This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Chris Greene Quartet

Saxophonist Chris Greene is one of those starting pitchers that nibbles around the corners of the plate with change-ups and off-speed pitches, never wasting any and never straying too far from the strike zone.  How that translates to his music is that when he’s working a post-bop sound or a contemporary fusion or adds some rock or pop or hip hop, the music is always keeping close to the heart of jazz.  As a cerebral concept, it’s fun to think about the shortest distance experimentalism needs to actually travel, but it’s far more interesting to focus on the ultimate quality of this approach is very tuneful, seriously enjoyable music.  It’s also helpful to consider that, for the most part, this has been a working quartet for the past decade, and that kind of time invested in the creative visions of one another is going to lead to a seemingly endless supply of interesting conversations between the artists.  That quartet, along with Greene and his saxophones, are Damian Espinosa on piano, Marc Piane on bass and Steve Corley on drums.

Also worth noting that the local jazz scene doesn’t end at the Chicago borders.  The CGQ calls the town of Evanston home turf, so don’t think you have to turn south at Howard Street to go looking for some good music.

The Chris Greene Quartet are performing Saturday Sept. 3rd at 2:20pm at the Von Freeman Pavilion.

Here’s an album track from the Chris Greene Quartet’s 2014 Music Appreciation.  It’s a very cool rendition of Wayne Shorter’s “Deluge.”  It honors the original while carving out some territory of the quartet’s own…

Read more about the artist and the upcoming performance on the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

And go listen to more of the Chris Green Quartet’s music on their Bandcamp page.

Also, be sure to check out the right side of your screen.  We’re featuring a free download of a Chris Greene Quartet performance at Chicago’s very own Mayne Stage.

Here’s a nifty video of the Chris Greene Quartet performing the song “Future Emperor of Evanston” live, in studio, on WLUW 88.7…

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The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site

This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Pharez Whitted Quintet

Trumpeter Pharez Whitted finds a middle ground between past and present.  His 2012 release For the People had the echoes of hard bop crossing paths in opposite directions with post-bop flurries, while his 2014 release The Tree of Life had some modern soul and some old-school funk a la the CTI jazz era.  The thing that binds them up nicely is Whitted’s delivery with his long, slow exhalations of melody.  Even during the higher tempos, Whitted holds the melody in place, up for everyone to see, before rejoining the charge ahead.  It’s an appealing characteristic, and leads to some pretty thrilling moments.  Whitted has Chicago ties that go back to CSU and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble and now with the CYSO.  His 2012 release For the People was stocked with Chicago personnel like guitarist Bobby Broom, yet further evidence that Whitted’s roots are buried deep in the Festival home turf.  For the 2016 Fest, Whitted is performing with saxophonist Edwin Bayard, bassist Jon Wood, drummer Greg Artry and pianist Lovell Bradford.

The Pharez Whitted Quintet is performing Friday, Sept. 2nd at 3:30pm at the Jazz & Heritage Pavilion.

Here’s an album track from his 2014 release The Tree of Life…

Read more about the artist and the upcoming show at the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

Here’s a nifty video of Pharez Whitted performing live at Chicago’s own, Andy’s Jazz Club…

*****

The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site

This Is Jazz Today: A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

Ghost Train Orchestra

There’s a spellbinding quality to the 2015 release Hot Town from the Ghost Train Orchestra that grows stronger with successive listens.  Brian Carpenter‘s arrangements of hot jazz compositions from Roaring Twenties Chicago and Harlem is warm sunshine given sonic form.  The up-tempo nature of Hot Town, even at the peak of its velocity, possesses the casual ease of a Summer day in the shade.  And it’s that friendly handshake of easy-going enthusiasm and abounding good cheer that makes return visits ever more compulsory.

Baritone and bass saxophones are as light on their feet as banjos, clarinets and drums.  The de facto triangulation of tuba, viola and banjo create appealing contrasts of tone as accompaniment to an otherwise straight-ahead traditional sound.  Some vocals maintain the album’s galloping cadence and lazy river ambiance without stifling the vocalist’s emerging presence.

It’s pretty hard not to fall for this album once you’ve accepted its invitation.  In a live setting, the effect is likely to be amplified.  This is old-school jazz for those who don’t require an updated sound or modern techniques for their daily jazz fix.  The new-school fans, too, are gonna feel plenty at home with this music, because really, the echoes of jazz past reverberate through much of the music of the modern scene, no matter how tenuous its connection may seem at first blush.  But it’s how someone like myself who is as immersed in the modern jazz scene as anybody can still become immediately transfixed when a McCoy Tyner or a Red Garland or a Charlie Christian recording pops up in the digital shuffle.  That sense of time travel along the jazz lineage, of joyful sound the result of the collision of past and present, it’s as compelling as anything gets.

They’re scheduled to perform at 3:30pm on Friday, September 2nd in the Von Freeman Pavilion.

According to the schedule, it appears the Orchestra will consist of most all of the album’s personnel, minus a string or two and the guest musicians (sorry, Colin Stetson fans, but he’s off touring with Sarah Neufeld these days).

Your album (and mostly your CJF) personnel: Brian Carpenter (trumpet, harmonica, arrangements), Dennis Lichtman (clarinet), Andy Laster (alto & baritone saxophones), Petr Cancura (tenor & alto saxes, clarinet), Curtis Hasselbring (trombone), Mazz Swift (violin, vocals), Jordan Voelker (viola, musical saw), Cynthia Sayer (plectrum banjo), Ron Caswell (tuba), Rob Garcia (drums) and guests: Colin Stetson (bass sax) and Andrew Stern (tenor banjo).

Read more about the band and their upcoming performance on the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

And here’s a nifty video of the GTO performing live…

*****

The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site

This Is Jazz Today:  A 2016 Chicago Jazz Festival preview, in sound & vision.

James Sanders Proyecto Libre

Some of the previews you’ll read around the internet about this group will immediately highlight how James Sanders, as a jazz violinist, fits into the pantheon of predecessors on that instrument.  A few might mention some current names of the scene, too.  That’s all well and good, nothing wrong with that, but the lifeblood of this music, and its interest to you as a festival goer, is how Sanders’ ensemble meshes a Latin Jazz sound and a classic free jazz form of expression.  I hear this music and the first thing that comes to mind is how saxophonist Gato Barbieri launched into a similar synthesis of sound on his 1967 ESP’ Disc recording In Search of the Mystery.  This is where the inviting cadence and percussion of Latin Jazz attains a magical synchronicity with musicians who seem perpetually in conflict with the concept of form and structure… and yet it grooves and it flows and it’s wild and untamed and it’ll either freeze you in your seat in astonishment or it’ll compel you jump up from your seat and shout… maybe both, probably.

The show is happening at 12 noon on Friday, September 2nd in the Von Freeman Pavilion.

Listed as performing with Sanders are bassists Harrison Bankhead and Joshua Abrams, drummer Avreeayl Ra and percussionist Jean-Christophe Leroy.  You can’t go wrong with any of those musicians on stage.  Note:  A traumatic event has Avreeayl Ra in recovery and may not be performing at the festival.  If you’d like to donate to his cause, here’s a link to a Gofundme page.

Here’s a couple live tracks from a 2015 performance at Lewis Achenbach’s Jazz Occurrence…

Read more about this band and this upcoming show on the Chicago Jazz Festival site.

And here’s a cool short video of what it all looks like…

*****

The 38th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is taking place in (and around) Chicago’s Millennium Park, Wednesday August 31st – Sunday September 4th.

Read more about why you should be a part of the audience by visiting the official Chicago Jazz Festival site

Go to Site