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.

Goin' "globo"

One of the pleasures of living in Chicago is that it is also home to jazz trumpeter Orbert Davis. I'm not sure when we met, but if you are paying close attention to music in Chicago, he's a hard guy to avoid. He is, of course, a musician of amazing dexterity and taste, but he's also an ambitious conceptualist and visionary, unafraid to pursue daunting projects, not the least of which was the founding of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in 2004.

Meanwhile, Chicago is likewise the home (and by home I mean I'm pretty sure that's where he sleeps at night) of Howard Levy. A virtuoso harmonica player, he's also a terrific pianist. I know him mostly as music director of Chévere de Chicago, a Latin jazz supergroup if there ever was one, but the rest of the world might know him better as a founding member of Bela Fleck & the Flecktones.

A year doesn't go by when I don't encounter one of these guys in performance. Chévere killed at the Chicago Jazz Festival last year, and the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic's 2013 collaboration with River North Dance Chicago, Havana Blue, was simply one of the best concerts I experienced that year.

It's about time these two got together.

One of Levy's ongoing projects is the world music ensemble Trio Globo. He's not the 'leader' per se, but an equal partner with drummer/percussionist Glen Velez and cellist Eugene Friesen. Over the course of three albums, they've explored a a rich mix of Eastern European folkloric music, American bluegrass, Latin rhythms and, of course, jazz. This weekend, Trio Globo will be the guests of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble for a pair of performances.

Writing for strings in an improvisational context means that you need to capture the swing of jazz, even when the musicians are playing notes on paper. Fortunately, Orbert Davis has already shown some pretty heavy chops in this area through the many ambitious projects tackled by the CJP. And despite the presence of piano and harmonica, Trio Globo's acoustic sound often brings to mind a rural front porch jam session. The fiddles just seem to be there, even if they are not.

If Trio Globo has attempted this sort of thing before, I'm unaware of it. Davis, meanwhile, seems to have no end to his curiosity at trying new challenges. New projects are, of course, fraught with risk. Lucky for us that there seems to be something in the water here in Chicago from which artists can drink, get a little tipsy, and think "Why the heck not?"

Only in Chicago

Only in Chicago. As a declaration, I realize that's likely not true. I know there are other cities around the globe where immigrants and the descendents of immigrants make up the bulk of the population. And while it is often said that Chicago is the most segregated city in the United States, I find that in the circles in which I move, that is not quite the case.

One of those weekends is coming up that remind me that I indeed live in a startlingly diverse city, even if the communities in which any given population resides tend to lean one way or the other. In a way, that's good. My life is enriched by the fact that I can spend time in neighborhoods that are heavily Mexican, African-American, Indian, Puerto Rican or Polish, knowing that they will be filled with businesses that cater to local residents and bring delight to me. Or, I can go to Albany Park, where the Middle Eastern, Central American and Korean storefronts are lined up one after another.

Ethnic enclaves are a treasure. It is only when economics and politics force people into one setting and discourage movement to another that it becomes problematic. That sort of thing brews distrust and fear and has a way of insuring that undeserved communities remain that way. But I digress. Sometimes I sit down to write one thing, and another emerges. I'll get back on point now.

I'll be running around a lot this weekend in a way that makes me glad I live in Chicago.

Tonight, a band I first heard at a street festival in my neighborhood less than two years ago celebrates the release of their first single and full length CD with a show at Martyrs' in the North Center neighborhood. Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orchestra started out as a electric cumbia band, modelling their sound and attitude around chicha, a variant of the Colombian music once it reached Peru in the 1970s and adapted by an indigenous urbanized population. That sound is still at the heart of the band, but it has taken a trip around the rest of Latin America as well, not surprising when you consider that its members hail from Texas (yes, I'm calling Texas Latin America - more on that later), Mexico, Panama and Puerto Rico. Each of them is something of a folkloric specialist in their respective traditions, but together they are a hard charging rock band with a fat, danceable groove. In something of an odd twist, they have invited a popular mambo orchestra to open for them. If I have the story right, the uncle of Dos Santos' Puerto Rican conga player is a trombone player in the mambo group. All in the family. It will be a long night. I'll wear comfortable shoes.

Tomorrow night, though, is when I'll really get a workout.

First I'll be running out to the Hermosa neighborhood where the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center (I've written about SRBCC before - you can check that here.) is presenting a big band tribute to perhaps the greatest of all Puerto Rican songwriters, Rafael Hernández, who passed away in 1965.  Humboldt Park born Puerto Rican bandleader Edwin Sánchez has put together a 14 piece orchestra of crack Chicago musicians to handle these classic songs. That's only half of it. The center is bringing in the son of Rafael Hernández, Alejandro "Chali" Hernández, to sing his father's songs. In the process, two, perhaps even three generations of Puerto Ricans, island and mainland born, will come together for one historic event. Tradition and cultural identity handed down, from generation to generation.

That, however, is not the last historic musical event of the night, nor is it the only one with strong cultural significance. I'll end my night in Lincoln Square at the Old Town School of Folk Music where two of Chicago's prominent ethnic communities, the Irish and the Mexicans, come together for something of a musical history lesson. The Mexican folkloric group Sones de México and the Irish Music School of Chicago will tell the story of the St. Patrick's Battalion (Los San Patricios). The battalion was a group of largely Irish immigrants who, stung by discrimination, found themselves sympathizing and then siding with Mexico during what we call the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. Mexicans view it differently and call it the unjust invasion of Mexico by North America. It was a land grab, plain and simple, and Mexico lost. As a result, most of California, all of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and much of Texas became the United States, and Mexico became much smaller.

There I go digressing again.

Anyway, the St. Patrick's Battalion fought bravely but lost, and many of them were hanged as deserters.  The concert, then, will combine Mexican son and Irish jigs to tell their story. There will be songs both lively and lamenting. There will be dancing from both a Mexican dance company and Irish dancers. It's all not as incongruent as it sounds. Both traditions utilize 6/8 time, fiddles, harps, accordions and toe tapping. Both are handed down generation to generation, lest they be lost. And both are, at heart, ballad forms that tell stories. This will be quite a story. Chances are if you grew up in the U.S. you know nothing about this, but in Mexico Los San Patricios are heroes.

I'm not saying Chicago is the only place this can happen. But we uniquely situated in the middle of the country, and wave after wave of immigrants (including my grandparents) have been arriving and building lives here since before the city was incorporated.

¡Todos somos inmigrantes!

A time, a scene, an identity

Sometimes, things converge on me in a small frame of time that make light bulbs switch on, illuminating the continuity of culture through time. In this case, it was a combination of becoming aware of an emerging scene in Cali, Colombia and my finally getting around to downloading a collection of songs from 1960s New York. Let me explain.

I had something in my 'save for later' bin for years. It's a collection called Nu Yorica Roots: The Rise of Latin Music in New York City in the 1960s. It just sort of sat there tempting me, but never quite enough, as I already had a handful of the songs elsewhere in my library.  Money's always tight, right? I finally broke down about a month ago, and boy am I glad I did.

Taken together, the songs form an amazing document of a critical time in the history of Latin music. It was a scene caught between the fading popularity of the mambo and the coalescence of a thing that would come to be called salsa. Young New York born musicians who would later become salsa and Latin jazz legends, like Eddie Palmieri and Ray Baretto, were overlapping with those who arrived from the islands: Arsenio Rodriguez, Machito, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Rodriguez and others. The hip sound of the time was Latin Boogaloo, so the younger generation, kids who had grown up in the barrio absorbing the music of white rockers and black R&B bands along with the stuff their elders played, were finding their way through all of it.

The collection almost sounds schizophrenic at first. There are very rock-like distorted electric guitars on Eddie Palmieri's My Spiritual Indian and soulful English vocals and funky vamping on Ray Baretto's Together, where his plea for racial harmony is embodied in his very identity: "I know a beautiful truth.. I'm black and I'm white and I'm red.. the blood of mankind flows in me." There are oddities like future Fania All-Stars leader and arranger Larry Harlow's Horsin' Up, which is practically a note for note Latinized version of Archie Bell & the Drells Tighten Up, apparently meant to cash in a dance craze called The Horse. The hits are there too: Joe Cuba's El Pito and Tito Puente's Oye Como Va, plus some invigorating Latin jazz from Sabu Martinez and a Beatles cover by Harvey Averne, another future Fania arranger/producer.

By 1972 it was being codified and labeled into salsa, initially just a marketing umbrella but soon a cultural touchstone and phenomenon. In the 60s, though, it was people with Caribbean roots trying to find their voice in a new, urbanized environment and in the process creating a scene.

A few days after I downloaded Nu Yorica, I read an item on Remezcla.com about a another scene in Cali, Colombia called Salsa Choke. Odd, I thought, until I realized I was reading it in English, and that it's pronounced cho-kay. It's grown out of a style of line dancing known as choque, and if you watched the World Cup last summer, you saw it being danced by the Colombian national team after they scored a goal. Forty-plus years after they started calling Afro-Latin popular music salsa, the term is being revived by the youth of Cali to describe their new style of dance music (right now it mostly seems to be a DJ and singer kind of thing) that pulls from various Afro-Pacific traditions plus a fair amount of dancehall, reggaeton, cumbia and salsa, all of it filtered through a internationalist hip-hop lens. Accompanying the article was a download link for a free compilation, Latino Resiste Presents Salsa Choke. As I write this the link is still live, so you might want to jump on it.

I cannot get this compilation out of my iPod heavy rotation. It's that addictive. As far as I can tell, the percussion is live, but most of the instruments sound sampled from other sources. But, oh, what sources they are! One of my favorite tracks, Wiki Wiki, samples heavily from Missy Elliot's Get Ur Freak On, which if I'm not mistaken benefited itself from Timbaland's inventive sampling of Middle Eastern sounds. Imagine the guitar line from Dr. Dre's Next Episode, but with the straightforward snap of the snare drum replaced with the sinuous push-pull of güiro, cowbell and conga and accompanied by rapid-fire Jamaican-style toasting, and you start to get the idea. Such is the way the musical world turns in the 21st Century.

Every track is suffused with the humidity of a packed Cali dance floor, and in the process of this all night party, the youth of Cali are staking out their own scene and identity that has ties to the past and the rest of the world but one that is, for now, theirs alone. These kids are very respectful of their musical heritage, but aren't afraid to mix it up and make it their own.

Latino New York City of the 1960s and the Cali of today couldn't be more different, yet the music emerging from both is inexorably tied together. Both draw from the African Diaspora, not only Caribbean sources but African-American as well.

The two compilations sound great back to back. Next I'm going to try them on shuffle.

Reclaiming MLK

If you've read this blog before, you know that I do some freelance writing for the Chicago Sinfonietta. Every year for at least the last decade and regularly before that, the orchestra has programmed their January concert as a celebration of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It's not a random choice, nor is it merely a commercial calculation. Rather, the impetus for the concert springs from the organization's very DNA, as its founder, conductor Paul Freeman, was a black man and an acquaintance of Dr. King, in whose legacy lies the inspiration behind the orchestra's formation and its continuing advocacy of classical music opportunities for young musicians and composers who are not white.

I've attended a lot of these, and inspirational as they can be, they do tend to follow something of a blueprint. There were even a couple that had the whiff of complacency about them, self-congratulatory affairs that seemed to trot out Dr. King's memory as a plot device, awash in the glow of elevated humanity. Look how far we've come!

The Chicago Sinfonietta did something different last night, something that these grim times demanded, something that acknowledged that things are still pretty messed up in 21st Century America.

Classical music seasons are planned over a year in advance, and if you look at the current Sinfonietta season brochure, printed last spring, you will see Young Chicago Authors mentioned as narrators of Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait. You will see Sujari Britt, a remarkably poised and insanely talented cellist who happens to be a 13 year old black girl.  You will note the name of 15 year old Jherrard Hardeman, a composer whose Symphony No. 3 (!) was being presented for the first time by a professional orchestra. You'll read that an actor will recite some lines from Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech and that a high school choir would sing. Finally, you'll see the treacly copy, "This annual crowd-pleaser celebrates the future with the boundless optimism of today's youth."  Ouch.

Then 2014 happened, the deaths of two black men (one a boy, really) at the hands of the authorities and the further indignity of those same authorities getting off scott free, cleared of guilt without even the benefit of a trial. And then the protests and, yes, riots. And then the Fox News led backlash, the blaming of the victims.

Somewhere in the administrative offices of the Chicago Sinfonietta, it occurred to somebody that optimism was at a premium and that a "crowd-pleaser", blind to the turmoil, might not entirely be the right way to go. A celebratory MLK remembrance in times when there is very little to celebrate was not what was needed.

So, yes, all the feel good stuff was still there, but the context was changed dramatically by letting the Young Chicago Authors write and read their own stories reflecting on MLK and what it's like to be young and black in America.

"I had a nightmare that the past was present

Rope became gun

Whip became chokehold

Gasping for air in the bowels of European ships

Became completely breathless

Emmit Till became Michael, I mean Trayvon, I mean Jordan, I mean Eric

I mean more names that I can say

I mean more corpses than I can count"

Those are the words of Moriah Dowd, one of four young poets who contributed to I Have a Dream (Remix). It doesn't stop there. Poet after poet stepped to the mic, expressing anguish and frustration, but also anger and determination. And, in the midst of it all, some fleeting sense of hope, tempered by harsh reality. Another piece, What Would MLK Say?, lays bare the way the powerful absolve themselves of responsibility and deny their complicity; "They use his name as their saving grace, their golden umbrella, As if they are guilt free. They try to make me the guilty one... as if it's our fault we are dying."

The rest of the tribute concert was predictably inspiring, perhaps all the more so in the context of Young Chicago Authors' reality check. Sujari Britt was brilliant. Jherrard Hardeman, who guest conducted his own piece, was poised and confident, his composition marrying the elegiac quality of Barber's Adagio to the rhythmic minimalist pulse of John Adams. Actor Wayne K. Woods portrayal of Dr. King was note perfect, even as he highlighted the not-so-hidden militancy of parts of the speech we don't often hear. Lincoln Portrait was inspirational as the Young Chicago Authors read the 150 year old words of the 16th president. The Waubonsie Valley High School Mosaic Choir was a marvelous thing to behold, singing freedom songs of Nelson Mandela alongside contemporary gospel, the shining of their young faces matching the power of their voices.

The concert closed in its traditional fashion with everyone, audience included, joining hands to sing the Civil Rights era anthem We Shall Overcome. I'll admit right here that this has never been my favorite part of the concert. I viewed it as a nostalgic remnant of an earlier time, a play to older members of the audience who lived it. That all changed last night. The "Civil Rights Era" is hardly over. Hell, it's hardly begun, and if we don't overcome someday, well, we are all screwed for sure.

I wrote the program notes for this concert back in December, when the turmoil of Ferguson and Staten Island were still headline news, and I hoped at that time I would accurately predict the spirit of the concert. I've had a few people tell me the notes were spot on, so if you'd like to read them drop me a line and I'll send them to you. Young Chicago Authors also made the complete text of last night's poems available to the audience. Words on paper are different than voices crying out, but they are well worth reading on their own, so if you contact the Sinfonietta or YCA I'm reasonably sure they could send them to you.

www.chicagosinfonietta.org

www.youngchicagoauthors.org

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.

 

 

 

My summer with Sones de México, or why I love Chicago

Chicago, as a major U.S. city, has always been a destination for immigrants. My grandparents on both sides arrived here from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century and settled on the south side. Chicago was an industrial powerhouse in those days, producing steel from the mills and meat from the Stock Yards in equal measure. Industry meant jobs, and jobs (then and now) often mean immigrants in search of a better life. My grandparents were preceded by the Germans and Irish, and followed by Mexicans and African-Americans (not strictly immigrants, but the American south with its Jim Crow laws could have been another country).

All of them faced hardships and discrimination upon their arrival, but hung in just the same, over time transforming the city into the multicultural place it is today. Those prejudices, sadly, haven't gone away, especially in the case of those easily identifiable by facial features and skin color. Segregation and poverty remain deep scars in our psychic and physical landscapes. Chicago is nobody's idea of paradise, but its blue collar working class culture still holds out a promise, not always fulfilled, that if you come here and you work hard, you can change your life for the better.

photo: Todd Winters

The members of Sones de México Ensemble all arrived in the early 1990s, as Pilsen, a near south side community with Czech roots that was my grandparent's starting place here, was transforming itself into the cultural and artistic heart of Chicago's Mexican-American community. I've followed the group off and on for years and became personally acquainted with some of its members. Twelve weeks ago, an e-mail arrived out of the blue asking if I'd be willing to assist them with the marketing of an upcoming concert. One of the members was aware that I was struggling a bit financially and knew of my work at the Chicago Sinfonietta, who had done a few collaborations with Sones over the years. I thought about it for about 2 seconds before saying yes.

And so it was that a part-time job quickly turned into an all-consuming endeavor and, as it turns out, one of the most satisfying projects of my professional life. More importantly, though, it was a profoundly moving experience that unexpectedly connected me to my own culture.

The concert was their 20th Anniversary Celebration, and it took place in what is perhaps the loveliest performance facility on the planet, Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavilion. Pritzker is beautiful to be sure, but it's also somewhat intimidating in its vastness, holding upwards of 12,000 people. Believe me, I've been to plenty of concerts there when a mere 3,000 or so show up and it can feel like a ghost town. So that was the challenge - go from zero awareness to a crowd of at least 6 or 7,000 in 11 weeks.

As a city owned venue, Pritzker Pavilion exists as a public service, presenting almost all of it's shows for free. It has been showcasing "world music" since it opened in 2004, mostly because of the efforts of the city's former Cultural Affairs program director. Heck, one of its first ever shows (after the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of course) was an ad-hoc ensemble dubbed the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra made up of, yes, the city's finest ethnic musicians from its many communities. Those concerts are mostly gone now, and I miss the way the ethnic group represented on stage would show up en masse, joined by world music aficionados like myself, all of us in joyful communion for a couple of hours.

I won't bore you with details of my job but I will say this: Once we got rolling, the support and enthusiasm from the Latino community was a wonder to behold. In the hostile environment of 2014 America, where immigrants are scorned and children are deported back to their murderous homelands,  the prospect of a proudly Mexican-American music ensemble performing downtown on the city's most beautiful showcase (and a tourist magnet to boot) ignited a joy and anticipation that was nearly unquenchable.

photo: Scott Pollard

Some of you may know that I'm a freelance writer specializing in music coverage, and one of the pleasures of that endeavor is researching the artist that I'm writing about to better understand the context of their music. I do the same for my marketing clients. If I know what motivates them, then I can better tell their story. I began my Sones de México work with a series of long interviews with Juan Díes, one of their founders. One of the things I quickly learned was that Chicago was very much chosen on purpose as the place to start the group, not only because of the flourishing Mexican arts community, but also because of Chicago's broader identity as a city built by hard working immigrants. They were soon collaborating with Irish folk, blues, jazz and classical musicians to explore commonalities among cultures.

Unlike my father, I have been lucky to never spend a day on a factory floor or driving a bus. Despite this, though, I proudly self-identify as both blue collar and immigrant. When I taste Mexican food, I'm also tasting the Czech food of my childhood, and my parent's childhood, and their parents before them. When I go back to my old southwest side neighborhood and see that it's mostly Latino, it feels like it hasn't changed at all, still filled with immigrants and the children of immigrants, working hard to build a decent life.

Photo: Omar Torres-Kortright

As Sones de México was nearing the end of their astounding concert before an equally astounding crowd of 10,000 people, mostly Mexican but with a good chunk of other nationalities as well, they played a song I knew they were going to play because I had the set list. That knowledge, however, in no way prepared me for the wave of emotion I was about to feel. Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land has sometimes been called America's second national anthem, and I personally prefer it to the frankly militaristic Star Spangled Banner. "This land is your land..." Juan Díes said in English, pointing to the crowd, "... this land is my land", touching his chest. "Esta tierra es tuya." And then, "Para

todos los inmigrantes", for all the immigrants. And with that, they launched into their rollicking norteño arrangement of this beautiful song. Norteños are polkas, really, the musical result of Czech and German immigrants settling in Mexico and Texas 150 years ago, meeting both the indigenous people and the Spanish immigrants who arrived before them, sharing what they knew, sharing something that I knew from all those Bohemian weddings I attended when my cousins got married.

Photo: Dayna Calderon

For all the immigrants, indeed.