Mind Maintenance is Joshua Abrams and Chad Taylor, two musicians whose concord transcends time, distance, genre, and instrumentation. They’ve been playing together since the 1990s, when they both lived in Chicago, and their collaborative relationship has endured since Taylor headed east 20 years ago. They’ve jointly backed the likes of singer Sam Prekop and cosmic […]
Tag: jazz
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The Reader‘s guide to Chicago in Tune
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events originally planned to celebrate the Year of Chicago Music in 2020. Then the pandemic diminished those festivities to the point that the city declared 2021 the Year of Chicago Music too. The ongoing surge of the Delta variant means the U.S. won’t be rid of the pandemic […]
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Chicago has nurtured jazz since its infancy
There’s been jazz in Chicago for nearly as long as there’s been jazz. While jazz is commonly said to have ridden the rails to Chicago around 1916, when the Great Migration of African Americans from the south to the north kicked into gear, Dixieland bandleader Wilbur Sweatman had played gigs on the city’s south side […]
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The Preservation of Fire series brings the cosmos to Millennium Park
In 2019, Chicago event producer and teacher Alejandro Ayala, who DJs as King Hippo, received a grant from the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to produce a two-night concert series called the Preservation of Fire. The concerts, hosted by Co-Prosperity in Bridgeport and broadcast live on Worldwide FM and Lumpen Radio, […]
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Quin Kirchner puts a contemporary spin on mid-20th-century jazz
Quin Kirchner blew into Chicago in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated his old hometown of New Orleans. He wasted no time making himself essential as a drummer, and since then he’s played with a wide variety of acts: Afrobeat combo Nomo, tropical pop band Wild Belle, singer-guitarist Ryley Walker, and countless jazz ensembles. In all […]
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Angel Bat Dawid finds creative kinship in Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty
Brotherhood, meet sisterhood. Those who know clarinetist, composer, and self-described “sonic archaeologist” Angel Bat Dawid from the incisive October release LIVE likely associate her with her stalwart seven-piece band, Tha Brotherhood, which backs her on that album. It was recorded during a fraught, frustrating 2019 European tour, but when the pandemic shuttered venues and stilled […]
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French polymath Jean-Luc Guionnet finally commits his solo saxophone music to wax
Jean-Luc Guionnet’s relationship to music is complicated, and it shows. As a youth, he drew while his father played saxophone, and he didn’t much like what he heard. When he changed his mind during his teens and started making his own music, his first instruments were keyboards, spliced tape, and drums; he only came around […]
Posted inCity Life
Juneteenth celebrations and more
Upcoming events and recommendations for the next seven days
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A mountain of dots and lines on the gig poster of the week
This week’s featured gig poster, for an outdoor David Boykin concert at Compound Yellow, is by Oak Park-based singer-songwriter and creative director Rich Klevgard.
Posted inCity Life
Out there, around here
Upcoming events and recommendations for the next seven days
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The monumental new Anthony Braxton collection 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017 does figure eights in full color
My mother always told me, “When you get older, you’ll begin to see the world in shades of gray.” Generally speaking, she was right (as usual), but I often find that idiom falling short of my personal experience. Listening to the prismatic 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017, I finally understood why: I’d much rather see the […]
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Fly or Die Live catches Jaimie Branch’s quartet reaching new heights
If the world can agree on one thing, it’s that 2020 was not our best year on record. For former Chicagoan Jaimie Branch, it should’ve been a time of triumph for her current quartet, Fly or Die. The group were riding the wave of a splendid sophomore LP, where Branch added vocals with tragically topical […]
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Pink ladies, jazz men, and Vegan Paradise
Upcoming events and recommendations for the next seven days
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Bob Koester leaves a colossal legacy in Chicago jazz and blues
For nearly 70 years, Bob Koester owned the Jazz Record Mart and Delmark Records—and though his businesses could be “crazy town,” they helped nurture thriving communities.
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Strings that sing on the gig poster of the week
This week’s featured gig poster was created by illustrator and musician Rei Alvarez, who lives in Richmond, Virginia.