10th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival will celebrate global sounds
By Howard Reich
May 17, 2016 at 11:00 a.m.
Ten years ago, a group of Hyde Park cultural activists led by James Wagner realized a dream long in the making: They created a jazz festival unlike any other that attracted throngs to the historic neighborhood.
For hours on end, listeners could stroll from one landmark venue to the next — among them Hyde Park Union Church, the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel and the Midway Plaisance — to hear some of the world's greatest jazz musicians. For free.
Wagner died in 2009, at 75, but he had lived to see the festival thrive and its main stage, on the Midway, named in his honor in 2008.
Even Wagner, a visionary dedicated to nurturing jazz in Hyde Park, might have marveled at how far the festival has come since those early days, the event having evolved into a showcase for some of the most innovative currents in music.
The 10th anniversary festival, unfolding on 13 stages across Hyde Park from Sept. 24-25, will honor Wagner and will feature MacArthur Fellowship winner Miguel Zenon in a commissioned work; 90-year-old piano giant Randy Weston in solo performance; trumpeter-bandleader Amir ElSaffar's merger of traditional Iraqi music and jazz; and much more.
"We wanted to make the festival bigger than the neighborhood and have a global narrative," says festival executive and artistic director Kate Dumbleton, in explaining the international thrust of much of this year's programming.
"Just thinking about the world today and the kind of xenophobia and enclosed-ness that is around" inspired the global perspective, adds Dumbleton.
In addition, the festival has partnered with the Hyde Park Art Center in commissioning visual artists to create installations along the Midway Plaisance, where the fest's biggest outdoor performances take place.