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IMN Artists Top Chicago's Best Jazz Shows of 2011
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Tuesday December 20, 2011
From The Chicago Tribune
The best jazz shows of 2011
By: Howard Reich
The year was rich in great jazz performances in Chicago.
These were the best:
Ken Vandermark and Jason Moran, Green Mill Jazz Club, Feb. 5. Two major figures in new music – each a winner of a MacArthur Fellowship, or “genius grant” – met on the cramped stage of the Green Mill, joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and drummer Nasheet Waits. Never before had these four musicians performed together, and their set encountered some rough spots and incoherent moments. But it also held passages of tremendous daring and experimentation, Moran venturing more deeply into free-form improvisation than I’d ever heard from him in concert, while Vandermark alternated howling saxophone lines with passages of whispered tenderness recalling an earlier era in jazz tenordom.
McCoy Tyner, South Shore Cultural Center, Aug. 7. At 72, the leonine pianist didn’t make the instrument shudder as he did earlier in his career. But, at its best, his set still produced more sound and fury, more brilliant colors and bursts of dissonance, than most of his peers could match. The questing spirit of Tyner’s solos attested to his famous collaborations with John Coltrane, while the thick layering of sounds – with thundering octaves in both hands and swirls of harmony in between – transformed 88 keys into something close to a jazz orchestra. Alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, bassist Gerald Cannon and drummer Francisco Mela kept pace, but it couldn’t have been easy.
Esperanza Spalding, Symphony Center, Oct. 7. Playing to a capacity house, bassist-vocalist-bandleader Spalding made clear once again why she’s a dynamic new force in jazz. Somehow, Spalding was able to present complex, sophisticated musical ideas in ways that were accessible and appealing to the mass audience she attracts. Traveling easily among jazz, classical and pop-tinged idioms, the bassist forged an ensemble sound at once melodically appealing and harmonically complex. If she can maintain her high musical standards amid all the attention that has been trained on her since she won the best new artist Grammy Award in February (no easy task), she could bring new audiences to jazz.
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| Remember Fela | 4:24 | Gangbé Brass Band |
| The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore | 4:13 | Kathy Mattea |
| I Was Young When I Left Home | 5:31 | Jenny Scheinman |
| One Man's Idea | Avishai Cohen | |
| Sweet Thames Flow Softly | 5:21 | Cherish The Ladies |
| I'm a Soldier | 1:33 | John Scofield |
| Ca Jé | 3:49 | Caetano Veloso |
Watch what's on
| Freedom Dance | Dianne Reeves |
| Black Gold | Esperanza Spalding |
| Altan with the RTE Concert Orchestra | Altan Symphony |
| Techari Live | Ojos De Brujo |
| Sound Prints Short EPK | Sound Prints |
| Mr. PC with John Scofield | McCoy Tyner |
| La Memoria | Depedro |
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