Photo: Clay Patrick McBride

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In the past few years, trumpeter and Jazz at Lincoln Center bandleader Wynton Marsalis has recorded three live albums of blues and soul music (two with Willie Nelson, one with Eric Clapton) in addition to touring with both his quintet and the JALC orchestra. He has also joined CBS News as a music correspondent, doing entertaining reports on Paul Simon, blues music and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

His Chicago appearance with the quintet (which is rounded out by Walter Blanding on tenor sax, Dan Nimmer on piano, Carlos Henriquez on bass and Ali Jackson on drums) comes after a long European jaunt that included stops in France, Germany and England. Read the rest of this entry »

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Some folks claim flamenco’s lineage reaches back several centuries. And that may well be the truth. The genre has its canonical figures, and Paco de Lucia is one of them. While the sixty-four-year-old ranks as the music’s best-known contemporary performer, he’s remained one of flamenco’s most explorative composers, conspiring with players engaged with jazz and other sympathetic genres. His ability to inject an adventurous tone into a music with such a long history, though, troubles some traditionalists. Read the rest of this entry »

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Though Billie Holiday died in 1959 pretty much in disgrace (she was technically under arrest as she lay dying in a New York hospital), her legacy as a jazz performer lives on thanks to countless reissues of her recordings and tributes from many contemporary jazz artists influenced by her work. Even though she has been gone for more than half a century, her unique delivery of tunes like “I’m a Fool to Want You,” “God Bless The Child” and “Lady Sings The Blues” are testament of the great talent taken away from us too soon. Incidentally, her recording of “I’m a Fool To Want You” was recently used as the backdrop for a Chanel commercial featuring French actress Audrey Tautou and Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro. Read the rest of this entry »

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If drummer Roy Haynes isn’t an unsung hero of American jazz, a host of folks he recorded with are. Surely, doing time with players like Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk means at least a little something to those not enamored of America’s most enduring art form. But moments from the work of other players serve to elucidate the hardscrabble path to creative freedom only a few folks achieved without becoming icons. Multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy embraced a more erratic and fractured style, but was able to create a unique dialect within the medium. Read the rest of this entry »

John Scofield

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Being a bit of everything hasn’t become a problem for John Scofield—it’s just a situation jazz guitarists find themselves in today. Coming along during the seventies, Scofield wound up working in a fusion mold, contributing to discs like flautist Jeremy Steig’s 1977 “Firefly.” After picking out the cheesier moments of the long-player, Scofield clearly becomes the most memorable and powerful player. Read the rest of this entry »

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Pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette began playing as a group something like three decades back, but only after each performer had established himself as the preeminent musician on his instrument. The rhythm section individually gigged with everyone from Albert Ayler to Miles Davis, played every jazz subgenre from cool to fusion and did so internationally. Jarrett, who came to prominence as a result of his solo piano recordings, “The Köln Concert” deserving particular distinction, actually played with DeJohnette on a few recordings prior to hooking up in this ensemble. Read the rest of this entry »

At the Illinois Youth Center/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

By Dennis Polkow

The Gospel of Matthew states, “I was in prison, and you visited me.” It’s an adage Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti takes very seriously. He has visited prison a number of times in his native Italy, and during the first days of his inaugural season last year as music director it was a top priority for him.

“The experience was wonderful, fantastic,” Muti said of his first visit to the Illinois Youth Center in west suburban Warrenville, an incarceration facility for female juveniles, where he gave a concert and first visited with the inmates in September of 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Riccardo Muti (center) clubbing with CSO bass trombonist Charles Vernon (right) and Russian bass trombonist and Vernon protege Andrey Kharlamov/Photo: Dennis Polkow

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After a standing ovation and frantic applause and cheers from the capacity crowd that seemed as if it could have gone on all night, Riccardo Muti officially concluded his inaugural season as CSO music director Saturday night. Motioning for the audience to sit down, Muti addressed both the audience and the orchestra in some heartfelt remarks sprinkled with the wicked wit that has already become a beloved Muti trademark here.

“This is my last concert of my first season, which as you know, was cut short because,” Muti said with a pregnant pause, “I am eccentric.” The crowd howled at Muti poking fun at the snap judgments some made about his medical misfortunes. “Thanks to the Chicago doctors at Northwestern Hospital, I am still alive,” said Muti, to an immense ovation. “You know, it is very tough to kill a Neapolitan. And thank you so much for all of your cards, letters and good wishes, and thank you, my dear orchestra, for your patience. When I fell, they probably thought that instead of a music director, they received a piece of junk,” said Muti, to uproarious laughter from players and audience alike.

The final piece of Muti’s residency was Richard Strauss’ “Aus Italien,” a work Muti performed at his CSO debut in 1973 at Ravinia that had not been here in decades. When some premature applause greeted the rousing finale of the second movement, Muti was amused and turned to the man clapping and said, “There’s a beautiful slow movement yet about the beaches in Sorrento, even though there are no beaches in Sorrento! And we haven’t even got to my part of the country yet, the South!” When the fourth movement about Naples, Muti’s hometown, began with Strauss’ variation on a familiar Neapolitan folksong, Muti beat his heart as if to say, “this is me!”

The program opened with Mason Bates’ “The B Sides,” the most substantial piece yet heard here by the young composer that Muti chose as co-composer-in-residence and who is writing a world-premiere work for Muti and the CSO that will be heard next season. Muti chose Bates for the position based on “his interesting use of color and texture” and as Bates told me about Muti, “He doesn’t just phone it in, he really knew this work.” Read the rest of this entry »

Count Basie Orchestra

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The late Count Basie was one of the greatest bandleaders of his time, and his legacy continues as his orchestra—currently led by drummer Dennis Mackrel, the last musician to be personally hired by Basie himself—carries on performing and recording. Over its history, the ensemble has collaborated with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Tony Bennett, who recorded with Basie in the 1950s and renewed his partnership with the group with”A Swingin’ Christmas” in 2008.

Sharing the bill for the evening is the Marcus Roberts Trio, which has made its mark in the music scene since its inception in 1993 when Roberts started making his own records after a long period as a sideman with Wynton Marsalis, who encouraged him to start his own career as a bandleader.

Roberts’ sound is more traditional than most contemporary trios, following in the footsteps of the likes of Oscar Peterson and Nat Cole. However, the group has developed its own sound over the years. The trio, rounded out by bassist Roland Guerin and drummer Jason Marsalis, plays from memory with no music on stage (or in the studio), which makes for more free improvisation and spontaneity. (Ernest Barteldes)

April 22 at Symphony Center at Orchestra Hall, 220 South Michigan, (312)294-3000, 8pm. $25-$85.

Photo: Christian Lantry

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Though only discovered by mainstream audiences after her performance in George Clooney’s 2005 film “Good Night, and Good Luck,” Dianne Reeves has had a long career as a vocalist of contemporary jazz and also world music, a genre she began exploring since she toured with Harry Belafonte during the mid-eighties.

On her latest release, “When You Know” (Blue Note) produced by legendary jazz pianist George Duke, she weaves through very personal renditions of tunes that include the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination,” a beautiful bossa take on Minnie Riperton’s “Loving You” and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s standard “Once I Loved.”

For her upcoming Chicago appearance, she will be doing a selection featuring music written by modern female composers such as Joan Armatrading, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell. Her band will include her longtime music director Peter Martin, Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo, bassist Reginald Veal (who both played on “When You Know”) and drummer Terreon Gully. (Ernest Barteldes)

April 15 at Symphony Center at Orchestra Hall, 220 South Michigan, (312)294-3000, 8pm. $45-$169.