Tag: Vol. 34 No. 22

A few years ago trumpeter Dave Douglas was asked to write music to be played at high altitude (around 10,000 feet) for a festival in Italy’s Dolomites; band and audience would hike to the performance spot. The organizers sent along a recording of Ladino music from the region, and taking its emotional range–Douglas would later […]

Blues singer Little Al Thomas largely models himself on suave stylists like B.B. King, but the force of his delivery and the pugnaciousness of his phrasing reflect the decades he spent shouting over crowds on Maxwell Street. That training also sharpened his instincts as a crowd-pleaser: he can rock hard enough for a beer-soaked roadhouse […]

The unlikeliest achievement of the new wave of postpunk is that it’s made spastic yelps cool. Not “cool” as in trendy, though it is. I mean “cool” as an overall mood. With a band like the Rapture, for instance, vocal hysteria is just another formal element; it’s meant to be a sonic effect, not something […]

Pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Sharon Robinson have become one of the best-known trios in the country since making their debut together in 1977 at Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. As part of a chamber recital at Mandel Hall, members of the trio will perform two works with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s brilliant principal […]

Pennsylvania native Dan Harris has found himself a seat on the Hollywood gravy train writing blockbusters like X2: X-Men United and the forthcoming Superman Returns. But his ticket aboard was the script for this personal, mordantly funny black comedy, now his feature directing debut. Like Ordinary People, In the Bedroom, and Moonlight Mile, it’s a […]

This all-girl Japanese trio has been playing goofy, cheery punk rock for more than 20 years, guilelessly subverting almost every convention of the prototypical angry-young-man genre. The lyrics are slight, light, and often incomprehensible, devoted to things the band likes instead of things they want to stomp on and smash: candy, fruit, and ice cream […]

David Catlin’s acrobatic new adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is as chaotic as its sources. Or maybe there is an underlying logic: Catlin seems to ask whether Alice should grow up or not, and if so, how. The answer is far from obvious. The tragedy is that […]

Back in the mid- and late 90s, there were a lot of musicians in Chicago pushing the limits of what “abrasive” meant. These were folks who thought the Jesus Lizard was a key influence for their mellower, poppier moments, and they spent a lot of energy getting together, breaking up, and then re-forming in different […]