"We're doing everything we can to eliminate jazz from American culture," a promoter for Live Nation Artists , the world's dominant pop music production and marketing firm "joked" to Florida councilmen considering a proposed upcoming music festival. Jazz responds with a can't-be-bothered shrug. Too hip to be rattled by ignorant, idle, defensive -- and of course, revealing - threats, the greatest living musicians are basking in hard-earned recognition and producing inspiringly energized, not necessarily mellow music. Undeterred by Live Nation-like commercial disdain, jazz festivals are thriving throughout North America under nominally non-profit organizations run by a coterie of canny impresarios.  read more »

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 listeners of all ages, genders, races, religions -- Americans and visitors from abroad, too -- enjoyed the directly expressive, highly personalized music of Pulitzer Prize-winner Ornette Coleman as the finale of the outdoor Chicago Jazz Festival last Sunday night. The attentive, mellow and celebratory audience response, including a standing ovation throughout the 5000 seats nearest the bandshell in Grant Park, suggested that improvisation created without a priori conventions or artificial constraints, which Coleman throughout his remarkable career has alluded to as " free jazz ," "harmolodics" and " sound grammar ," upon easy access and unpressured exposure, is as natural as breathing, feeling and talking.  read more »

Presentations of jazz that break all sorts of bounds, pushing far beyond stale conventions -- jazz beyond jazz -- are so prevalent in Manhattan that the energy expended just being on the scene can leave me too drained to report on the good stuff. Five shows in the past month -- Dee Dee Bridgewater's Mali projec t at the Blue Note, Myra Melford 's new quartet at Roulette, Richard Bona and Lionel Loueke in the Allen Room of Jazz at Lincoln Center, James " Blood" Ulmer with Vernon Reid's neo-blues band at the Jazz Standard and an evening celebrating the AACM chronicle and music of George E.  read more »

Free jazz fests across the U.S. mark summer's glorious end. Manhattan's Charlie Parker festival (held Saturday Aug. 23 and Sunday 24 in Marcus Garvey park uptown and Tompkins Square Park downtown), the Chicago Jazz Festival (which formally starts Thursday Aug 28 with Sonny Rollins at downtown Grant Park's Petrillo bandshell) and the Detroit International Jazz Festival (celebrating Detroit-Philadelphia music connections, Aug 29 - Sept. 1 on multiple stages along the river at Hart Plaza and down the street at Campus Martius Park) and smaller events such as the Fox Jazz Festival in Menasha, Wisconsin have become traditions.  read more »

The best thing about the Chicago Jazz Festival is that it's curated by an independent committee of people (mostly from the Jazz Institute of Chicago) who really love music, rather than being overly influenced by promoters, booking agents and managers representing a few big name artists who are trying to fill blank dates during their big tours. Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater's first-time ever tribute to the late Betty Carter, her mentor, electrified the crowd at Grant Park Friday night -- after drummer Thurman Barker led a brilliant set by stalwarts from Chicago's avant garde-leaning Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and trombonist Julian Priester soloed throughout original repertoire written by local trombonist T.S.  read more »

Talk about a legendary career: Chicago saxophonist and clarintest Franz Jackson , who died at age 95 on May 6, spanned American vernacular music from the Roaring '20s to the postmodern present. He began as a 16-year-old professional with stride and boogie woogie pianist Albert Ammons , starred as a featured soloist in the the hottest Depression Era big bands, entertained WWII troops under USO auspices, popularized Midwestern neo-traditional "jass" in the '50s and '60s and kept playin' in essentially uncategorical situations up until a couple of weeks of his demise. Among Jackson's recent high visibility gigs were his turn at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival of 2007, and also last year's "Tribute to Fletcher Henderson" commissioned by the Jazz Institute of Chicago for the Great Black Music Ensemble, performed at the Frank Gehry bandshell in Millenium Park, where he sat amid creative musicians less than half his age, not revisiting the past but rather carrying it forward.  read more »

Grant Park; Thu 28-Sun 31

When jazz fans scan this year's lineup, two names will jump off the page: Sonny and Ornette. Sonny Rollins (Pritzker Pavilion), who kicks off the fest Thursday night, may be the exemplar of bebop's thorny relationship to its past. At 78, Rollins remains a mercurial and thrilling live performer, refusing to fit his unpredictable solos into the neat box jazz historians have assigned him. (Aging jazz musicians, take note.) And Ornette Coleman (Petrillo Music Shell)? Ditto what Ken Vandermark said...

The Chicago Jazz Festival is coming and it’s coming up fast. This is a good thing, even if you are disappointed that it also means the end of summer is fast approaching. It’s a great thing if you happen to be a fan of jazz music. It’s an opportunity to see more jazz than you could even imagine. The entire city is a jazz metropolis during the weekend of the festival and the various jazz clubs go all-out for the people in fromt out of town.  read more »

The Chicago Jazz Festival will be here before you know it and you should start making plans now. The Jazz Festival has grown steadily for years and while it is still the smaller and younger brother of the Chicago Blues Festival, it is starting to gain in popularity. It is starting to attract [...]

The month of August is nearly upon us. This means the summer, as far as schools and the cit of Chicago is concerned, is amost over. Chicago always has a festival season that starts with the Chicago Blues Festival and then it ends with the Chicago Jazz Festival. The Festival is nearly [...]