Hyde Park Jazz Festival

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE!

Our 7th Annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival Benefit Concert will take place on Thursday, June 27th, at the Logan Center for the Arts and will feature music by Etienne Charles & Co.

Hailed by Jazz Times as a “daring improviser who delivers with heart and wrenching lyricism,” the Trinidad-born composer and bandleader has received critical acclaim for his exciting performances, thrilling compositions, and knack for connecting with audiences worldwide. For this performance, Charles will be joined by tenor saxophonist Jacques Schwartz-Bart, pianist Christian Sands, bassist Rodney Whitaker, drummer Dana Hall, and percussionist Zach Himmelhoch.

You may purchase tickets here starting May 14th.

For additional information about the Benefit Concert event and reception, please visit hydeparkjazzfestival.org/jazz-festival-gala.

May 31st and June 1st the Hyde Park Jazz Festival is pleased to co-sponsor cellist, composer, and improviser Tomeka Reid’s First Annual Jazz String Summit honoring the life and work of Chicago violinist Stuff Smith.

The summit will feature free workshops and performances by Tomeka Reid, Edgar Gabriel, Mazz Swift, James Sanders, Jessica Pavone and Mary Halvorson, Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings, and more.

For details about the concerts and workshops, please visit chicagojazzstringsummit.com.

BY MICHAEL JACKSON

The eighth Hyde Park Jazz Festival was Kate Dumbleton’s first as its director, and she faced some headaches Saturday.

Traffic foiled vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz from making it for a Downbeat panel discussion alongside Dee Alexander, saxist Melvin Butler and trumpeter Marquis Hill at the University of Chicago’s brand new Logan Center for the Arts. Meanwhile, Damion Reid and Zack Lober of saxist Greg Ward’s ancipated “Phonic Juggernaut” didn’t make it in from New York. Ward rallied immediately, calling on local drummer Marcus Evans and bassist Michael Lough for his set at Little Black Pearl on East 47th Street.

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This is the sixth season of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, but it’s the first outing for new Festival Director Kate Dumbleton. She resigned from the Chicago Jazz Ensemble at Columbia College this past May.

The free event results from the work of many, including co-founder Judith Stein, musical director Carolyn Albritton, and the army of volunteers who show up each year to stage a first-rate, professional music festival.

Dumbleton says she was drawn to the jazz festival by that grassroots energy: “I was completely blown away by the number of people of people who come out, the sense of community, and just the way people organize gatherings around music.”

The University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts doesn’t officially launch until next month, but jazz listeners got to check out its sleek new Performance Hall over the weekend.

A decidedly dressed-up crowd turned out Friday night for the Hyde Park Jazz Festival Gala, a dinner-and-concert fundraiser for the fest, which will play at the Logan Center on Sept. 29 and other neighborhood venues Sept. 29 and 30. In effect, the jazz devotees were among the first to see and hear the emergence of a major auditorium.
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When Chicago trumpeter Victor Garcia picks up his horn on Friday night, he’ll be making news in at least two ways.

He’ll be leading a new septet, and he’ll be introducing listeners to a potentially major new room: the performance hall at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts, which doesn’t have its official launch until next month.

For jazz listeners, that makes Garcia’s appearance at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival Gala a major event. For Garcia, it will be a journey into the unknown.

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Chicago always has produced jazz giants, larger-than-life figures whose art towers over that of mere mortals.

Who are today’s Chicago jazz giants? Howard Reich’s annotated guide to some of the titans who will be performing during the fall season includes several Hyde Park Jazz Festival performers!
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Six years ago, it was a neighborhood soiree that — to everyone’s surprise — attracted turn-away crowds.

Today, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival stands as a cultural force in its own right, an ever-expanding event that’s evolving into a bona fide artistic institution.

Just last year, the event doubled to two days. This time around, the festival, which will unfold Sept. 29 and 30 across Hyde Park, carries artistic ambitions undreamed of back in 2007, when a group of community activists thought they’d put on a show and see what happened.
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Miguel Zenón

MacArthur “Genius” Recipient, saxophonist Miguel Zenón, and 2012 Jazz Journalist Association “Trombonist of the Year,” Wycliffe Gordon, among the headliners for this year’s festival.

The 6th Annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival will feature a line up of some of Chicago’s most critically acclaimed artists as well as nationally and internationally recognized jazz talents. Presented on 17 stages across Hyde Park, this one-of–a-kind two-day free festival showcases collaboration between academic, cultural and community institutions, and local businesses to present 40 free live jazz performances in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings. Chicago Magazine named the Hyde Park Jazz Festival the 2011 Best Neighborhood Music Festival.

Wycliffe Gordon

This year’s performing artists include: Miguel Zenón; Wycliffe Gordon; Eric Schneider; Willie Pickens; Dee Alexander; Tomeka Reid; Pharez Whitted; Tammy McCann; Bobby Lewis; Dana Hall; Jason Adasiewicz; Mwata Bowden, Greg Ward, Victor Garcia, and many more. See full schedule list »