Biography
My Role
Arts critic/jazz critic of the Chicago Tribune, where I cover jazz, gospel, blues, cabaret, world music and various cultural issues. ...
Grazyna Auguscik takes on music of Nick Drake, to mixed effect
November 17, 2012
Jazz artists love to take chances, and Chicago singer Grazyna Auguscik has taken a big one with her plunge into the music of Nick Drake.
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New Orleans saxophonist Donald Harrison takes a 'Quantum Leap'
November 17, 2012
When New Orleans alto saxophonist Donald Harrison plays the Jazz Showcase, he typically pairs a deep mastery of bebop language with a musical sensibility forged in the Crescent City.
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New Orleans saxophonist Donald Harrison takes a 'Quantum Leap'
November 16, 2012
When New Orleans alto saxophonist Donald Harrison plays the Jazz Showcase, he typically pairs a deep mastery of bebop language with a musical sensibility forged in the Crescent City.
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Grazyna Auguscik jazzes music of Nick Drake
November 15, 2012
The songs of Nick Drake get under your skin, insinuating their way into your consciousness through the gentle contours of their melody lines and the expressive urgency of their lyrics.
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MacArthur grants go to Chicago arts groups
November 14, 2012
More than $500,000 will go to 13 Chicago non-profit cultural organizations from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s International Connections Fund.
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Polish jazz blossoms at the Chopin Theatre
November 13, 2012
Jazz took root in Poland long ago – even before World War II – and the country has prized it ever since.
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Breaking the silence
November 9, 2012
My father told me little about his agonies in the Holocaust. He never mentioned the beatings he suffered in various concentration camps starting in 1942, nor the death march he survived in January 1945, en route to Buchenwald.
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Anat Cohen brings new -- and old -- sounds to the clarinet
November 9, 2012
Only one clarinetist on earth could have come up with the album "Claroscuro," its stylistic breadth expressing the singular esthetic of soloist Anat Cohen.
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Joey DeFrancesco thunders at the Hammond B-3
November 9, 2012
Even when he's bone tired, after traveling halfway around the world, Joey DeFrancesco lights fires at the keyboards.
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Umbrella Fest welcomes a downpour of novel sounds
November 8, 2012
The music of two continents converged Wednesday night at the Chicago Cultural Center, launching one of the prime gatherings of the fall season: the seventh annual Umbrella Music Festival.
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Bears score one for veterans -- via jazz
November 6, 2012
When the Chicago Bears and the Houston Texans step off the grass at Soldier Field for halftime on Sunday evening, 60,000-plus fans — and possibly a national TV audience — will see and hear something they've never encountered before.
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All-American music from the Gunns and DeJohnette
November 4, 2012
American song comes in many forms, and two brave artists took on several of them over the weekend during the 23rd annual Chicago Humanities Festival.
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Elie Wiesel's story endures, empowers
November 2, 2012
NEW YORK — A slender, silver-haired gentleman steps onto a nearly bare stage, the instantaneous applause continuing long after he reaches the spare wooden table awaiting him.
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Barry Harris shares spotlight with Columbia College students
November 2, 2012
For many years, one of the highlights of each season at the Jazz Showcase has been the residency of the DePaul Jazz Ensemble with a star soloist under the direction of Bob Lark.
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Jazz Scene: Jack DeJohnette in hometown to mark hitting 70
November 1, 2012
Drummer Jack DeJohnette is having a very good year.
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Farewell to a distinctive Chicago voice: Terry Callier
October 31, 2012
Chicago singer-songwriter Terry Callier never received a fraction of the acclaim he deserved, but no one who heard him ever forgot him.
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Terry Callier: Farewell to a distinctive Chicago voice
October 30, 2012
Chicago singer-songwriter Terry Callier never received a fraction of the acclaim he deserved, but nobody who heard him ever forgot him.
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Barbra Streisand at 70
October 28, 2012
Whether or not you consider Barbra Streisand the last reigning diva of a more lyrical period in American pop music, she certainly stands as a symbol of the era that gave us Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, Doris Day, Sarah Vaughan and other inimitable melody-makers.
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Barbra Streisand's compelling show at United Center
October 27, 2012
Whether or not you consider Barbra Streisand the last reigning diva of a more lyrical period in American pop music, she certainly stands as a symbol of the era that gave us Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, Doris Day, Sarah Vaughan and other inimitable melody-makers.
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Chicago Humanities Festival: Let freedom swing
October 26, 2012
How fitting that a festival exploring a theme as vast as "America" should be playing stages across Chicago next month.
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Celebrating Billy Strayhorn with a three-day soiree
October 25, 2012
The centennial of the inimitable jazz composer Billy Strayhorn doesn't come around until 2015, but, in a way, the festivities will begin this weekend in the Chicago area.
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Sugar Blue a soaring voice for the blues
October 23, 2012
Last May, during a conference on "Race, Gender & the Blues" at Dominican University, the master harmonica player Sugar Blue addressed the theme in an impassioned, unforgettable soliloquy.
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Kurt Elling rejuvenates his muse with adventurous set at City Winery
October 22, 2012
Singer Kurt Elling sounded as if he had awoken from a long, deep slumber Sunday evening at City Winery Chicago.
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An illuminating start to Chicago Jazz Philharmonic's season
October 21, 2012
Trumpeter Orbert Davis has worked for years to train his Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in Third Stream techniques – that is, playing music that embraces both jazz and classical traditions.
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New Cultural Plan a nice wish list, but city should focus on must-haves
October 19, 2012
Give the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events this much: It listened to what Chicagoans said they wanted in a Cultural Plan and wrote it down.
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Orbert Davis, Chicago Jazz Philharmonic swing into a new season
October 18, 2012
No other orchestra in America looks, sounds or acts quite like Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic.
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Marcus Roberts and Bela Fleck transcend an 'Imaginary Divide'
October 16, 2012
What happens when two formidable soloists from seemingly remote worlds of music decide to share a spotlight?
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Chicago premiere of 'The Great Flood' overwhelmed by its subject
October 13, 2012
In the spring of 1927, the waters of Mississippi River overflowed in spots from New Orleans right up to Cairo, Ill.
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McNair and Cole set the stage for Chicago Humanities Festival
October 12, 2012
The Chicago Humanities Festival will explore the theme of "America" this year, so it was wholly appropriate that its Gala Benefit Evening featured two musicians well equipped to take on distinctly American music.
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Shemekia Copeland sings real Chicago blues
October 11, 2012
So much of what's sold as blues these days has so little relation to the real thing that one sometimes wonders whether the term carries much meaning anymore.
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Revisiting the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, through film and jazz
October 9, 2012
Long before flood waters spilled into New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, an even greater deluge engulfed the region (and beyond).
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Pianist Benny Green runs hot and cold with original tunes
October 6, 2012
Pianist Benny Green tried something different Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase, devoting an extended first set entirely to original compositions.
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A young survivor of genocide takes her message around the world
October 5, 2012
At 24, Clemantine Wamariya knows more about trauma and survival than most of us ever will. If we're lucky.
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A buoyant, stylistically wide-ranging weekend in Chicago jazz
October 4, 2012
Any doubts that the fall season has gotten fully underway should be swept aside by this weekend's nearly brisk lineup of jazz offerings:
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Esperanza Spalding gets intimate, with revelatory show at City Winery
October 2, 2012
Artists of Esperanza Spalding's fame and stature don't typically play small music rooms, but no one is going to call Spalding typical.
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Dylan C. Penningroth sheds light on slavery in America
October 1, 2012
Conventional wisdom suggests that slaves in America were deemed property and, therefore, couldn't have possessed property of their own.
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Hyde Park Jazz Festival transforms a neighborhood – with music
September 30, 2012
What does a great Chicago jazz festival look like? Sound like? Feel like?
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Ravi Coltrane leaves his band in the dust at Jazz Showcase
September 28, 2012
Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane has developed into such a distinctive voice that expectations ran high for his return to the Jazz Showcase. All the more because of his important work on his recent Blue Note Records debut, "Spirit Fiction," which showed Coltrane pushing into unconventional, nearly experimental fare.
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Hyde Park Jazz Festival roars into its sixth season
September 27, 2012
Of all the jazz soirees that crowd the calendar in Chicago each year, none uses the urban environment as creatively as the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, which runs Saturday and Sunday in multiple locations.
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Michael Feinstein: Championing classic American songs
September 25, 2012
In our time, few musicians have addressed the classic American pop song with the scholarly attention of Michael Feinstein – and few scholars have performed this repertory with Feinstein's panache.
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World Music Festival nurtures exotic sounds in kick-off weekend
September 23, 2012
The 14th annual World Music Festival made a bit of history over the weekend, presenting all its shows for free and, better still, tapping unconventional venues deep inside the neighborhoods.
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Fred Hersch's glisteningly beautiful pianism
September 21, 2012
One hesitates to leap to too many conclusions based on the work that pianist Fred Hersch turned in on his newest recording, "Alive at the Vanguard," and his performance Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase.
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World Music Festival returns -- free but smaller
September 20, 2012
The good news: All events at the 14th annual World Music Festival will be free.
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Fred Hersch: Despite struggles, a great pianist flourishes
September 19, 2012
The formidable jazz pianist Fred Hersch was diagnosed with H.I.V. in 1986, developed AIDS and openly discussed it in the early 1990s and suffered a two-month coma in 2008 as a result of pneumonia (though that was not due to his disease).
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Victor Garcia trumpets the U. of C.'s sharp new Logan Center hall
September 15, 2012
The University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts doesn't officially launch until next month, but jazz listeners got to check out its sleek new Performance Hall over the weekend.
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Pianist Mulgrew Miller digs a little deeper
September 14, 2012
When pianist Mulgrew Miller led his trio at the Jazz Showcase a couple of years ago, he sounded effective but a bit too reserved to give full voice to his art.
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Victor Garcia trumpets a new septet at emerging Logan Center
September 13, 2012
When Chicago trumpeter Victor Garcia picks up his horn on Friday night, he'll be making news in at least two ways.
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Englewood turns its hopes to jazz
September 11, 2012
This has been a bloody summer in Englewood, on the city's South Side.
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Attractive new scores from Geof Bradfield and Marquis Hill
September 9, 2012
It was a great weekend for jazz composition, as two noteworthy Chicago musicians showed their skills with a pen, as well as a horn.
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Judith Stein is the hardest-working woman in jazz
September 7, 2012
If you've ever attended a major jazz event in Chicago, there's a good chance you've met Judith Stein.
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Fall jazz preview: From Esperanza Spalding to Ravi Coltrane, a lively lineup
September 7, 2012
The fall seasons looks so rich for jazz and related genres that these must be considered the highlights of the highlights:
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City Winery dips into jazz -- and more -- with David Grisman Sextet
September 7, 2012
Jazz listeners have cause to applaud: A potentially valuable new room has made its bow.
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Fall music preview: Chicago jazz greats coming home
September 6, 2012
Chicago always has produced jazz giants, larger-than-life figures whose art towers over that of mere mortals.
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Judy Roberts prepares to say farewell again
September 4, 2012
As she wound down a recent set at Chambers, in Niles, singer-pianist Judy Roberts leaned into the microphone and delivered what has become her favorite new closing line.
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34th Jazz Festival closes with victories and defeats
September 3, 2012
Some of the best music of the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival played during its finale on Sunday night. But so did some of the worst.
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Highs, lows and turbulent turns at the Chicago Jazz Festival
September 2, 2012
The Chicago Jazz Festival really ought to be marketed as a roller-coaster ride, its thrilling musical highs counterbalanced by its sudden, plummeting lows.
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Jazz Fest launches with a warm tribute to Ella Fitzgerald
August 31, 2012
The pleasant, populist program that opened the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival on Thursday night certainly had a great deal going for it.
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What to hear at the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival
August 30, 2012
Now that the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is fully underway – having kicked off Thursday night at Millennium Park – Chicagoans can focus on figuring out what to catch this weekend.
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Wynton Marsalis plays homage to Von Freeman
August 29, 2012
Just moments after Wynton Marsalis took the stage of Orchestra Hall on Tuesday night he addressed a subject on many people's minds: Chicago tenor saxophonist Von Freeman, who died earlier this month at age 88.
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'Genius grant' winner Ken Vandermark gets nod from Chicago Jazz Festival
August 28, 2012
The most intriguing work at this year's Chicago Jazz Festival, running Thursday through Sunday, may come from the horn of MacArthur "genius grant" winner Ken Vandermark.
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The soaring vocal art of Sheila Jordan
August 25, 2012
A phone rings in the background. A siren screams in the distance. And the indomitable jazz singer Sheila Jordan works those random events into the lyric of the song, as if they had been planned all along.
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Ira Sullivan's brilliant tribute to Charlie Parker's bebop
August 24, 2012
How fitting that "August is Charlie Parker Month" festivities at the Jazz Showcase would culminate with a two-week stint by one of the greatest bebop players in the world, multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan.
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How to awaken a sleeping jazz festival
August 24, 2012
Two months ago, the Chicago Gospel Music Festival made a bold move, presenting performances for the first time on the South Side of Chicago, in Ellis Park. Throngs turned out.
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Nonstop week of music surrounds Chicago Jazz Festival
August 23, 2012
Though the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival surely has its flaws, it generates tremendous energy and interest for America's greatest gift to the arts: jazz.
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Cornet player Josh Berman explores past, future with a host of bold collaborators
August 23, 2012
Fascinating music constantly bubbles up from the caldron that is Chicago jazz, the latest example coming from the horn and pen of Josh Berman.
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Memorial set for Chicago jazz legend Von Freeman
August 21, 2012
A memorial service for Chicago tenor saxophone giant Von Freeman will take place at 6 p.m. Aug. 28 at Christ Universal Temple, 11901 S. Ashland Ave.
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Puerto Rican music meets Chicago jazz in Frank Rosaly's premiere
August 21, 2012
For anyone intrigued by Chicago jazz, Thursday night's concert at Millennium Park stands as one of the most intensely anticipated event of the summer.
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Artis's Lounge – a celebrated South Side blues den – closes
August 19, 2012
Artis's Lounge – a landmark blues club on the South Side for nearly 30 years – has lost its lease and closed.
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Tony Bennett in peak form at 86
August 19, 2012
If you didn't already know that singer Tony Bennett also happens to be a painter, you probably would have guessed it Saturday night at the Ravinia Festival, in Highland Park.
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Von Freeman, Chicago jazz legend, dead at 88
August 13, 2012
Revered around the world but never a major star, worshipped by critics and connoisseurs but perpetually strapped for cash, the towering Chicago tenor saxophonist Von Freeman practically went out of his way to avoid commercial success. When trumpeter Miles Davis phoned Freeman, in the 1950s, looking for a replacement for John Coltrane, Freeman never returned the call.
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When does Joe Segal get his Jazz Masters award?
August 8, 2012
Until three weeks ago, no jazz club owner ever had been selected to receive the country's pre-eminent jazz honor: the National Endowment for the Arts' Jazz Masters Fellowship, which carries with it $25,000 and considerable prestige.
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Chicagoans respond to draft Chicago Cultural Plan
July 25, 2012
How do Chicagoans feel about the draft Chicago Cultural Plan 2012, which was released July 16?
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Miguel Zenon to headline Hyde Park Jazz Festival
July 16, 2012
Miguel Zenon, a MacArthur "genius grant" winner and one of the most admired young musicians in jazz, will headline the 6th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival, a free event running Sept. 29 and 30 in various Hyde Park locations.
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Draft of Cultural Plan lays out ambitious campaign
July 16, 2012
The draft for the Chicago Cultural Plan 2012 cites 10 priorities "for Chicago to realize its potential as a cultural leader" and identifies 36 recommendations for achieving them. Released Monday, the 64-page draft and 38-page supplemental materials estimate that "the majority of initiatives can be achieved within 18 months, with much of the remainder being completed within five years."
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Even now, Barry Manilow writes the songs that make his fans sing
July 13, 2012
Remember the '70s?
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South Shore jazz festival not canceled after all
July 12, 2012
The annual South Shore jazz festival, which had been canceled due to lack of sponsorship, will take place after all, according to planners.
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South Shore JazzFest may be saved
June 22, 2012
Earlier this month, Chicago impresario Geraldine de Haas announced that her South ShoreJazzFest -- which has played the South Shore Cultural Center annually since 1981 -- would be canceled.
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Jason Adasiewicz makes beautiful vibes
June 22, 2012
Chicago has a way of producing fabulously eccentric, fiercely individualistic jazz stars.
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New boss for MacArthur 'genius grants'
June 21, 2012
Cecilia Conrad, vice president for academic affairs and dean of Pomona College, in Claremont, Ca., will be the next director of the MacArthur Fellows Program. She will replace Daniel Socolow, who last year announced he was leaving the position after 15 years.
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Garcia and Auguscik jazz the Beatles
June 8, 2012
So many artists have covered Beatles tunes in so many ways that one might wonder why anyone would bother anymore. What possibly could there be left to say in this music?
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Jason Moran takes on the myths of Fats Waller
May 31, 2012
If Fats Waller is remembered at all by the public at large these days, it's as a caricature, with bug-eyes wide open, cigarette dangling from lip and eyebrows perpetually bobbing underneath a derby hat as he hams it up at the keys.
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Chicago Jazz Ensemble, Center for Black Music Research face budget cuts
May 23, 2012
The Chicago Jazz Ensemble and the Center for Black Music Research, both based at Columbia College Chicago, will face reduced budgets and redefined missions, according to a plan issued by Columbia President Warrick Carter and obtained by the Tribune. The “Blueprint for Action” plan is subject to adoption by the college's board of trustees in late June.
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Jazz meets classics: A Chicago pianist teams with Orion Ensemble
May 3, 2012
When Chicago pianist Miguel de la Cerna was growing up on the South Side, the sound of jazzand blues, gospel and funk, R&B and soul was everywhere. It blasted out of clubs and apartments, car radios and storefronts, inspiring a kid growing up near 41st Street and Berkeley Avenue to build his life in music.
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Is this the twilight of blues music?
December 28, 2011
They buried Hubert Sumlin two weeks ago at Washington Memory Gardens Cemetery in Homewood, laying to rest the man whose ferocious guitar riffs galvanized Howlin' Wolf's classic recordings of the 1950s and '60s.
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Playing the blues in black AND white
November 26, 2011
On a recent Wednesday night at Blue Chicago, a long-running club downtown, you had to elbow your way forward just to get past the doorman. Men and women in business suits — collars loosened, beers in hand — packed the place, barely leaving room for the waitress to make her way to the bar and back.
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Chicago architect Jeanne Gang wins MacArthur Fellowship
September 20, 2011
At first glance, the sensuous curves of the 82-story Aqua building on North Columbus Drive and the sleekly horizontal lines of the Media Production Center of Columbia College Chicago, at 16th and State Streets, appear to have little in common.
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'He's the last of the bluesmen'
August 29, 2011
He was the son of a sharecropper, the grandson of a slave and -- for an extraordinary 80-plus years -- the voice of the Delta blues.
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Chicago camp teaches kids Blues 101
August 20, 2011
If you didn’t know better, you’d think Lady Gaga was in the house and the kids were piling in to catch a glance.
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21st century blues -- can an ancestral art form survive?
June 5, 2011
You can't find the blues on radio very easily these days, unless you hunt low down on the dial in the small hours of the morning.
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Bringing Big Bill Broonzy back into the spotlight
May 23, 2011
He was one of the most celebrated blues artists of his era, a visionary Chicago singer-songwriter who mentored Muddy Waters, introduced the music to Europe and inspired no less than Eric Clapton, Ray Davies and Pete Townshend (as they've all acknowledged).
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Self-styled 'arts crusader'
May 9, 2011
Chicago's newly appointed Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events happens to be one of the city's most influential jazz advocates.
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The moment that never was
April 30, 2011
In 34 years of covering music for the Tribune — including the 22 years of Richard Daley's mayoralty — I have not once seen him at a jazz concert. Unless you count that tiny photo of him smiling in the Chicago Jazz Festival program book.
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Delta blues legend won a Grammy at age 97
March 22, 2011
Pinetop Perkins lived the blues.
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Letters: Honoring Marian Catholic's marching band
November 19, 2009
Readers from across the country responded to "Marching to Glory," a three-part series by Tribune critic Howard Reich on the Marian Catholic High School marching band and its journey to the Grand National Championships, led by band director Greg Bimm.
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Grand National championships: Victory defined
November 16, 2009
On the eve of war, leaders rouse their troops to vanquish the enemy, but not this time.
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Marching to glory with the Marian Catholic High School marching band
November 12, 2009
The kids in the Marian Catholic band look as if they're about to collapse.
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'Fiddler' by design
June 21, 2009
The voice still can thunder.