Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Millennium Park/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Top 5 Classical Concerts
Riccardo Muti Inaugural Concert at Millennium Park, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Berlioz Episode in the Life of an Artist, Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Beethoven Festival, Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Boulez@85, MusicNOW
Bach Christmas Oratorio, Jane Glover and Music of the Baroque Orchestra and Chorus
—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Albums
Esperanza Spalding, “Chamber Music Society” (Telarc)
Stanley Clarke, “The Stanley Clarke Band” (Heads Up)
Os Paralamas do Sucesso, “Brasil Afora” (EMI Latin)
Alex Cuba, “Alex Cuba”
Sheryl Crow, “100 Miles from Memphis”
—Ernest Barteldes

Top 5 Albums
The National, “High Violet” (4AD)
Sun Kil Moon, “Admiral Fell Promises” (Caldo Verde)
Frightened Rabbit, “The Winter of Mixed Drinks” (Fat Cat)
Twin Shadow, “Forget” (Red General Catalog)
Vampire Weekend, “Contra” (XL)
—Tom Lynch

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By Dennis Polkow

Anonymous 4, “The Cherry Tree” (Harmonia Mundi)
The all-female early music vocal quartet known as Anonymous 4 has recorded a number of Christmas albums over the years, and can even be heard all over the soundtrack of “The Nativity Story” where their ethereal approach to music making is an integral part of the fabric of that sacred tapestry. What is distinctive about “The Cherry Tree” is that it focuses on songs, carols and ballads of the Anglo-American tradition, which means that they are by and large in English, if old English, and therefore what is being said is immediately discernable thanks to the group’s extraordinary ensembling and diction. “The Cherry Tree” itself is heard in an Appalachian setting and poignantly tells the story of a jealous Joseph who, when his pregnant wife asks him to pick some cherries for her on their way to Bethlehem, tells her to ask the father of the child to do so.

Jimi Hendrix, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” (Sony Legacy)
In late 1969, Hendrix, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles prepared for what became a legendary series of concerts at New York’s Fillmore East during the holidays. Wanting to do for Christmas carols what he had done with patriotic music during Woodstock five months earlier, Hendrix put together a medley of “Little Drummer Boy,” “Silent Night” and “Auld Lang Syne” that gave a new benchmark for outrageous Christmas music at the time. The released version is here, along with an extended version as a bonus track and Hendrix’ unique take on “Three Little Bears” recorded in 1968 during the “Electric Ladyland” sessions where things break down in the middle. Read the rest of this entry »

Velcro Lewis Group playing in the Couch House Sounds coach house

By David Wicik

It wasn’t long ago that Chicago was not such a friendly place for DIY music culture. Local bands without a large enough following to put them on the national register were regularly turned away from venues, making it difficult for any local music culture to coalesce. In an interview for NPR’s music blog, Todd Novak of Chicago garage-scuzz label HoZac Records commented on the city’s tepid music market, referring to it as a “moderate point compared to the momentum that was churning at the beginning of the 2000s.” People could talk about an LA sound, or a Baltimore sound, but nobody knew anything about what Chicago “sounded” like, nor did they seem to care.

Luckily this is a situation that seems to be turning around fast. The DIY scene has experienced a renaissance over the past two years, and not only because of the insurgence of unlicensed DIY venues. Another crucial, and often overlooked factor contributing to the recent viral growth of music culture in the city are the blogs and other online media organizations that chronicle, update, review and generally expose unrecognized local artists.

Few are as familiar with the important role that bloggers play in the promotion of local music culture as Rebecca Lopez, who regularly works with a variety of Chicago blogs in her capacity as director of Betta Promotions. That’s why she recently decided to gather a clutch of her favorite local blogs to collectively host “Beats and Blogs,” a concert that would serve as a kind of “promotions-palooza” for the participating organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

Hamid Zerang

Despite the bitter cold temperatures and the ice-skating sidewalks, the winter solstice should be a joyous occasion, as every darn day after December 21 gets a teensy bit longer, and looonger, and loooooonger, until that sunny June evening when the lingering sun cascades pinks, oranges and golds through the sky, and the deep blue of night falls slowly, a mere two hours before the next day begins its course. Links Hall celebrates the shortest day of the year with three enchanting percussion concerts at sunrise.

Yes, sunrise. Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang, percussionists well known on the local jazz and world music circuits, set the stage (an open wooden dance floor) with a dozen candles and dozens of percussion instruments from the Western world to North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia—drumset, gong, dumbek, rukk, conga, djimbe, tambourine. They improvise by candlelight for over an hour, winding from drum to drum, creating music that, in a sense, beckons the light.

“The music is gradually changing, the light is gradually changing,” Zerang says, who has been performing the ritual concert with Drake since its 1990 advent. “[They are both] things that change over time.” Read the rest of this entry »

By David Wicik

There isn’t much of a crowd assembled at Crown Liquors on a chilly Wednesday night in November. Upon entering, a mirrored wall creates the illusion of extra depth, while vintage chairs and a tin molded ceiling with what looks like decades of layered black paint gives the bar an authentic appeal. Roughly half the people assembled are members of the groups playing, and at least a few—including one Latino gentleman beaming a congenial smile at the slow trickle of art-student types ordering two dollar PBR’s at the bar—do not seem to have come for the music. At first it’s hard to imagine what all the buzz for this Logan Square venue has been about. But when the acts start to play, it comes across.

The crowd may be small, but don’t kid yourself, this is an experience that can’t be had anywhere else outside of a word-of-mouth DIY venue. Maybe that’s because Crown’s booking agent, Brent Zmrhal, started in the business by booking shows for his own DIY venue, Humboldt Park’s erstwhile Crystal Rock, where he helped showcase not only local group’s like the breakout Smith Westerns, but bands on the national scene, like San Francisco’s since disbanded Traditional Fools, which featured Ty Segall as drummer. “It was just a party. Had nothing to do with business, it was just all about the music,” muses Zmrhal. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

On the opening track of her much-lauded 2008 self-titled major label debut (Heads Up), bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding covered Milton Nascimento’s timeless gem “Ponta de Areia.” On her new disc, “Chamber Music Society” (Heads Up), she did not do another of his tunes. Instead, she featured Nascimento himself on “Apple Blossoms,” an original cut featured on this highly intriguing disc that blends her classical training with her jazz, pop and soul tendencies. Read the rest of this entry »