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Around Town with Mike Jeffers
Around Town with Mike Jeffers
Date Posted: March 08 2011
Written By: Mike Jeffers
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What’s Happening
Around Town
With Mike Jeffers
This issue of Chicago jazz Magazine features our 8th Annual Summer Jazz Camp Guide. As a musician, I know the importance of attending a summer jazz camp, since that is how I got my start in jazz. Sure, I was listening to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and many others, but it wasn’t until I attended a Jamey Aebersold summer jazz camp that I really became serious about the music and performing it. Total immersion into the jazz world for a week gave me a new perspective on music, my playing and my future career. If you have a young musician in the family who seems to be interested in music but is not as focused as they should be, I urge you to take a look at the Jazz Camp Guide and have that up-and-coming musician attend one for a week this summer. You will be surprised at what will happen.
Here is what’s happening Around Town…
A new live music venue has emerged on North Elston Ave in Chicago, Little Bucharest Bistro. You wouldn’t think that a restaurant featuring traditional eastern European, Romanian, Serbian and Hungarian, as well as Mediterranean, cuisines would become a hotbed of live music, but thanks to the passion of owner Branko Podrumedic, the music has taken a front and center position. The restaurant is now hosting live music several nights a week, including Thursday night live blues by Lindsey “The Hoochie Man” Alexander and weekend performances featuring Marianne Murphy Orland & Mark Burnell, le Percolateur, Marlene Rosenberg and Paulhino Garcia, Paris la Nuit and many others. For more info, visit littlebucharestbistro.com.
Chicago Jazz Magazine’s very own Charley Krebs has gone international. Well maybe he hasn’t, but his artwork has! Charley Krebs’ artwork will soon be reproduced in a book about the history of English slang in languages around the world. Printed by the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, it will illustrate how slang contributes to a sense of identity and belonging. Author and professor Julie M. Coleman describes the cartoon about jazz camps as “clever and funny.” Professor Coleman’s book will be available online. Details will follow here in CJM.
Bradley Williams will be presenting his latest work, Sojourn, March 25, at DePaul University’s Concert Hall (800 W. Belden in Chicago), at 8 pm. The concert is free and open-to-the-public. With Sojourn, Williams pairs his piano trio with a string quartet in a set of twelve original movements––eleven instrumental and one vocal. The mood of the set ranges widely from melodic, Debussy-influenced textures to driving swing, and waltzes, in the veins of modern jazz and samba. Performing along with Williams will be Jade Maze, Mike Schlick, Dan DeLorenzo and the Hawk String Quartet. For more information visit bradleywilliamslive.com.
Chicago Sessions will be celebrating the release of the Matt Nelson Trio, Nostalgiamaniac, at Andy’s Jazz Club two different Wednesdays in March––the 2nd and the 9th at 5 pm to 8:30 pm. The new release marks the fourteenth recording in the Chicago Sessions catalog which features all original music by some of Chicago’s finest jazz composers. Visit chicagosessions.com for more information.
Room 43 has reopened and is once again the host of the long-running Sunday night jazz series presented by the Hyde Park Jazz Society. Room 43 was forced to close and serve a suspension because of a city ordinance requiring a venue to have a Public Place of Amusement license in order to present live music and charge a cover. The series is back up and running through April, please check their website (hydeparkjazzsociety.com) for updated performance information.
Frank Portolese will be holding his rescheduled CD release concert for Plectrum Jazz Guitar Solos (review in this issue) on March 13, at 8 pm at S.P.A.C.E. in Evanston. The original date of the CD release concert was February 3, which was canceled because of the massive snowstorm.
“Jazz at the Mac” presented by the McAninch Arts Center and WDCB will hold it’s final concert of the series on March 17, featuring jazz guitarist Fareed Haque. The concert will take place in Theatre 2 and will also be recorded in order to broadcast on WDCB 90.9 fm at a later date. Also coming up at the MAC (not part of the series) on April 23 is a concert by guitarist John Pizzarelli. Son of the legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, John is internationally known for classic standards, late-night ballads and the cool jazz flavor he brings to his performances and recordings. For more information visit atthemac.org.
Vocalist Loretta Lee will be paying tribute to Billie Holiday on April 16 at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Hermann Hall. “This is more than just an impersonation,” Lee says. “It is a musical documentary acknowledging Billie Holiday not only for her musical achievements but also for her profound contribution as an activist fighting against lynching in America.” For more information visit lorettaleeasbillieholiday.com.
The Coq d’Or at the Drake Hotel will be re-opening March 1 after being closed for a month for renovations. Rumor has it the hotel is trying to preserve the legendary lounge’s rich 78-year history. The Coq d’Or opened its doors on December 6, 1933, the day after prohibition was repealed.
Saxophonist Ron Blake, a member of the NBC Saturday Night Live Orchestra, will join Jeff Lindberg’s Chicago Jazz Orchestra in a special Tribute to Johnny Griffin, on Sun., March 27, 3 pm at the Francis W. Parker School, 330 W. Webster Ave. in Chicago. The concert will also feature the music of the great Swing Era guitarist, trombonist, composer and arranger, Eddie Durham. The CJO and Blake, who graduated from Northwestern University and spent a number of years on the Chicago music scene, will perform arrangements from Johnny Griffin’s famous recording Big Soul Band as well as other well known Griffin tunes. Griffin, one of many Captain Walter Dyett music students at DuSable High ?School who went on to fame, was a member of Lionel Hampton’s band as well ?as Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He also subsequently succeeded John Coltrane in Thelonious Monk’s famed Five Spot Quartet. Ron Blake knew Johnny Griffin personally, performing and recording with him numerous times, including on Ron’s first solo CD, Up Front and Personal, released in 2000 on the Tahmun label.
The music of Eddie Durham will be highlighted on the first half of the program. Lindberg’s CJO, which specializes in the performance of classic big band jazz, is receiving original scores from the Durham family for this performance. During the first half of the concert the CJOA will also launch its new educational initiative, “Side By Side with the CJO,” where students in the Francis W. Parker School Jazz Ensemble will perform side by side with the members of the CJO. For tickets and info contact (312) 409-3947 or chicagojazzorchestra.com.
Are you a fan of Chicago Jazz Magazine on Facebook? If you aren’t, you should be! Not only is it a great way to get updated performance schedules and information, but there are posts for special show and subscription offers. Simply do a search for Chicago Jazz Magazine on Facebook and become a fan.
We are still trying to figure out why Mayor Daley was insisting on trying to privatize the 2011 festivals, since there will be a new mayor before the summer season even kicks off. It looks like the 2011 Jazz and Blues Festivals will be similar to last year’s. There is, however, a much shorter window in which to book musicians, which could affect the availabilities of big names and out-of-towners. Booking musicians normally takes place in late fall.
The Auditorium Theatre has put together a festival celebrating the life of Miles Davis, who would have turned 85 this year. “We wanted to honor a great Illinois artist who had immeasurable impact on his musical genre worldwide,” says Brett Batterson, the executive director of the Auditorium Theatre. The Miles Davis Festival is taking place over a four-month period (starting this past January and running through mid-April) at nine different jazz clubs throughout Chicago, culminating with three performances at the Auditorium Theatre on April 12, 14 and 16. A few of the more interesting performances should be the 40th anniversary of Bitches Brew at Martyr’s, Thursday, March 31, performed by an all star band featuring Dave Leibman, Nicolas Payton, Darryl Jones and many others; and Auditorium Theater concerts by the Orbert Davis Sextet performing Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue album (first set) and the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra performing the Sketches of Spain album (second set), on April 14, and the River North Dance Chicago world premiere of a new piece inspired by the music of Miles Davis, on April 16. For more information visit auditoriumtheatre.org.
Jazz Birthdays
March: Paul Abella, Bob Dogan, Tammy McCann, Liza Minnelli, Stephanie Browning, Orbert Davis, Kelly Brand, Norah Jones and Erin McDougald.
April: Phil Gratteau, Mike Frost, Corky McClerkin, Marlene Rosenberg, Frank Portolese, Mark Colby, Steve Gadd, Leon Joyce, Bob Rummage, Tom Hipskind, Brad Walseth, Rick Dittemore and Frank D’Rone.
Oops…In the January/February issue of Chicago Jazz Magazine we published a photo of the late James Moody and failed to give credit to photographer Bill Klewitz. We regret the error.
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