When Richard Davis began playing jazz in his hometown in the 1950s, he changed the face of Chicago bass playing. Before Davis, such bass players as Milt Hinton, Truck Parham, and Wilbur Ware had crafted a style distinguished by earthy timbre and uncomplicated swing: they played the bass as if it were an extension of […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 3
Issue of Oct. 27 – Nov. 2, 1994
Posted inNews & Politics
A Hair’s Difference
Rosalind Cummings [Rock Etc., September 30] should be congratulated for discovering a novel criterion for judging artistic value: hair texture. Based on this single physical characteristic, Cummings argues that “black women who challenge white beauty standards are more likely to challenge musical boundaries.” This “theory” presumably explains why Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston produce “watered-down,” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ute Lemper
Though she invites comparisons to Dietrich, Piaf, and Lotte Lenya, German chanteuse Ute Lemper is slowly forging a persona of her own–that of postmodern siren. She started her career in the mid-80s, in the Viennese production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. She did the title role in a revival of Peter Pan, portrayed Sally Bowles […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Local Lit: Frank Gonzalez-Curssi, pathological writer
“A man derives his inspiration from his daily experience, so it was quite natural that I would write about death,” says Frank Gonzalez-Crussi, head of pathology at Children’s Memorial Hospital. “But I do not intend to write about death only.” He wants to set the record straight. The last interviewer he talked to hammered the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Nueva Musica de Mexico
With a few notable exceptions, Mexico’s classical tradition is largely ignored north of the border. We may have heard of old stalwarts like Carlos Chavez, but how about Javier Alvarez and Gabriela Ortiz? They’re among the best and brightest of under-40 Mexican-born composers; typical of their peers, both went to Europe for further training. The […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Loud Family
Loud Family leader Scott Miller is something of a throwback. Like John Lennon and Brian Wilson, he labors to create pop that’s sophisticated and intriguing as well as energetic and accessible. In 1982 his previous band Game Theory began releasing records that mingled brittle, lilting melodies and calliopelike electric keyboards into an oddly ornate, quasi-new-wave […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Paul Dresher Ensemble
The title of Paul Dresher’s new work, “Looking West to the East,” poses a paradox instantly soluble to anyone mildly familiar with art in the 90s–or for that matter the nature of the globe. By his own reckoning, Dresher has studied the music of south and southeast Asia for more than 25 years. The influence […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Suburban renewal: end of the line for Skokie’s 70-year-old train station?
As commuters turn off Dempster in Skokie to get to the CTA’s Skokie Swift train, few if any glance at the old brick station they pass. It’s no wonder. The brick has been painted red and white, the green ceramic tile that once graced the hipped roof has been replaced by red shingles, and the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Martin and John
MARTIN AND JOHN, at Cafe Voltaire. Dale Peck’s 1993 debut novel is an easy book to give up on. Though there’s a pretense of experimentalism, Martin and John is actually a series of short stories, every other one in italics, narrated by a series of Johns in love with a series of Martins, with a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Dumbwaiter and Victoria Station
THE DUMBWAITER and VICTORIA STATION, Defiant Theatre, at Angel Island. Harold Pinter was an actor before he became a playwright, and his enigmatic plays reflect an actor’s concerns: he eschews all but the barest details of time, place, and context, concentrating instead on psychological subtext and emotional interaction. As a result his plays are nearly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Some Old Familiar Traces
AMY OSGOOD, JACKIE RADIS, AND MAYA WARD at Link’s Hall, October 21-23 Homecoming is a tricky business. People usually leave their homes for good reason and have ambivalent feelings when they return. Home has changed and they have changed. For the people at home, homecoming can be bittersweet too; the returner has grown older but […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reader to Reader
Walking down East Superior last week, I was taken aback at the sight of a grounds crew hanging pine wreathes and holiday lights on bushes and trees. One man was even whistling carols. Talk about your nightmares before Christmas. It was still two weeks until Halloween! The next day, when I passed camera crews, wardrobe […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chunking Express
If you haven’t yet seen a film by Wong Kar-wei, one of the more exciting and original of the younger Hong Kong filmmakers, you should make this immensely charming and energetic two-part comedy feature a priority; if you have, you probably won’t need my recommendation. Though less ambitious than either Days of Being Wild or […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Tough Guys
RED DOG MOON National Pastime Theater “Chicago ain’t no sissy town,” I heard someone quip on the radio the other day. And it’s true: the hog butchers may have given way to the paper pushers, but we still like our civic symbols to swagger. Hence our preference for poetry that slams, theater that rocks, and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Shadow of a Gunman
THE SHADOW OF A GUNMAN, Erin Go Bragh! Irish-American Theatre Company, at Dancetech. Now that the IRA and the Ulster militia have promised a cease-fire, it seems Sean O’Casey’s bloody one-act of 1923 may become a relic. Presumably the inexhaustible Irish appetite for martyrdom–O’Casey’s target–has at last been sated. But the cost of peace can’t […]