Music without walls

Miles of Aisles

Back in my record retail days, I used to joke with my colleagues that if we owned the store, it would be one big A-Z section. The impetus was often something like a new Prince CD, or (then) Chicago Symphony Orchestra conductor Daniel Barenboim recording an album of tangos. An inventory tag was always attached that we were sworn to obey. Prince could rock out, but the directions said file under R&B. Plenty of music borrowed from multiple sources: funked up jazz, poppy disco, Celtic rock. Still, the categories served a function, guiding curious explorers to the section where they were likely to find a concentration of the artists and titles they might like. There's a problem with this, though. In a relational sphere, James Brown and Fela Kuti were spiritually much closer together than, say, James Brown and Michael Jackson. But they weren't in the same section, so how would you know?

Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events just created their all encompassing A-Z section. They took a handful of formerly separated free music series at Millennium Park and combined them. One of them, called Music Without Borders, was retired a few years ago. Its focus was that curious category called 'world music', which pretty much meant anything originating from somewhere other than the United States. I loved it. It was for me. Implicit in that, though, was a thorny problem: Is the United States not part of the world? What, then, of James Brown and Fela Kuti?

I loved Music Without Borders so much that, for the life of me, I can't remember what was on the stage during the other nights of the week during it's 8 week summer existence. I do know that, if I have my chronology right, two distinct series emerged in its wake, the mostly rock Downtown Sound and the mostly experimental new music Loops and Variations. Downtown Sound occasionally presented world music artists, and when they did I took the train downtown to attend some pretty memorable concerts. But I was inconsistent, and I never went to Loops and Variations. It was not, um, my thing. Sometimes we think we know what something is about before we even check it out. Sometimes, we're wrong.

Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park

It, perhaps, wasn't a lot of people's thing. For 2015, the label has been retired. Instead, the city has greatly expanded Downtown Sound and essentially put these three seemingly divergent categorizations on equal footing. In the process, they seem to have made a conscious decision to breach a few walls and, if the saints are willing, this move will expose a lot of Chicagoans to music that isn't their thing.

All of it, at cursory listen, sounds engaging and fun. I know this because the internet is a wonderful thing and an enterprising person named Bryan Kevton built what appears to be an unofficial website guide to the whole series, which very helpfully lists all dates and artists in chronological order that is easy to read on your phone and includes one Soundcloud track for each artist.

Go through it. Date by date. Artist by artist. Listen by listen. All 31 of them. You'll probably find a thing or two that you don't particularly like, a few things that you love, and a fair number that lie somewhere on a continuum between the two and that you'll hopefully be curious about.

David Wax Museum

It's already happened to me. On July 23, the ultra traditional Mexican son jarocho group Los Cojolites are headlining over the Boston based indie rock band David Wax Museum, who borrow heavily from Mexican music. My old employer would have filed them on opposite ends of the store, but as a double bill it's a brilliant conception. Los Cojolites grabbed my attention first, but now my universe has suddenly expanded as I learn more about David Wax Museum.

Third Coast Percussion

The summer is full of nights like that. Poi Dog Pondering, a favorite of my young(ish) adulthood that transformed itself from a multi-ethnic folk group to a multi-ethnic dance party upon migrating to Chicago in the early 1990s, is preceded by a woman from Minneapolis named Caroline Smith that has a rootsy folk-jazz sound that is absolutely beguiling. The eclectic yet highly listenable Snarky Puppy, whose world jazz (uh-oh, another hybrid category - where the hell am I going to file them?) reminds me a bit of everything from highly polished L.A. studio fusion to NOLA groove to Afropop, will be preceded by the avant-classical ensemble Third Coast Percussion interpreting composer Terry Riley's seminal minimalist work In C. (Easy, file in the most obscure corner of the classical department.)

Or how about this one? The kick ass retro R&B of Sonny Knight and the Lakers opening for Antibalas, who carry on the AfroBeat tradition in both the musical and revolutionary sense. Yep, it's that James Brown-Fela thing again.

It's like this, over and over. San Fermin creates multi-layered and slightly unsettling chamber pop that is nonetheless pretty damn catchy and is paired on this gig with a barely melodic percussion quartet. The Very Best samples and cross-purposes various sounds in an African context that brings to mind So-era Peter Gabriel, yet to get to them you will be treated to the electro-disco wonderland of Glass Lux. Not so sure about that last one, but I'm going. The London Souls are loud hard rock (my inner AC/DC can't wait to hear an electric guitar crunch coming from that hallowed stage) but I'll be sure to get there early for the quirky Czech (my people!) pop of Eggnoise. Matthew Sweet's Time Capsule collection is a CD I would want with me if stranded on that proverbial desert island, but the DIY pop of Sweet's opener In Tall Buildings has its charms as well. There's even a reggae night featuring the legendary Mighty Diamonds. Pass the kouchie from the left hand side, just watch out for security.

Ondatropica

And I haven't even mentioned the single (for me) most anticipated show of the year, the long awaited Chicago debut of Colombian / British collective Ondatropica. But even here, the opener is another 'world music' artist that so far hasn't excited me much, Helado Negro. People far smarter than me like him quite a bit though, and now I get to hear him live and maybe reevaluate my previous stance.

There was one thing about the old Music Without Borders that made it special, and that was the city's sincere efforts to make sure that the ethnicities and nations represented on stage were represented in the audience as well through tireless outreach. There is something about Downtown Sounds that has the air of being for the cool kids. And that is cool, no doubt about it. Cool kids have pretty good taste. But I also hope to see, for example, when King Sunny Ade strolls on stage, a large contingent of African expats in the audience, thirsty for a taste of home. That's where the joy begins.

Chicago music fans will have the opportunity to tear down a few walls this summer. We'll see if they do.

A great festival roars back to life.

photo: Catalina Maria Johnson

Well, I guess I didn’t see this coming.

The shakeups at the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) a few years back left the fate of Chicago’s many festivals and cultural offerings in doubt, and most of what unfolded over the course of 2012 only served to add to the sense of apprehension.

Fortunately, this year has had an entirely different narrative. 

First there was news that the city had formed a department to serve the needs of the local music community. Interesting, thoughtful exhibitions like the recent Spontaneous Interventions started returning to the Chicago Cultural Center. Then DCASE and the Jazz Institute of Chicago announced that the annual Jazz Fest was expanding its programming and moving to Millennium Park from the severely challenged Grant Park site. 

In 2012, a hastily scheduled World Music Festival squeaked by with a paltry 7 days, and local rather than visiting artists took an outsized role on stage. When it was announced that this year’s WMF expanded to 11 days, including 5 concerts at Millennium Park’s wondrous Pritzker Pavilion, it was clear that the city was treating the World Music Fest seriously and with the kind of commitment that many, including me, felt had been sorely lacking.

photo: Scott Pollard

Opening night was a spectacular triumph. The Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra enthralled a Pritzker Pavilion crowd of over 6,000 people made up of jazz heads and salsa fans alike with a high energy show opened by Puerto Rico’s Plena Libre. It’s an honest debate as to whether the giant flat screen hanging over the stage is an enhancement or distraction (I go both ways: it’s brilliant when it goes in for close ups, but the camera doesn’t always find the right soloist, and wide shots aren't possible without the heads of the folks in the first 10 rows appearing in the frame) but the fact that DCASE decided it was worth the expense spoke volumes about their commitment to the Fest.

There were other signs of assurance as well. Two Pritzker concerts were devoted to Indian and Pakistani music, and another to Ethiopian and Gypsy music. Perhaps most remarkable of all though, was the all night RagaMala celebration of Indian classical music that took place at the Cultural Center. Talk about commitment! The audacious experiment clearly showed the vision at work from the DCASE artistic programmers, and it was wonderful that the city backed them up and let them run with it. 

Another artistic triumph was hosting the Festival au Desert - Caravan of Peace. When civil strife in Mali cancelled the legendary festival there, a group of Malian musicians banded together to bring the fest to the world. Just weeks before the WMF schedule was announced, I heard someone complaining loudly that it was a disgrace that the caravan wasn’t coming here. And the truth is, it would have been embarrassing if it bypassed Chicago. Given the economics of the situation, though, it is probably only an entity like DCASE that could afford to present such a large undertaking. Audiences were treated to a large Pritzker concert as well as 4 more shows around the city in intimate venues, one of which paired Mali’s Sidi Touré with Cajun zydeco fiddler/accordion player Cedric Watson for a little trans-global cultural exchange.

Speaking of economics: Did I mention that the entire festival was free?

I managed to catch something like 10 shows featuring 20 artists over the 11 days, which means I missed much more than I saw. Such is the nature of such a large event, with nearly 50 concerts at 20 venues showcasing more than 70 artists. Almost everything I saw was terrific, and all of it I dare say was essential. I heard nothing but good things about the stuff that I missed.  As usual, the fest closed with the all day celebration at the Cultural Center, “One World Under One Roof”, where I witnessed what might have been the most unusual and surprising show of the whole Fest with Kiev’s DakhaBrakha, whose stunning visual flair, piercing harmonies and sly manner somehow mixed Ukrainian folk music with a Beastie Boys style hip-hop aesthetic. Yeah, I know. I guess you had to be there…

Thank you DCASE. Transitions are tough, and they can knock you off your feet. But you really stood up and ran with this one.

Bravo! And many happy returns.

The rhythm of Chicago.

One of my favorite weekends of the year got off to a great start this year.  The Chicago Jazz Festival is, amazingly, in its 35th edition, but this year, it feels extra special. For one thing, it has, for the first time, moved out of Grant Park and away from the rather awful Petrillo band shell, where the sound is bad and the sight lines are worse. The new home is beautiful and nearly perfect Millennium Park and the spectacular Pritzker Pavilion. Secondly, it is getting going a little early, presenting a full day of music on both Thursday & Friday instead of starting Friday evening.

Like the World Music Festival, which begins in a couple of weeks, the Jazz Fest provides so many options that you have to make choices. You just can't do it all. Reflecting on the music I chose yesterday, I realized that I went with, more than anything else, the rhythm at the heart of jazz. Two Chicago bassists, Larry Gray and Harrison Bankhead, presented back to back sets at the Chicago Cultural Center. They couldn't have been more different, Gray's intimate trio vs. Bankhead's sprawling septet. What they shared, of course, was the pulse of their instrument holding things together, providing a center to the sounds swarming around them. Bankhead's approach, especially, is grounded is gospel and funk, lending a spiritual center to his band's improvised explorations, a place to come home to.

Later that afternoon, I caught Chicago based drummer Hamid Drake and his trio in an expansive set that was as much ancient Africa as it was modern jazz. Bankhead was once again at the center, literally quoting Wade in the Water and other Negro spirituals.  Unfortunately, we had to scoot out a little early so as not to be late to the night's big event, the return to Chicago of legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette.

I wrote about trumpeter Victor Garcia for Chicagomusic.org a few weeks ago and the Made in Chicago series programmed by the Jazz Institute of Chicago. That series generally picks talented Chicago musicians and gives them the resources to stage a dream project at the Pritzker. This opening night of the Jazz Fest was also the closing night of Made in Chicago, so the same principal applied, except this time is was a world famous musician who was encouraged to dream.

What did he do? Well, he staged a reunion of three more legendary musicians who got their start in Chicago roughly the same time as DeJohnette, out of the same AACM collective that now, 40 something years later, counts Harrison Bankhead among its participants. Four guys in their seventies (or older) playing with ferocious energy and not conceding an inch to the urge to mellow into old age. And in the center of them? The much younger Larry Gray on bass. Make no mistake: Gray is one of Chicago's most talented and versatile bassists, but I don't think he ever dared to dream he'd be hanging with cats this heavy. And it was hard to miss DeJohnette's appreciation for Gray's talent when he called him out at the show's conclusion: "Larry Gray... Larry Gray!"

All this happened on Thursday, by the way. Three more days of Jazz Fest left! I guess I'll rest on Monday.

Crossing Borders.

I know, I know, that sounds a lot like the name of this blog.  It's not a coincidence.

So, I last week I wrote a post about what I felt was a great day in the city. You may recall that the first of the three instances that prompted my delight was a concert by jazz trumpeter Victor Garcia. Well, my evening started that way because I was reviewing that concert for Arte y Vida Chicago and Chicagomusic.org.

The review is out. I hope you'll read it.  First few sentences below, the rest at the hyperlink. Enjoy.
________________________________

photo by Lauren Deutsch / Jazz Institute of Chicago

For years now, the Jazz Institute of Chicago has been doing some wonderful things with their 'Made in Chicago: World Class Jazz' series at the Pritzker Pavilion.  Basically, the formula goes like this: They identify a talented Chicago based jazz artist, give them a nice chunk of money, and encourage them to create their dream concert.  The result is often a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the musicians and audience alike... Thursday night, it was Victor Garcia’s turn to follow his dream.

Click here to read the rest.

Lament for a lost festival.

Once upon a time (in the very recent past) there was something called Music Without Borders, an 8 week series of world music concerts that took place on Thursday evenings at Chicago's beautiful outdoor concert facility, Pritzker Pavilion.  It was programmed by the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, an agency that, sadly, no longer exists in its previous form. Why it no longer exists is a complicated tale of political and bureaucratic intrigue, but that's not my point. At least today...

Those summer Thursdays were when I loved Chicago the most, and reveled in my good fortune to live in such a cultural crossroads. Pritzker has seating for a couple thousand people. The lawn behind it is a vast picnic area that can hold several thousand more.  Music Without Borders usually booked two artists per concert, and was curated in such a way that the music of each, while from different parts of the globe, complimented each other, allowing you to make the connection. Brazilian samba and African pop, Gypsy jazz and Congolese rumba, Cuban son and Indian bhangra. As a result, you had a sort of gathering of the tribes in the audience made up of the ethnic groups represented on stage, fans of world music like me, tourists, and folks who simply worked downtown and wandered over to see what was up.  And just like that, you had 6,000 people who shared little besides their common humanity dancing and sweating together.

It was glorious while it lasted. The series was discontinued at the end of 2011. There's still music at Pritzker, though. A Monday night series called Downtown Sound has picked up some of the slack, mixing in a little world music alongside adventurous pop, rock and hip-hop. Theoretically, I'm in favor of the concept. "World music" can be every bit equal to and as forward thinking as the best rock or jazz, so why shunt it off into its own little box? Music has always traveled back and forth. Fela Kuti listened to James Brown. Bob Marley listened to Fela Kuti. The thing is, the minds behind Music Without Borders knew this too, and they put it into practice 8 times a year, with a quality so consistently high that you didn't even have to look at a schedule to see who was playing. Just show up on Thursday and enjoy!

The incredible Malian singer, songwriter and guitarist Fatoumata Diawara headlined Downtown Sound this past Monday. Though rooted in the traditional music of Mali, her approach is completely her own. Her band churned out polyrhythmic jazz-tinged hard rock (or was it the other way around?) behind her highly charismatic singing, dancing and magnetic stage presence. It was stunning. And yet, the audience seemed a bit homogenous, not the
gathering of the tribes I cherished. That probably has something to do with the way Downtown Sound is marketed. Still, you did have thousands of people dancing and sweating together, and they were doing it to African music. That's no small thing.

I miss Music Without Borders, and I hope the city figures out a way to revive it. Our mayor seems obsessed with the idea of culture as a way to boost tourism dollars, and I'm all for it. What better way to market Chicago as a world class destination than a regular showcase of world class music?