Jazz saxophonist Miguel Zenón comes to the 'hood.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to explore Chicago's diversity through the lens of my own immigrant heritage. I've come to realize that even though I am a third generation American with little overt connection to my Czech grandparents and the country that they came from, I still identify with that heritage. This is not exactly specific to that particular European background, but rather a recognition of how growing up in Chicago along with other sons and daughters of immigrants provides the lens through which I view the Chicago of today.

When I visit the southwest side neighborhood that I grew up in and see that it is now predominantly Mexican-American, it makes perfect sense. Then and now, it is a tidy neighborhood of modest houses occupied by working class people who are striving to make a better world for their children, but the signs on the storefronts are in a different language. I have a real affinity for these simple neighborhoods far from the glamour of downtown.

Hermosa is one such neighborhood, albeit one much older than the post World War II area that I lived in. In the early 20th century, Hermosa was full of manufacturing and warehouse jobs. Schwinn bicycles came from Hermosa. Walt Disney was born to a carpenter father there. It was and still remains a blue collar place.

It is also, like my childhood home, now predominantly Latino. The forces at work here are a little bit different, though, as many of these residents were displaced from neighboring Wicker Park, Humboldt Park and Logan Square by gentrification.

So was, in a sense, the place I was at last night. Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, and a little over 40 of those years were spent in Wicker Park. The current space opened in 2013. Their core focus is on Puerto Rican culture, but expands to include other Latino groups as well. Last night they hosted saxophonist and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón in a free community event in conjunction with Zenón's Grammy nominated project Identities are Changeable, which is being presented live by the University of Chicago. Zenón was born in Puerto Rico, but by now he has lived over half of his life in the U.S. His heritage, though, remains the intellectual center of his work, so far spawning no less than five albums.

I wrote an appreciation of the event for Agúzate, an Afro-Latin journal that is kind enough to publish my work. You can read that HERE, but before you do, let me quote Miguel Zenón from an interview I did with him a few weeks ago.

“The Puerto Rican community in Chicago is one of the most important and historic communities outside of the island, so all of the ideas from the project would definitely apply there as well. But then again, I think that this is an idea that could apply to any immigrant community anywhere.”

Indeed. I am far from my grandparents immigrant experience, but I can imagine them negotiating life in a new country far from their place of birth. My parents grew up Americans, of course, but Czech was still spoken in their childhood homes. And now there is me, further removed, yet still connected by the same bloodline.

And I can relate.

Orbert Davis and the new faces of Cuba

As I entered Chicago's Auditorium Theatre on a blustery Friday evening, I believed that I was quite prepared for what I was about to see and hear. Orbert Davis and his Chicago Jazz Philharmonic was presenting an ambitious new project, "Scenes From Life: Cuba!" in collaboration with one of Havana's top music schools, the Universidad de las Artes (ISA). My expectations were shaped by the fact that I had been tracking the project for several months and had very recently interviewed Davis about it for a preview article published at Agúzate, the blog of a Chicago-based organization dedicated to Afro-Latin music and culture.

Here were my expectations: I would see, working together side by side, Cuban music students and their American professional counterparts. I would hear the CJP's unique form of orchestral, third stream jazz. I would hear some Cuban music. I would go home happy.

A few days earlier, 37 young music students and a school administrator had arrived in Chicago from Havana. It was, for all of them, their first trip beyond Cuba's borders. The project had its origins in two trips that Orbert Davis made to Cuba in 2012 and 2014. It was on the earlier trip that he first encountered the school and its talented students. The return two years later was for the express purpose of collaborating with the school for a performance at the Havana Jazz Festival. Davis brought a few key members of the CJP with him: Steve Eisen on winds, bassist Stewart Miller, Leandro Lopez Varady on piano and drummer Ernie Adams. To say that they are among Chicago's best jazz musicians sells them short. Rather, it's more accurate to say that they are world class musicians who happen to call Chicago home. Along with Davis's trumpet and direction, the five conducted workshops, master classes and rehearsals in the days leading to the Havana concert. The idea was that the students would "become" the CJP for a day, filling out the 40 or so chairs normally occupied by the orchestra's string, woodwind and horn players.

Smack dad in the middle of those rehearsals, something happened. You could call it coincidence. You could call it divine providence. Whatever it was, on December 17, 2014, Presidents Raúl Castro of Cuba and Barack Obama of the United States simultaneously went on TV to announce the beginnings of normalized relations between two governments that had quite literally been enemies for over 50 years.

Cue the celebration.

I use the word "government" very much on purpose, because the people of each country have had no shortage of interest and affection for each other over the years. It would appear that, finally, the politicians recognize this essential truth and are taking significant steps to catch up with their citizens.

Again, I knew all of that when I took my seat in the concert hall. And I still wasn't prepared for what came next.

It starts with a backdrop of colonial Havana suspended over the orchestra, superimposed with an image of the U.S. flag. It is a huge orchestra, made up of, I'm guessing, 80 or so musicians from Cuba and the U.S., and they are performing the Star Spangled Banner together. As we reflexively do in this country (and, I suppose, in countries everywhere), the audience stands for its national anthem. Some sing along, others put their hand on their heart like they were taught in grade school. Then, with barely a pause, the flag of Cuba appears alongside that of the U.S. and the orchestra plays La Bayamesa, the Cuban anthem. The audience is momentarily confused, having already started to sit down. Everyone, though, is quickly back on their feet, showing their respect for the students and the country they came from.

My eyes are slightly moist as I sit down, and Davis, like a proud father, takes the microphone to share his enthusiasm not only for the project, but also for the students themselves, whom he has clearly come to love. The formal program begins with a version of of Davis' composition Diaspora, which appeared on the CJP's debut album 10 years ago. In some ways, the African diaspora is at the heart of this project. The slave trade forcibly brought Africans to the United States, but far more were brought to Latin America. Orbert Davis and the Cuban students are descendants of these diverging journeys, just as jazz and rumba are its cultural flowerings. The 'proud father' reference is apt, because in a very real way, Davis and the young Cubans are having a family reunion. Trust me, when all of that comes together with the mighty sound of an 80 piece orchestra, the effect is truly profound.

The diaspora plays a part in the evening's second selection as well, Chicago @173, which Davis composed for his score to the documentary DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis. The first part of the title refers to the city's first resident, Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a free black man, likely from Hispaniola, the island just to the east of Cuba that is now home to the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The first half of the concert concludes with five movements from Havana Blue, the project that first brought Davis to Cuba in 2012. It was written in collaboration with choreographer Frank Chaves and presented by the CJP and River North Dance Chicago in 2013. That concert was easily one of the best performances that I saw that year, but this time around, by subtracting the dancers and adding 50 or so musicians, it was, for me, a far more powerful musical experience.

After intermission, Davis came out to say that we could, basically, throw our programs away. Some time between the students' arrival on Monday and today, the first three songs were scrapped in favor of the CJP leaving the stage entirely to the young Cubans, dubbing the segment "Postcards From Cuba," with each song spotlighting a different Cuban rhythm. First, a string quintet absolutely killed on a rendition of Cumbanchero. Then, the rest of the students came out for a rhythmic Guaguanco, followed by the drop-dead gorgeous bolero Quiereme Mucho that brought one of the violinists out of her regular element for a beautifully sung lead vocal. Finally, a spirited Guantanamera in which several students took turns putting down their instruments so they could dance to the guajira-son.

I should, I suppose, say something about the musical talent of the students, because it was, from time to time, jaw-droppingly good. Violin players, reedists, trumpeters and percussionists all took turns soloing. For me, the violinists were especially noteworthy. You just don't hear that much swinging violin outside of a Regina Carter concert (although in Chicago we are blessed with James Sanders and his Latin jazz ensemble Conjunto), but one after another, these kids stood up and swung with total assurance. It no doubt helps that Cuba has such a strong charanga tradition, but still... Oh, and the three Cuban percussionists... The CJP has a certified maestro conguero in Joe Rendón, but he spent a fair amount of the evening proudly watching his young charges do most of the heavy lifting.

The entire CJP+ISA Orchestra came together for another powerful take of an older CJP tune before the night's premiere, Scenes From Life, a work composed especially for this collaboration. This new work perfectly captured the essence of everything the collaboration stood for: Davis' third stream jazz/classical aesthetic matched to Cuban soul and sensibility. It occurred to me quite suddenly that I was hearing something unprecedented: An 80 piece orchestra roaring with the power and finesse of  Machito's big band in a piece every bit as ambitious as Tanga, Mario Bauzá's famous Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite.

Nope, I wasn't prepared for that, either.

All photos by Darron Jones

The evening ended with the joyous jam session Orlando's Walk, also written by Davis for Havana Blue. I think pretty much everyone took a solo on this one. OK, I exaggerate a bit, but there were a lot. This included Davis, whose trumpet spent much of the evening on its stand, but he had the time of his life trading choruses with two young Cubans for several minutes.

All good things must end. A long standing ovation and countless on stage hugs finally gave way to the audience filing out of the hall with a marked bounce in their step. But I still had one more unexpected experience in store. Two of the students had family in Chicago that they had never met. Such was the crime that was the 50 year separation between often hostile governments. Witnessing this actual family reunion gave me hope for a world that, on this particular Friday night, was just learning the horrific news of the terror in Paris.

Chicago has benefited from the tours of several Cuban greats in the past couple of years. Together, the legends that are Orquesta Aragón, Buena Vista Social Club, Los Van Van and Chucho Valdés represent generations of Cuban music dating from both pre- and post-revolutionary eras. With Scenes From Life, we now have a look at the faces of a brand new era.

Bring it on.

Danilo Pérez: From Panama to Chicago, with love

I've been meandering my way through this thing called the music business for nearly 30 years. It's really the only thing I know how to do, and it's certainly the only thing I want to do. I've seen a lot of excess and stupidity in that time, and participated in my share. More often, though, I've simply been lucky that working in this area in one capacity or another has continually exposed me to wonderful experiences and terrific artists.

One of those artists is the Panamanian jazz pianist Danilo Pérez. I was introduced to him in January of 1997 at the Jazz Educator's Association conference in Chicago, and I was immediately struck by his warmth and generosity. I've seen him perform at three different incarnations of the Jazz Showcase; the present location, the space on Grand Avenue in River North and, before that, the faded and shabby elegance of the Blackstone Hotel before it was renovated. I even got to host an in-store performance by him in support of his CD Panamonk when I ran the music department at the sadly departed Borders store on Michigan Avenue.

It's been over three years since I last saw him, so I was eagerly awaiting last night's performance at the Jazz Showcase for a few months. I was also fortunate that the Afro-Latin publication Agúzate let me write a show preview and review of his recent Panama 500 album, which you can read here. Writing that piece forced me to sit down and really listen to Panama 500 closely, and I was richly rewarded.

all photos by Omar Torres-Kortright

Pérez is as inventive as ever as a pianist and improvisor, but he's also still the generous individual that I met nearly 20 years ago. His band on this visit includes his long-time drummer Adam Cruz (phenomenal as always) and two fresh young musicians from Jerusalem. Bassist Tal Gamlieli stepped up solidly in place of Ben Street, and Roni Eytan's harmonica evoked at various times the string arrangements from Panama 500, hints of Panamanian style accordion and even tropical bird calls. Danilo led all three musicians in what was clearly a joyous adventure, onstage and off.

Much of the evening was devoted to Panama 500, but the altered instrumentation and Pérez's intense need to open doors and explore ideas guaranteed that the approach to those songs was imbued with improvisational twists and turns. The same goes for his deep forays into Monk and Dizzy.  Two sets, two-plus hours of music, exquisite 'til the very last note.

In preparing for my Agúzate article, I had the opportunity to ask Danilo a few questions about his art and what I have long suspected was a special relationship with Chicago.

Don: Panama has been a central subject of much of your music going all the way back to Panamonk, and what strikes me the most is how little it sounds like what is commonly known as “Latin jazz”. What’s different
about Panama?

Danilo: Panama’s strategic geographical position has allowed for the amalgam of many cultures. Panama is one the most globalized countries in Latin America and therefore has a very rich and diverse history.  The Bridge of the Americas located in Panama is a huge inspiration for me and I have been writing and performing music that it is more related to global jazz using elements from Jazz, Classical and Latin America folkloric elements.

Don: I hear so much of the ‘indigenous’ in your music. And although Caribbean culture often references the mix of European, African and indigenous cultures, for me the African and European influences seem to dominate in most music, but this is not the case with you. Tell me a bit about that.

Danilo: The music I am hearing and writing required different tone colors. For Panama 500, my last project, I used the Guna’s folkloric element, violin and cello, plus Panamanian percussion sounds. This added a fantastic color to the mix. Also with the narrations I used their voice and language as an inspiration to improvise and write music. To use music as a tool to send a message of dialogue and equality is very important to me, and as a UNESCO Artist for Peace it is already a responsibility. Therefore in Panama 500 the Guna Indians taught me how little informed we are about history and that the discovery of Pacific Ocean should be reviewed and studied as a rediscovery instead. Every project that I embark on I really like to focus on the elements that unite them: Africa, Europe and Latin American folklore.

Don: I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but Chicago seems to be a special place for you. I’m going back to at least Panamonk, when I first met you, but even your first totally independent project Live at the Jazz Showcase was recorded here. Am I imagining that fondness?

Danilo: No, you are right, it is a very special place because it has provided me with a lot of inspiration to write and play music. A lot of special commissions to write music and a lot of important collaborations in my musical life. I really have a special place in my heart for this amazing, creative city.

Don: At this point in your career you could almost exclusively be a concert hall performer, getting paid well for one night’s work, but you are doing the full four nights, two sets a night at the Jazz Showcase this week. Why?

Danilo: It is important to me to keep experimenting, mentoring and reworking my craft, [and] the Jazz Showcase is an institution of jazz music and provides me with all these opportunities to keep developing.

Danilo Pérez continues at the Jazz Showcase through Sunday, September 21. It's a busy music weekend in Chicago, but you really should find a way to get there and experience this amazing music and person for yourself. Trust me, you'll be happy that you did.

 

 

 

Border Crossings: A Musical Conversation

In my last post about the Palestinian-American composer and musician Simon Shaheen, I made reference to a violinist friend who leads a number of jazz ensembles. In the piece, I attempted to show a cultural timeline that connected Arabic music to that of the Caribbean, via both Spain and Africa, and further went on to be an ingredient of jazz. I rather shamelessly concluded the piece with a plug for my friend's upcoming performance. Consider this the follow-up.

Proyecto Libre at Constellation Chicago, March 7, 2014

Violinist James Sanders presented his Proyecto Libre, or "Free Project", for only their second performance since being formed in the fall of 2013. Sanders has led a Latin jazz band in Chicago for many years, but he also works frequently in mainstream jazz and collaborates regularly with several members of the Chicago avant-garde collective Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). The connective tissue to all of this is the art of improvisation, and a huge influence is Sanders' Dominican heritage and the Afro-Caribbean music he grew up listening to. The commonality is African music, or more specifically, what African music became when it reached the Americas.

In the Caribbean and South America, African traditions mingled with Spanish and Portuguese culture along with indigenous sounds to form cumbia, merengue, samba, bomba y plena, danzon, son jarocho and so on. In the colonies settled primarily by the English (you know, the United States) Africans encountered something different: Scottish ballads, military bands, European classical. And then there's New Orleans, which had a little of everything: First ruled by France, then Spain, then briefly back to France before being given over to the United States, and everyone passing through Cuba and Saint-Domingue before making their way there. "Same ship, different ports," is how New Orleans jazz musician Irvin Mayfield describes this cultural migration imposed by the slave trade. Military brass bands were especially popular in New Orleans too (a side effect, I suppose, of all those competing countries jostling for dominion). Jelly Roll Morton took it all in as he began to invent what would become jazz, but he was careful to cite the "Spanish tinge" for giving the music that extra syncopation.

Congo Square, New Orleans

Jazz, of course, grew and mutated as subsequent generations sought new artistic challenges. Those changes often took the art form down divergent paths. There's Latin jazz, of course, which had its beginnings when be-boppers of the 40s and 50s experimented with Afro-Cuban rhythms. Post-bop, you had the giants of free improvisation taking jazz into entirely uncharted waters, often reaching all the way back to Africa for inspiration, but mostly skipping the islands in between. The AACM collective more or less descends from these Afrocentric explorations. Meanwhile, back in Africa, innovators were listening and creating their own homegrown African jazz.

What Sanders is trying to do with Proyecto Libre is have a family reunion. He has organized it as a collective, but the driver is the idea that there is common ground between these disparate musical languages, and by bringing together musicians fluent in one language but not as much another, they could engage in fruitful conversation. The current line-up includes an Afro-Cuban percussionist plus a drummer and bassist from the AACM side. In the middle, moderating the "discussion", is Sanders and his violin, using his rigorous classical training and experience in both languages to open up space for everyone to contribute. Jazz is as much about listening as it is playing, and nowhere is this more true than in free improvisation.

James Sanders' violin.

When I heard Proyecto Libre in their first performance in December at the Afro-Caribbean Improvised Music Festival, I was impressed by the artistic give and take, but I had a sense that the Afro-Cuban element was looking for a way in to a scene that was being dominated by the other players. Well, what a difference a couple of months can make. For their second performance, which I witnessed this past Friday night, all four members were on equal footing from the start, having found time to musically get to know each other during the interim. Sanders started things off with a few plucked notes on his violin, soon joined by the bass and little cymbal accents on the drum kit. Within a minute or so, the congas joined in, and the gentle interplay between the four musicians suggested the elegance of a danzon without precisely sounding like one. This suggestion, but not imitation, of the classic Cuban sound showed how much the players were learning about each others specialties and finding something new to say together. Soon, Sanders was using his bow while the drums and congas played interlocking rhythms and the bass negotiated the space between them, gently prodding things in one direction or another as the intensity built.

What followed was over an hour of straight music making, and all of it improvised, literally being created as it was happening. To use the conversation metaphor, one player would introduce a thought that would take the discussion in a particular direction, each participant offering their contribution. After that line played out a bit, there would be something of a pause to take a breath and reflect on what was just discussed, allowing someone else to contribute a fresh idea, which would take the conversation in a new direction. Passions ran high, but mostly joyful ones, as one thought inspired another. It was especially compelling to watch the two drummers, brothers from different mothers if you will, lock eyes and smile as each new idea surfaced.

As an intellectual exercise, it was impressive. As music, it was nearly transcendent. This was the sound of borders being breached, of walls being torn down. African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and African languages were all spoken, but more importantly, also listened to, responded to, moving the music forward.  When music works, it does so on a level that bypasses intellect and is experienced by the entire body. This certainly happened Friday night. Hell, there was even some dancing at the end. This was fun. It wasn't until the following morning that I thought about Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, whose legendary jams would go on for hours and hours, music that combined the fierceness of John Coltrane's fiery explorations, the out-and-out funk of James Brown and a cry against injustice that frightened the authorities. And doing all of that in a big, sweaty dance party.

Sanders has a website that is packed with video and audio performances that touch on all the facets of his musical journey. Proyecto Libre already have another performance scheduled in April. I talked to James after his Friday performance, and he hinted that he was already planning on experimenting with different voices to see where that particular conversation will lead. I'll be there listening.

Hearing global history

I had the good fortune to attend a concert by the Palestinian-American composer, violinist and oud player Simon Shaheen this past weekend. It’s not the first time I experienced his music. Over a decade ago, he was touring with his fusion band Qantara and I had the privilege of introducing him to the audience at a world music festival less than 10 days after the September 11 attacks. More recently, an orchestra that I worked for presented the Chicago premiere of his Oud Concerto, and I conducted a Q&A with him and the orchestra's conductor prior to the concert.

Both of those were great experiences, but neither prepared me for this weekend.  Simon and his traditional ensemble of string instruments, flute and hand drums performed at the intimate Old Town School of Folk Music before a predominantly Middle Eastern audience. And while it was traditional in the sense that it was acoustic and the selections performed included many older songs, the approach was thoroughly modern, involving new compositions written by Shaheen, a high degree of improvisation and much instrumental wizardry. 

I knew that Shaheen played the violin and was considered a virtuoso, but I had never heard him play it. When I saw Qantara, with its mix of instruments drawing from Arabic, African, Latin, jazz and pop sources, he led on his oud. And, of course, his Oud Concerto featured his solos accompanied by a Western style orchestra. 

In the years since I first heard Shaheen play, I became friends with a violinist who is well versed in classical and jazz improvisation who further incorporates his Afro-Caribbean heritage into his approach to jazz. So, when Shaheen picked up his violin and began to play on the third song, I was almost shocked to hear what sounded like my friend’s playing. The deft improvisation, the insertion of space between notes, the playing inside and outside of the rhythm, and all of it built on a foundation of pan-Arabic music.

And then I heard something else, for in fact pan-Arabic and pan-Latin music share the same source and are merely different stops on an ever continuing journey. Several years ago, I read a book called Cuba and its Music by Ned Sublette. On the first page of the first chapter, Sublette references the Phoenicians.  A people of Semitic origin, they arrived in what would become the Spanish port city of Cádiz in 1100 B.C. (and North African port cities like Casablanca and Algiers).  Over two millennia later, that port would be the European gateway to the “New World”. In between, the Muslim empire grew to encompass the Iberian peninsula, but by 1492 both Muslims and Jews were being expelled as a nascent Spanish identity took hold. The Spaniards began to colonize the Americas, bringing with them a culture heavily influenced by the Arab world. And they also brought slaves from Africa, including North African Muslims and sub-Saharan Yoruba peoples. 

This mix of Spanish and African cultures met various indigenous peoples first in the Caribbean islands, then Central and South America. Arabic musical instruments like the oud had already begun a transformation into guitars, lutes and mandolins. In Cuba, the oud became the laud.

I heard it all at once this past weekend, and it was triggered by not by Shaheen’s oud, but by his violin. He explained that this particular violin was from 18^th century Italy, and to hear Shaheen coax sound out of this very European instrument was akin to hearing my friend coax sound out of his of similar origin, but both serving a non-European purpose. Both musicians are classically trained, and both use that training to express something of themselves and, by doing so, their heritage. All of a sudden, I heard the continuum that connects the Phoenicians to the Spaniards and then on to the Americas, absorbing African sounds, mixing with indigenous traditions, becoming jazz in the U.S., reaching back so that jazz becomes a universal language used by many cultures… well, it was kind of mind blowing. 

My violinist friend James Sanders plays on March 7 at Constellation Chicago with his new ensemble Proyecto Libre (Free Project). In his various musical endeavors, Sanders is a member of an orchestra, leads a Latin jazz band, plays mainstream, composes music for a dance company and collaborates with improvisors from the avant-garde wing of the house of jazz. 

He's trying to bring all of that to Proyecto Libre.

When I attend, I'll also be listening for the Phoenicians.

NOLA diary: You're different here. Or at least I am.

I'm getting used to New Orleans.

What I mean by that is, pretty much from the moment I step off the plane, the city starts working on me, transforming me, altering my nature. Maybe it's that brass band that greets me at baggage claim. Maybe it's the friendly cab driver that takes me to my hotel. Maybe it's knowing that I'll be spending the next several days eating some of the most delicious food of my life. Maybe it's just the humidity. But I see things differently here. More specifically, I see people differently. I'm less, um, judgmental. I'm friendlier. I start conversations with strangers. I smile a lot.

I can see the Mississippi from my hotel window and the huge American flag at the ferry dock across the way in Algiers. It doesn't exactly look special from here, a thin horizontal gray bar across the middle of the picture on this cloudy day. And then, suddenly, a huge cargo ship cruises into the frame, then quickly exits it, reminding me that the river was a superhighway before there were superhighways. I could do this all day.

Except I can't. I have a lunch reservation at Antoine's, serving old school Louisiana Creole cuisine continually since 1840. Well, except for few months after Hurricane Katrina damaged the building and, because of the lack of electricity, caused the loss of 25,000 bottles of wine from the climate-controlled cellar. Antoine's is huge: 14 dining rooms, several hundred employees, and one very cool bar (more on that later). After Katrina, Antoine's had to track down those employees and, even though business took years to rebound, put them back to work. Did I mention that it's still owned by the same family, and that, by tradition, they are never open on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Mardi Gras? Take that, Walmart!

Everybody in New Orleans seems to work in a restaurant or a bar. Walking through the French Quarter, you pass them by constantly, identifiable by the chef's aprons or the customary white shirt and bow tie worn by wait staff, while they take smoke breaks or make phone calls. According to a New York Times article that I read the other day, the city still has fewer people than pre-Katrina, but an incredible 70% more restaurants.

So, last night, we're at Hermes Bar. It's part of Antoine's, so you can order food. They have absolute classic New Orleans cocktails like the sazarac, Ramos gin fizz, and French 75. And on Friday and Saturday they have live jazz. Last night it was drummer Shannon Powell, a master of funky New Orleans rhythms and a bit of a staunch traditionalist.  The bar was fairly full, but not uncomfortably so. There was a table adjacent to ours where a group of 10 people or so were celebrating Christmas. In this group was a woman who was getting more and more tipsy as the evening progressed. Of course, so was I and so was everyone else, but she was one of those enthusiastic drunks. In another context, say, Chicago, I might have called her obnoxious, but here, deep in the heart of New Orleans, she was an inspiration. She was joie de vivre personified. We may have been in Hermes Bar, but she was Aphrodite.

And that's what I mean about me being transformed by New Orleans. There is no dance floor at Hermes, but that didn't stop her. Very soon afterward, it didn't stop us, either. Our new friend kept upping her game, though. At one point she appointed herself the solicitor of Shannon Powell's tip jar, working the crowd to make sure the drummer got paid.  Suddenly, our plan for one set, a bite to eat, a cocktail or two and then off to bed after a long travel day turned into a party, complete with a cheerleader.

Shannon Powell is amazing. Besides jazz, he easily dips into Meters and James Brown style funk, Cuban-tinged rhythms and works the cowbell like crazy on songs like Big Chief. He sings, too, sort of, at least enough to exhort the crowd to merriment. We were easily persuaded, to say the least.

The Saints play tomorrow. I'm pretty sure my NOLA transformation will be kicking into a higher gear. But first: Lunch, more music tonight, and a side of red beans and rice.

Do you know what it means...

Some day, when I'm feeling more confessional, I'll (maybe) share the story of how Hurricane Katrina changed my life. On the face of it, that's an enormously stupid and self-serving statement, considering that in August of 2005 I was enjoying a typical Chicago summer in a comfortable, well constructed home many miles from any natural and/or man made disaster. For now, though, I'll simply state around that time I began to find my voice as a writer, and the horrible blow that New Orleans suffered and the events that followed played a significant role in unearthing it.

New Orleans. The Big Easy. Nawlins. The Crescent City. NOLA.

I'm heading back there in a couple of weeks for my third post-Katrina visit. It is, far and away, my favorite city in North America. It is, without question, the most unique. It doesn't quite feel like the United States. A Dominican friend of mine told me, over a delicious Creole lunch in the French Quarter, that New Orleans reminded him of Santo Domingo. My own point of reference would be to San Juan, Puerto Rico, a place I go to as often as I can. New Orleans has a Caribbean soul.

Some, like jazz musician and favorite son Irvin Mayfield, say that NOLA is the northernmost tip of the Caribbean. Geographically debatable, perhaps, but culturally true. With its mix of French, Spanish and, most importantly, African influences, New Orleans was thoroughly shaped by the slave trade, just like its Caribbean cousins. Cuban rumba, Dominican merengue, Trinidadian calypso, Jamaican reggae, Puerto Rican bomba, Colombian cumbia, New Orleans jazz. They're all a cultural expression of the African diaspora when it arrived in the Americas and mingled with both European practices and indigenous customs. "Same ship, different ports," is how Mayfield describes it. People from New Orleans like to use the culinary term 'gumbo' when describing this mix of cultures. Every distinct ingredient, flavor and texture is crucial to the whole.

I was fortunate to be able to talk with Irvin Mayfield earlier this week because he was bringing the magnificent New Orleans Jazz Orchestra to the Chicago Theatre and a couple of online publications were kind enough to let me write a preview article.

You can read the whole thing here.

The concert was a sprawling, 3 hour tribute to jazz and the two cities that are crucial to its development; New Orleans, where it was born, and Chicago, where it grew up. The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) is no period piece. It doesn't, as a rule, do traditional stuff. Rather, it's a muscular ensemble that navigates the whole history of jazz. The inclusion of not one, but two selections from Duke Ellington underscored the fact that this music had to journey from New Orleans to Chicago before it reached Duke, inspiring one of America's greatest composers. Original compositions dotted the program, including a blistering Cuban-inspired number from Mayfield's days co-leading Los Hombres Calientes, a NOLA band that explicitly traced African music through the Caribbean and Brazil. Trad was not ignored altogether. In fact, it was prominently featured with the help of guests the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, keeping the tradition alive since the early 60s. The R&B side was ably represented as well by the one and only Allen Toussaint, who's been working even longer.

photo by Lynn Orman

There were plenty of props to Chicago, too, with guest appearances by vocalist Kurt Elling, trumpeter Orbert Davis (who leads the ambitious Chicago Jazz Philharmonic) and a host of journeymen who labor farther from the spotlight: bassist Larry Gray, drummer Robert Shy and the amazing 82-years-young pianist Willie Pickens. "I think it's all a scam so we'll treat him with reverence," joked Mayfield from the stage. "I think he's really 42."

Of course, the whole thing ended in a New Orleans second line parade, the band and its guests streaming up and down the Chicago Theatre aisles while hundreds danced joyfully, waving their handkerchiefs in the air.

My flight leaves in two weeks. NOJO holds court in Mayfield's own Jazz Playhouse in the Quarter every Wednesday evening. That's one stop I have to make. Stay tuned.

Más Miguel

I recently had the opportunity to write a preview of Miguel Zenón's upcoming shows at Chicago's venerable Jazz Showcase. Space constraints and the necessity to focus on the Rhythm Collective band that he's bringing here caused me to continually go back and edit out stuff that wasn't relevant to the preview, but that I nonetheless felt compelled to mention. The MacArthur Foundation "genius" has just done so much in such a short time.

I've got room for it here, though.

The Rhythm Collective release Oye!!! Live in Puerto Rico is best viewed as part of a quartet of releases that move back and forth between the music of Zenón's home on the island and the cutting edge creativity of a forward-thinking jazz musician. Jibaro, Esta Plena, Alma Adentro and Oye!!! all, to some degree, place Afro-Caribbean traditions in a jazz context. It's not precisely Latin jazz, as there are no obvious signifiers and absolutely no fallback on standard rhythms and motifs. Instead, Zenón digs deep into the essence of these two African derived musics to get at an essential commonality.

Zenón has been investigating the cultural connection between Latin and North America since his first release, Looking Forward, in 2002. He's employed straight jazz quartets, lush chamber music and traditional percussion in pursuit of his ideas. A string quartet first showed up on 2008's Awake under producer Branford Marsalis' guiding hand. By 2011, Zenón was writing orchestrations for a large wind ensemble to give proper respect to the Puerto Rican Songbook on Alma Adentro. At the same time, he also spends a considerable amount of time (and some of his "genius" money) bringing the music of North American jazz masters like Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk to small Puerto Rican towns through his Caravana Cultura initiative.

photo courtesy New York Times

Even his projects that haven't been recorded are ambitious. When Zenón was in Chicago a few years back showcasing the (at the time) unreleased Alma Adentro, he also played something from another developing project that he called Identities. That multimedia cultural history project debuted the following year under the title Puerto Rico Nació en Mi: Tales From the Diaspora. It attempted to say something about the complexities of cultural identity when you've never even stepped foot in your country of origin. Video interviews with Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. were intertwined with music by both his quartet and a 12 piece big band. This New York Times review describes its premier in 2012. The project has since been retitled (and no doubt refined) Identities are Changeable: Tales From the Diaspora. It will be presented again in NYC this December.

2012 also saw the release of Rayuela, a collaboration with French pianist Laurent Coq based on an acknowledged literary masterpiece by Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar. The experimental novel takes place in Paris and Buenos Aires and is at least partly a meditation on a trans-global life. When Zenón and Coq began their collaboration, it was quickly decided that Zenón, a Latin American, would write music for the Paris chapters, leaving the French pianist to explore Buenos Aires. They chose unusual instrumentation, namely cello, trombone and tablas to fill out the sound. In a way, Rayuela continues Zenón's exploration of multiple identities as it tackles the work of a writer who split his time between French speaking Europe and South America. Enlisting the help of a French musician working in a distinctly American art form adds additional layers of complexity, with echoes of the lives of the many black jazz musicians who flocked to Paris in the 1940s and 50s.

There are many supremely talented musicians working in jazz, but I'm hard pressed to name another that conceptualizes on such a grand scale, that uses his musical gift to continually explore ideas and ask questions that go beyond music to larger subjects.

I'd say the MacArthur Foundation has invested well, wouldn't you?