The Hyde Park Jazz Festival takes a step back toward normalcy

The 15th Hyde Park Jazz Festival, which took place last Saturday and Sunday, may have been the best ever. That’s a tall statement, given how many great ones there have been—but it’s less about ranking favorites and more about how good it felt to see such a beloved event getting back to its old self. 

Last year’s HPJF was one of the most ingenious pandemic pivots in Chicago’s otherwise bleak cultural calendar. Artistic director Kate Dumbleton and her staff came up with the idea of presenting last-minute pop-up gigs at parks, underpasses, and other unusual outdoor spaces—by building in an element of surprise, they could prevent audiences from congregating excessively (and unsafely) during the plague. 

As welcome as that solution was in 2020, now that vaccines are widely available, few folks have thought to complain that this year’s fest took a step back toward normalcy, with 29 sets at six outdoor stages and one concert hall. The West and Wagner Stages returned to Midway Plaisance, and so too did the vendors’ stalls that offer distractions during the quarter-mile stroll between them. About 20 vendors turned out this year, selling food, wine, hats, exotic candles, kitchen knives, and more. Indoor activity remained highly restricted, though: That one concert hall, at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts, hosted just two sets, by Makaya McCraven’s band and by contemporary-classical group Ensemble dal Niente with reedist Ken Vandermark. Both performances featured pieces commissioned for the festival, with seating restricted to 200 spots (less than half the concert hall’s capacity). Audiences could livestream the shows, though, and McCraven played the same set Saturday evening on the Wagner Stage. 

The festival requested proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours, and most people masked up when they were expected to, though enforcement largely came down to an honor system. The weather gods were kind, which is always a blessing since the festival relies so heavily on outdoor spaces—this year it occupied not just the Midway Plaisance but also the Smart Museum’s courtyard, Augustana Lutheran Church’s parking lot, and Dusable Museum’s Roundhouse plaza and north terrace. Several years ago it rained both days, and attendance was dismal; this year all was blissful, and it felt like a reawakening. 

Local drummer and impresario Mike Reed, who led his superb group People, Places & Things on Sunday at the Wagner Stage, confessed that his between-song patter was rusty, and that this was the first festival the band had played in 18 months. Yet judging by the standard maintained by most of the festival’s performances, musicians have been using that forced hibernation to hone their instrumental skills and hatch ever more ambitious compositions.

On Sunday, saxist Rajiv Halim barely had a moment to talk as he hustled from supporting vocalist Tammy McCann on baritone sax on the West Stage to playing alto with bassist Ethan Philion and his Meditations on Mingus group on the Wagner Stage—one set started just as the other finished.

On Saturday, Vandermark jetted in to his Logan Center gig at the last minute from his first engagement in Europe since March 2020. Isaiah Collier had to rush to make his residency at Dorian’s in Bucktown (recently reopened) after throwing down with JD Allen, one of his chief influences on the saxophone. This star saxophonic showdown at the Wagner Stage threatened to overshadow another world-class talent who played immediately thereafter at the other end of the thoroughfare: New York-based Miguel Zenón, somewhat hidden under a hat, guesting with Juan Pastor’s Chinchano. But that set was a stunner too.

As usual there was music for every taste, more or less. The Hyde Park Jazz Festival focuses on extroverted, energetic music, which combines accessible grooves and melodies with high-level ideas and performances—it challenges audiences even as it embraces them. Folks of all colors and from all segments of society came to listen—dog walkers, gay couples, gamers in the grass who listened as they threw dice, the unemployed mingling with student intellectuals. This many-splendored, easy-mixing fusion is a big part of what makes the festival such a boon to the community. 

The HPJF assembled an undiminished lineup this year notwithstanding the challenges and uncertainties of the pandemic, which include a loss of more than half the fest’s pre-COVID sponsors. Technically the event is free, but as usual the public were kindly requested to donate on the spot by a team of volunteers. That’s the way things should be done, really, isn’t it? It’s community support of a community festival—and right at the point of service, if you will. Plus nobody had to seal off a public park and sell $90 tickets to make it happen. Mellow as the Hyde Park Jazz Festival’s atmosphere is, the event is scrupulously organized and curated—and all the musicians bring their A game. Every year, they knock it (almost) out of the park.

All photos by Michael Jackson