Ensemble dal Niente commissions and selects new music that earns the designation “new” not just because it’s freshly composed; it also challenges both players and audiences to experience performance in new ways. This program, jointly presented by Ear Taxi and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, draws on the resources of Chicago in two ways. First, […]
Tag: Nicole Mitchell
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Veteran sound explorer Kevin Drumm uploads a Bandcamp bounty
Veteran sound explorer Kevin Drumm uploads a Bandcamp bounty, reedist Hunter Diamond launches his label by releasing his solo debut, and more.
Posted inBest of Chicago
Experimental Sound Studio has turned a streaming series into a virtual community
With its ongoing Quarantine Concerts, ESS has built connections faster and cheaper than it could have in person.
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KeiyaA levels up even with live music shut down
Chicago-born singer-songwriter KeiyaA beat the odds by turning her debut album, Forever, Ya Girl, into a multidimensional artwork.
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Nicole Mitchell and Lisa E. Harris explore soulful Afrofuturist visions on EarthSeed
A friend in Houston recently described multidisciplinary artist and space goddess Lisa E. Harris as a “force of nature” in the Texas scene and beyond. Upon investigation, I had to concur. Harris channels the Afrofuturism of Sun Ra, the transcendent devotionals of Alice Coltrane, and the deep-listening experiments of Pauline Oliveros—all while maintaining her own […]
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Chicago jazz guitarist Tim Stine drops an engagingly off-kilter new trio album
Chicago jazz guitarist Tim Stine drops an engagingly off-kilter new trio album, a 26-track compilation benefits the staff of the shuttered Crown Liquors, and more.
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Saxophonist Hunter Diamond debuts four free shows’ worth of new material at the Whistler
Saxophonist Hunter Diamond debuts four free shows’ worth of new material at the Whistler, Matthew Rachman Gallery opens a new exhibit of Wesley Willis’s artwork, and more.
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The Art Ensemble of Chicago celebrate 50 years of pushing great Black music into the future
Art Ensemble cofounders Roscoe Mitchell and Famoudou Don Moye expand the group into an 18-piece big band with the likes of Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Jaribu Shahid, and Fred Berry.
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Mike Reed honors the modern golden age of Chicago jazz
Bandleader and drummer Mike Reed assembles an ensemble of composer-performers from The City Was Yellow, a “real book” documenting 30 years of the city’s jazz scene.
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Founded as an AACM repertory ensemble, the Artifacts Trio now plays original compositions
The Artifacts Trio first convened in 2015 in response to the 50th anniversary of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Flutist, vocalist, and electronicist Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid, and drummer Mike Reed have all held leadership roles in the organization; they also have a history more than a decade long of playing […]
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Natural Information Society make the stage a home—and vice versa
Joshua Abrams and Lisa Alvarado of Natural Information Society help give the Chicago collective’s transcendent minimalism a family feeling.
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Extraordinary Popular Delusions play free jazz two centuries deep
The members of Extraordinary Popular Delusions bring vast and varied experience to this underappreciated ensemble’s regular weekly shows—which follow no rules but their own.
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Flutist Nicole Mitchell uses music to map a possible paradise
Flutist Nicole Mitchell brings her Afrofuturist epic Mandorla Awakening back to Chicago for the Jazz Festival.
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The complete schedule of the 2018 Chicago Jazz Festival
The 40th annual Chicago Jazz Festival includes 68 sets in Millennium Park and the Cultural Center, among them Maceo Parker, Jaimie Branch, Jason Stein, Diane Reeves, Greg Ward & 10 Tongues, and Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
Posted inBlogs
Chicago musical polymath Ben LaMar Gay breaks even his own shape-shifting mold on his solo debut
Ben LaMar Gay took seven years to make Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun, which fuses R&B, funk, jazz, electro, Brazilian music, and more.