MUSIC OF THE BAROQUE at Saint Paul’s Church June 6 CONCERTANTE DI CHICAGO at DePaul University Concert Hall June 10 Music of the Baroque ended its season recently with a major work from the Classical era, Haydn’s The Creation. Like virtually all of the Mozart pieces MOB has performed in the last few years, The […]
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Anthems away: Midnight Oil runs out of gas
The 80s was the decade of the anthem. Springsteen started it, of course, but between feel-good cheerleaders both passable (Peter Gabriel) and intolerable (Sting) and a wheelbarrow full of long-haired singers with their chins jutting out, from crazy Bono to the clowns in the Alarm, we kind of got our fill of prancing guitars and […]
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Master of Mahler
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Orchestra Hall May 31 and June 7 A colleague told me he had put on what he considered to be an excellent record of the Mahler First Symphony recorded by the Chicago Symphony in anticipation of performances of the work under Klaus Tennstedt. After hearing what Tennstedt did with the work, […]
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Akio Sasajima Trio
Akio Sasajima avoids fads and trends, and we’re all better for it: his gracious yet fiery guitar work fits firmly in the mainstream jazz tradition, but at the same time, he keeps pulling in newer influences and pushing at the seams, slowly stretching his art. (A solid melodist, his compositions have a distinct fingerprint, as […]
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Recognizing Our Own
THE MUSIC OF GEORGE PERLE at the DePaul University Concert Hall June 1 ARLEEN AUGER AND NED ROREM at Orchestra Hall June 3 George Perle is probably the most significant composer ever to come out of Chicago. More important composers may have lived or worked here–Prokofiev even lived in Chicago for a time–but Perle developed […]
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The rural rock of the Silos
Silos leaders Walter Salas-Humara and Bob Rupe closed their recent show at Cabaret Metro with a strange cover–a thumping, cheerfully undifferentiated take on “One After 909,” the very early (1963) Lennon-McCartney composition the Beatles disinterred for Let It Be. A lot of what the Silos are about these days is the Salas-Humara-Rupe partnership: their rhythm […]
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Mandy Patinkin in concert: show tunes as performance art
In his current engagement at the Goodman Studio Theatre (which is not entirely sold-out despite reports), Mandy Patinkin redefines the musical-theater concert from the moment he walks onstage. Dressed in black slacks, a loose-fitting coral-colored T-shirt, and gym shoes, he pops out from the wings carrying two pots of flowers with which to decorate a […]
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Second Vision
CHICAGO SINFONIETTA at Orchestra Hall May 21 It’s tough to be a second orchestra in Chicago. Just ask anyone who was involved with the now-defunct Orchestra of Illinois, which was the winter name for what still becomes the Lyric Opera Orchestra in the fall and the Grant Park Symphony in the summer. Why then is […]
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Wild Child Butler–Lickin’ Gravy
LICKIN’ GRAVY Wild Child Butler Rooster Blues R7611 They’ll never pin George “Wild Child” Butler down. The Alabama- born harmonica player, who claims that his mother gave him his nickname after complaining, “Boy, you wild, you wild, you wild, you just wild, you crazy!” has been living up to the moniker for most of his […]
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Handel With Care
JOSHUA Basically Bach at Saint James Cathedral May 18 CHORAL ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO at Saint Paul’s United Church of Christ May 20 The greatest single pleasure of the blossoming of early-music groups in Chicago in recent years is that occasionally we get the opportunity to hear a long-neglected masterpiece. Such was the case when Basically […]
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Hubert Sumlin–Heart & Soul
HEART & SOUL Hubert Sumlin Blind Pig Records BP 3389 The best blues and jazz soloists are both earnest about their craft and deeply committed to having a good time. The histories of these two interrelated forms are peppered with a colorful cast of flamboyant free spirits whose art and life-styles refused to remain within […]
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Symphony Futures
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO at Orchestra Hall April 26 and May 12 The notion of listening to a training orchestra, however fine, doesn’t seem very enticing. I used to hear the Civic Orchestra on a regular basis when I was in college, receiving tickets as a bonus to my CSO “University Night” series (whatever happened […]
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Keyboard in Limbo
MALCOLM BILSON at the Scottish Rite Cathedral May 5 Although Bach is said to have heard an early prototype of the fortepiano when he visited Frederick the Great, it apparently made little or no impression on him, for he never wrote for the instrument. Bach was an old man near the end of his life […]
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John Mayall–John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: A Sense of Place
JOHN MAYALL’S BLUESBREAKERS: A SENSE OF PLACE John Mayall Island Records/842 795.I We owe a lot to John Mayall. His Bluesbreakers, the prototypical 60s British blues band, helped open the eyes and ears of an entire generation of white, middle-class American rock-and-roll lovers to the origins of their music. These days we tend to disparage […]
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Organ Abuse
PULITZER PIPES: NEW MUSIC FOR THE ORGAN New Music Chicago at Alice Millar Chapel April 23 The church where I went as a kid didn’t have a very impressive organ or organist, so that was not the source of my initial attraction to the instrument. My friends and I were impressed with the fact that […]