Hyde Park Herald

By James Porter

Photo By Spencer Bibbs

If the Hyde Park Jazz Festival was ever a secret, the word has gotten around by now. 

While no attendance records have been revealed, established jazz veterans were almost drawing rock star numbers on Saturday, which was centered on the Midway Plaisance, but spread across 12 venues throughout the neighborhood. The gospel-infused sounds of the Soul Message Trio, featuring Chris Foreman on organ, packed them in at the Augustana Lutheran Church on 55th Street. The Paul Giallorenzo Trio played a set at the Logan Center Penthouse that was literally standing room only. This may or may not have been one of the last warm weekends of the year, but if we must say farewell to summer, this was a grand way to do it.

Chicago Tribune

By Hannah Edgar

Photo By Anastasia Busby

Horrible as it was, Kate Dumbleton saw it coming.Like so many arts administrators, the executive director of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival kept a watchful eye on the news after President Trump announced his intent to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. A glimmer of hope arrived in January, when the agency reaffirmed that the $30,000 promised to the festival would, indeed, be coming through.

It turned out to be false hope. A second letter, in May, announced that the festival’s offer letter had been withdrawn. By now already booked, the festival was left to figure out the shortfall on its own.

“It was a gut punch,” says Dumbleton.

Chicago Reader

By Michael Jackson

Photo By Michael Jackson

You’d think I’d have learned by now not to underestimate the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. Despite the loss of that NEA money, the lineup for the 19th HPJF was more intriguing than the one in Monterey. I decided to stay in Chicago. And on a radiantly sunny weekend, the HPJF had by some metrics its best year ever. The crowd was huge—the festival can’t provide exact numbers because it’s free, partly outdoors, and unfenced, but this was possibly the biggest yet. Donations from the public totaled more than $40,000, increasing by roughly 30 percent over 2024 and hitting an all-time high. The people spoke—or rather, the people took action.

Chicago Reader

By Michael Jackson

Photo By Michael Jackson

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival, one of the most astutely curated and organized arts events on the Chicago cultural calendar, reached its 18th year the last weekend in September. Except for one brief shower, the rain in the forecast stayed away, and though the Hyde Park Herald had just published a story on the financial headwinds faced by the festival—even suggesting that this could be its final year—neither that news nor the thick gray clouds could dampen the mood. The fest’s usual broadly diverse audience—one of the best features of this south-side jewel—showed up and remained attentive and engaged for all the music on the program, no matter where it landed on the Venn diagram of “challenging,” “educational,” and “fun.”

Chicago Tribune

By Hannah Edgar

Photo By Chris Sweda

Every great music festival has a few of those moments.

If you’re a music lover, you know them well. You desperately want to catch two — maybe even three or four — spectacular billings at the same time, on different stages. But since humans haven’t yet cracked on-the-spot mitosis, one has to make tough decisions about whom to catch, when, and for how long.

Chicago Reader

By Bill Meyer

Photo By Michael Wilson

The programming for this year’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival once again defies the implicit parochialism of the festival’s name: this is a weekend of music that any major city on Earth would be proud to call its own. The two-day fest balances accessible local acts that go well with picnicking on the Midway Plaisance with representatives of Chicago’s cutting-edge improvised-music community, then tops off the bill with excellent out-of-town performers.

Hyde Park Herald

By Marc C. Monaghan

Photo By Marc C. Monaghan

As DJ Duane Powell spun his mix of house, bossa nova, and afro beats on Saturday evening, spectators rose out of their chairs and danced onto the lawn of Kenwood Gardens. He was closing out the latest Artist Corps show, a free summer concert series by the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (HPJF). 

Chicago Reader

By Michael Jackson

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival is one of the best-programmed events of its kind anywhere, thanks to the resilient and resourceful people, many of them volunteers, who organize and coordinate it.