Ravi Coltrane, Jason Moran to headline Hyde Park Jazz Festival
By Howard Reich
May 29, 2018 at 11:00 am
At first glance, the lineup for the 12th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival suggests a bulging array of styles and musical idioms.
For any event that features singer Dee Alexander and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, vibraphonist Thaddeus Tukes and the Kenwood Academy Jazz Band, harpist Brandee Younger and pianist and MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran clearly encompasses a wide swath of artistic territory.
But as always with this intelligently programmed festival – which will run Sept. 29-30 at multiple Hyde Park locations – underlying themes and messages will drive the proceedings.
“With this year’s festival, I continued to think about young people,” says Kate Dumbleton, the event’s artistic director, who with her colleagues on the festival’s programming committee indeed has cast a spotlight on rising musicians from Chicago and beyond.
Tukes with pianist Alexis Lombre, bassist Hannah Marks’ Heartland Trio, saxophonist Lenard Simpson’s Trio, saxophonist Jenna Przybysz’s Quartet and pianist Julius Tucker’s Trio (all on Sept. 29) are up-and-coming artists stepping to the fore.
In addition, “We’re featuring women bandleaders,” adds Dumbleton, as the festival did last year. “There’s a woman bandleader on every stage, other than the Oriental Institute, (where) we only have one show.”
In a jazz world dominated to this day by men, then, Chicagoans will be able to hear sets featuring drummer Allison Miller leading her Boom Tic Boom ensemble, singer Joan Collaso and the Larry Hanks Ensemble, pianist Jo Ann Daugherty & Friends, and singer Maggie Brown’s new Vision Ensemble (all on Sept. 29), among many others.
The festival also will honor three major Chicago pianists who died last year: John Wright (with a jam session led by Chicago pianist Miguel de la Cerna on Sept. 30) and Willie Pickens and Muhal Richard Abrams (with a solo performance by pianist Jason Moran on Sept. 30).
Of special note: saxophonist Ravi Coltrane will lead a quartet including harpist Younger in a reflection on music of his mother, Alice Coltrane.
That booking seemed appropriate, says Dumbleton, because we live in “a really complicated time. There is something about the transcendence of this music, the musicians who take things higher, that brings us out of the trenches a little bit.”
All of this made possible by support from several institutions, none more integral to the proceedings than the University of Chicago and its Logan Center for the Arts, says Dumbleton.
Following is an annotated guide to the fest, with commentary from Dumbleton and me. All events are free, except for the Jason Moran performance on Sept. 30; for the complete schedule, visit www.hydeparkjazzfestival.org.