Hyde Park was still a lively, stimulating place when Roscoe Mitchell lived there in the 1960s. He played his woodwinds and “little instruments” all over the neighborhood, from the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall and campus lounges to a church, a school, the small theaters of the day, and on the lakefront at the Point […]
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Holmes Brothers: an ecstatic puch to the soul
About midway through the Holmes Brothers’ opening set at B.L.U.E.S. a man shouted from the audience, “Where you guys from?” “New York,” answered guitarist Wendell Holmes, adding that he and his brother had originally hailed from Virginia. But the man who’d asked wasn’t really looking for that kind of answer; you could tell by his […]
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I Want Me Back: The Education of Michael Jackson
Look at them one way and you see the Jacksons–the working-class Gary family that produced the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson, and Janet Jackson–at an extraordinary pinnacle of money and power. About a year ago, 25-year-old Janet–the former child star of the TV show Good Times, just a toddler at the time of the Jackson 5’s […]
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Before Violins
ORPHEUS BAND Bond Chapel January 11 The viols, the dominant instruments in Renaissance and Baroque Europe, nearly became extinct in the early 19th century, replaced decisively by the violin family. Why? The recent season opener of the Orpheus Band, local specialist in Baroque string and vocal music, offered some tantalizing clues. The viola da gamba–a […]
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Records
AIN’T IT NICE Willie Kent Delmark DD-653 Bassist Willie Kent is a genial, powerfully built west-side bluesman whose music reflects his personality: no-nonsense, sober minded, and unpretentious. He’s held down weekend gigs for years at neighborhood venues like the Majestic on Pulaski and Mr. Tee’s on Lake; in recent years he’s become increasingly well-known in […]
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Pop ’91: a top-ten list, plus notes on music-industry weirdness
The most important stories in music this year all concerned the industry. Nineteen ninety-one was a financial disaster for the record companies–sales were off about 10 percent across the board–and they moved in typical fashion to identify the problems. Was the $4 billion-a-year monolith worried about the decline in the CD catalog sales that have […]
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Records
JOHNNY SHINES Johnny Shines Hightone #8028 BACK TO THE COUNTRY Johnny Shines and Snooky Pryor Blind Pig #74391 Singer-guitarist Johnny Shines is best known for his Chicago recordings on Chess and J.O.B. in the early 50s. Those sides established him as a blues artist of rare power–a forceful singer, poetic lyricist (“You said if I […]
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Rappin’ up the wrong tree
On the wide spectrum of rap–from the bubblegum of Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer to the bleak, unfriendly visions of the Geto Boys and N.W.A.–L.L. Cool J has staked himself out a comfortable spot right in the middle. Safely street but just as safely unpolitical, musically diverse but never outre, he trades on an easy, […]
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International Exchange
LANDSCAPES OF THE MIND at Fullerton Hall, Art Institute November 17 Before last month Joan Tower, one of our country’s leading composers, didn’t know anything about the work of Ada Gentile, one of her Italian counterparts. Given the increasing insularity of communities of composers, new-music venues now tend to serve as exclusive outlets for musical […]
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All Together Now
ENSEMBLE D’ACCORD at the Academy of Movement and Music November 10 One of the great pleasures of chamber music lies in tracking the progress of a group of musicians from the stage of “Hey, let’s put on a recital!” to complete confidence in themselves. In the past two seasons the members of Ensemble d’Accord have […]
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Bruce Cockburn looking for a light
With the country’s economic and social fabric seeming to deteriorate more and more each day, it’s easy to see why so many musicians write songs about despair. It’s difficult to find concrete reasons for hope, and it’s harder still to make a positive statement without sounding insipid and naive. What made Bruce Cockburn’s recent appearance […]
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String Survivors
CHICAGO STRING ENSEMBLE at Saint Paul’s Church November 15 Fifteen years ago the Chicago String Ensemble–12 violinists, 4 violists, 4 cellists, and 2 bassists–opened shop as the midwest’s only professional all-string orchestra. Now, several ups and downs later, the group is marking its 15th anniversary. The CSE is a hardy survivor. For a brief spell […]
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The best and the tritest: Chicago’s claims to rock ‘n’ roll fame
Isn’t it ironic that of the city of Chicago’s two biggest rock ‘n’ roll claims to fame–the most successful American band of the 70s and one of the best–one left town before cutting its first record and the other is really from Rockford? The first group, of course, is Chicago, whose string of singles and […]
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Bringing Back Barber
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Orchestra Hall October 26 and November 3 Samuel Barber had the misfortune to peak early. In 1933, when he was barely 23 and fresh out of the Curtis Institute, the Philadelphia Orchestra introduced his very first orchestral score. Other premieres and honors soon followed, including a prestigious Prix de Rome that […]
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Mekons
It’s possible that the only true survivors–emotionally, musically, and politically–of the great initial blast of British punk are the Mekons. The music of their convincing early onslaught has evolved over the last six or so years into an unassailable melange of modern British postpunk and Hank Williams-era C & W, and the result is an […]