Chicago Jazz Festival

Chicago Jazz Festival – Millennium Park – September 3, 2023

Posted on by admin

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

Posted on by admin

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

Posted on by admin

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

Posted on by admin

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

Posted on by admin

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.

Chicago Jazz Festival – Chicago Cultural Center and Millennium Park – August 30, 2018

Posted on by admin

The Chicago Cellar Boys played my kind of music at the Cultural Center – Fats Waller, Count Basie, and Jelly Roll Morton, among others. (I may have to check them out on a Sunday night at the Honky Tonk BBQ in Pilsen.) When I saw Andy Schumm take one hand off his clarinet and pat his head, looking like he was trying to keep a toupee on, I was mildly amused, until I realized he actually was signaling the other musicians about something, I knew not what. So I looked it up. I found “8 Jam Session Hand Signals That Every Musician Should Know”, which explained to me that a head pat “denotes a return to the beginning.”

This is one of the many reasons that I could never be a jazz musician. Isn’t it enough just to be able to improvise on your instrument, which I can’t? You also have to memorize signals as if you were a third base coach waving off the bunt and implementing the hit and run. It’s one thing to be able to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time, after years of practice, but pat your head and play an instrument, way out of my league. I don’t chew gum either, unless I’m seated.

I slid over from the Cultural Center to Millennium Park for the Second-line Procession led by Mystick Krewe of Laff, featuring the Big Shoulders Brass Band. it wasn’t quite like the Krewe du Vieux I once witnessed in New Orleans (here there was no float with a keg on it serving the crowd and nobody in the group was borderline naked), but it was fun to join with them as they marched around the park, playing traditional Dixieland jazz, leading an entourage of people like me making videos with their phones. Next year (or maybe tomorrow) I’ll bring some beads.