Following
last year's lament for Hurricane Katrina victims, this year's
Chicago Jazz Festival - which ran from August 31 to September 3 -
honored the birthplace of jazz, featuring performers from New Orleans
and celebrating the impact of that city in the creation and evolution
of jazz music.
Additionally, the festival this year was woven around tributes to four brilliantly creative and powerful musicians who forever impacted the nature of our relationship to jazz music. The first tribute was a ticketed concert Thursday at Chicago Symphony Center for John Coltrane's 80th birthday anniversary: "Ballads and Brass," featuring the Joshua Redmond Quartet and Kurt Elling with special guest Ari Brown.
Friday begins the free festival in Grant Park with three stages: Jazz on Jackson Stage, Jazz & Heritage Stage, and the Petrillo Music Shell. I chose to catch snippets of many acts, searching for those moments when true magic happens. After reassurances of the future of jazz by the West Aurora High School Jazz Band, I was enlightened by the "Art of the Solo" featuring Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) flutist Nicole Mitchell and saxophone/clarinet master Edward Wilkerson Jr. at the Jazz & Heritage Stage.I caught a bit of the energetic patois of jazz historian, educator, and bandleader Dr Michael White's Original Liberty Jazz Band, a New Orleans group that kicked off activity at the Petrillo Music Shell.
However, I was distracted because Malachi Thompson, one of Chicago's most innovative, insightful, and instructive AACM musicians, died July 16 at the age of 56, and what was scheduled to be his appearance at this festival became a tribute to his legacy. So I was eager to talk to members of his Africa Brass group with Billy Harper. In 2001, Malachi performed and conducted a workshop with African Brass at the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. And we were just asking Ari Brown and his group how Malachi was doing July 16 when they were here playing at Polyrhythms Third Sunday Jazz Matinée & Workshop at the River Music Experience's Redstone Room.
As Rahsaan Clark Morris wrote, "To Malachi, music was more than just a diversion. ... Malachi had also followed the important cultural precepts of giving back to the community by giving of his time and skills, not from without, but by living in and making his presence felt from within the community."
Like a New Orleans "second line," the inspired reverence of Malachi's tribute was followed by the snap and polish of Nnenna Freelon and her slick band that swung the crowd through tunes including "Nature Boy," "I Love You," "Footprints," fresh new arrangements of Billie Holiday's "Lover Man" and "You've Changed," and a poignant version of "There Is a Balm in Gilead." Accompanied by pianist Brandon McCune, percussionist Beverly Botsfod, bassist Wayne Batchelor, and drummer Kinah Boto, Freelon melded fresh takes on history into a glimpse of the future of this music. Freelon was a Quad City Arts Visiting Artist in February 2003.
Afterwards, while waiting to talk to Freelon, I had the pleasure of meeting transplanted New Orleanian "Mr. Jazz," historian and producer Michael J. Gourrier, who astounded all within the sound of his voice with his knowledge of the Crescent City and the historical origins of the music that developed there.
Each night after the fest, the music moves to the clubs, which host jam sessions often featuring combinations of musicians who seldom play together:
Jazz Showcase, 59 West Grand Avenue. Multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan leads jam sessions featuring various headliners from the festival.
HotHouse, 31 East Balbo Drive. Roscoe Mitchell and his Chicago Quartet - featuring Corey Wilkes, Harrison Bankhead, and Vincent Davis - played Friday. Thomas Mapfumo, from Zimbabwe, appeared Saturday. Frequency - a new ensemble staffed by Edward Wilkerson Jr., Nicole Mitchell, Harrison Bankhead, and Avreeayl Ra - played Sunday.
Velvet Lounge, 67 East Cermak Road: Reedist Douglas Ewart played on Friday, saxophonist Mwata Bowden on Saturday, and the Fred Anderson-Hamid Drake-Josh Abrams Trio on Sunday.
Saturday found the explosive Afro-Cuban sound of Chevere, a Chicago Latin jazz group that imprinted a definite salsa groove and had the crowd dancing on Jackson Street. A Hammond B3 organ led the audience into frenzy on a percussive, dominating bass-line treatment of pianist Howard Levy's "Telegram of Love." Chevere's sizzle was palpable.
This was followed by the elegant artistry of Earma Thompson (the queen of Chicago jazz), and incredibly it worked. The antithesis of Chevere's raw power, Earma's trio finessed the audience through "Billies Bounce," "You Stepped Out of a Dream," "Bye Bye Blackbird," and "Just in time."
While listening to Earma, a photographer standing next to me was taking pictures of the Quad Cities' own jazz historian, Jimmie Jones. He turned out to be Joseph Fettingis, a painter, teacher, and photographer who told me that after seeing Jimmie last year, he was so inspired by his energy and dedication he told his students that he wanted to be like Jimmie, capturing art and taking pictures for as long as he could hold a camera or a brush.
I got a chance to hear "Taking a Chance on Love" by the Dana Hall Quartet before rushing off to the Jazz & Heritage Stage to see the Muntu Dance Theatre, a Chicago-based company that performs authentic and progressive interpretations of contemporary and ancient African and African-American dance, music, and folklore. The tribal costumes, energetic drumming, free and purposeful movement, and unique synthesis of dance, rhythm, and song mesmerized the audience.
The Petrillo Music Shell featured a tribute to musical, literary, and cultural icon Oscar Brown Jr., who died in May of last year. In addition to his musical accomplishments, Brown won two Emmy Awards for Oscar Brown Is Back in Town. His play Big Time Buck White was performed on Broadway starring Muhammad Ali. Displaying their good genes, his talented daughters Maggie and Africa Brown performed many of the songs by their prolific songwriting father.
At this point I have to confess to sneaking off to Washington Park to take in a bit of the 17th Annual African Festival of the Arts. Actually, I was hoping to catch the Donald Byrd performance and the Original Superstars of Jazz Fusion, featuring Roy Ayers, Jean Carne, Ronnie Laws, Lonnie Liston Smith, Bobbi Humphrey, and Jon Lucien of the Crusaders. Unfortunately I misread the schedule, and they were finished by the time we arrived. But all was not lost; there were more than 200 vendors selling the most spectacular arts and crafts you have ever seen. We spent the majority of our time there trying to entice some of those vendors to bring their wares to our local events.
Sunday at the Jazz on Jackson Stage was the Crescent City/Windy City Jam featuring two young turks of the trumpet, Maurice Brown and Corey Wilkes. What was billed as a showdown between new-generation bands from New Orleans and Chicago turned into a crowd-pleasing exhibit of virtuosic musicianship by two of the most gifted trumpeters to come out of Chicago. They paid homage to New Orleans, where Brown lived for a few years, before Katrina struck. In my opinion, this jam session was the high point of the Jackson Street offerings.
Almost on sensory overload and headed toward the Petrillo Music Shell to catch Willie Pickens, I once again ran into "Mr. Jazz," who gave me a pop quiz on our previous conversations. He asked me, "Why was jazz created in New Orleans?" I lamely gave him an explanation of the importance of Congo Square. At that point he patiently explained that New Orleans' diverse and predominantly Catholic social order allowed Euro-centric interpretation to merge with African influence, which incubated and nurtured the music we now call jazz. (My version is obviously a bit simplistic)
Pickens' 75th-birthday performance was indeed a celebration. A dedicated educator, Pickens might be one of the most serene and unassuming men that you will meet, who turns into an introspective and energetic dynamo when confronted with a piano. Accompanied by Robert Shy on drums, Marlene Rosenberg on bass, Pat Mallinger on sax, and Tito Carillo on trumpet, Pickens played songs from his Jazz Spirit CDs, leading off with "Let Us Break Bread Together" and "O Love How Deep, How Broad, How High," followed by "Forgive Our Sins as We Forgive" - a tune arranged to allow each player to stretch out on imaginative solos. "Down by the Riverside" and "One Finger Snap" rounded out the performance, after which Pickens graciously expressed his appreciation to his family and the audience.
Many in the Quad Cities will remember Pickens from his performances at the 2003 Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. He was also the inaugural educator performer April 30 for Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Matinée & Workshop at the Redstone Room.
Lee Konitz's New Nonet featured a mix of established and emerging jazz musicians, notably local drummer Matt Wilson from Knoxville, Illinois. Saxophonist Konitz, now 80 years old, partnered with Miles Davis in the nine-piece band that developed the Birth of the Cool material and is generally regarded as one of the architects of "cool" playing.
The Joey DeFrancesco Trio with the Dr. Lonnie Smith and Ron Blake closed out the festival with organ-aficionado heaven: two Hammond B3s and two extraordinary B3 players. These two giants managed to stay out of each other's way while demonstrating their unique virtuoso technique. It was like they were climbing by trading 32s or 64s. They bludgeoned home the fact there is nothing like the power of a Hammond B3 in the hands of a fearless creator. The spent audience eagerly bowed down to these superheroes and their masterful manipulations as we tried to recapture control of our spirits, or at least that part of our insides that wouldn't stop acting like a just-struck tuning fork.
The Chicago Jazz Festival is the largest free jazz festival in the world, and the city of Chicago and the Mayor's Office of Special Events are to be commended for demonstrating how other cities can create added spiritual and economic value to their communities. It doesn't cost; it pays!
As for the Quad Cities, I couldn't help but notice how many of the artists featured at this festival have appeared in our music festivals or performed residencies or workshops in our schools and communities over the past few years.
