orchestra to the extent that I expected them to lower the giant screen and start flashing a subscription phone number with a list of ailments that classical music can cure.

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – June 24, 2022

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With regular conductor Carlos Kalmar still incapacitated due to Covid, his former assistant, David Danzmayr, now music director of the Oregon Symphony, filled in, after Stephen Alltop of the Northwestern University Department of Music had done so on extremely short notice two days earlier.

And, again, the program was modified, seemingly flawlessly, to accommodate the change, with Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 replacing Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11. With two days to prepare (an eternity compared to what Alltop had), I can only assume that the reason was that Danzmayr can’t pronounce Shostakovich.

The program still was led off by Simone Lamsma playing Korngold’s Violin Concerto on the 1718 “Mylyarnski” Stradavarius (famous for having been converted to a “left handed” instrument and then later restored to its original state), on loan to her by an anonymous benefactor. Modestly prevents me from elucidating on the gift, but there is a proposed Lego violin that looks very similar and needs 1000 supporters by September 13th to become a reality. Surely this is a bipartisan candidate we can all get behind.

Make Music Day – Washington Square Park – June 21, 2022

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In conjunction with the Blues Travelers portion of the about-to-close exhibit, Crossings: Mapping American Journeys, at the Newberry across the street, which I wrote about several months ago, Washington Square Park was home to the blues on Make Music Day.

The first band to heat up the park on the day of the summer solstice for the annual city-wide festival was the aptly named, as it was 98 degrees in the shade, Mississippi Heat.

But there was shade, and a breeze. And, if you clap slowly, which seems consistent with a bluesy kind of feel, the minimal amount of energy expended might be offset by the cooler air created in front of your face. As of today, I declare this to be known as the delta effect, not to be confused with the Delta Breez ventilation fans.

John Primer and the Real Deal Blues Band were next. Primer is originally from Mississippi and has a resume as long as the sunrise to sunset day was in Reykjavik, which clocked in at over 21 hours. His website says it all – “YOU CAN’T PAINT THE BLUES WITHOUT THE PRIMER!”

But you can beat the blues by listening to them on a lazy day in the park.

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – June 22, 2022

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As per the email I received, new security procedures were implemented “in order to maintain the friendly, relaxed atmosphere inside the Park.” And I can attest that the armed guards wearing bulletproof vests were friendly enough to me, though I was careful not to make any sudden movements, not that I’ve been capable of quickness for some time.

The Michigan Avenue entrances, which I never use anyway, have been closed for the concerts. I didn’t check to see if they have been walled off by electric barbed wire fences, ala Jurassic Park.

Attendees are still asked to open their bags, but, so far, do not have to bring enough goodies for everyone.

The concert itself was terrific, though somewhat unexpected. The first announcement was that the conductor had tested positive for Covid after the afternoon rehearsal. There was no query of the audience as to anyone with experience who could take his place, as they did in Airplane after the pilot and co-pilot ate the fish.

Instead, an unnamed person, whom the musicians seem to recognize, walked out, told us the changes in the program, to which no one objected, and hit the road running.

We still got to hear Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony (for him it wasn’t Covid, but syphilis that laid him up).

The piano team of ZOFO (perhaps suffering from FOMO) still played, but a changed selection, without orchestral backup.

One modern piece by someone I never heard of was replaced by Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Jackpot!

I’ll be back for more, if only for the tingle I get when wanded at the entrance.

The Kontras Quartet – Rush Hour Concert – St. James Cathedral – June 7, 2022

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To my knowledge this was the first concert I’ve attended where one of the pieces was inspired by Xhosa culture. (I’ll wait while you look that up.)

But more interesting, from my standpoint, was that Apologia at Umzimvubu was written for strings in the 21st century, and yet there was enough relationship between the notes that I could actually listen and enjoy it. It wasn’t chalk on a blackboard. High praise.

That said, the quartet’s graceful interpretation of Florence Price’s String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor was more my style.

But, apparently, not that of the woman with the plastic shopping bag who plopped down behind me during the third movement, fiddled annoyingly with her possession for five minutes, and then left, saving me the need to make a citizen’s arrest.