This Weekend’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival ‘Has No Common Theme’ — Besides Good Music And Thoughtful Discussion, Of Course
Public discussions from back-alley jazz legends and local experts will complement a wide variety of performances, linking the history of jazz music to the lived experiences of black South Siders.
September 25, 2019
HYDE PARK — The two-day Hyde Park Jazz Festival returns for its 13th edition this weekend, getting local, national and international jazz artists acquainted with the South Side’s rich musical history.
The event is free but requests a $5 donation per person. It will run from Saturday at 1 p.m. to Sunday at 7 p.m. at 12 venues throughout Hyde Park. You can read the full schedule and line-up here.
Activities kick off Saturday at the Logan Center, 915 E. 60th St., with “A Requiem for Jazz,” a piece from composer Angel Bat Dawid that was commissioned for the festival. The 12-part “funeral mass service” for jazz will celebrate the “resurrection of a new era of great black music.”
It’s one of two commissioned pieces set to debut at the festival, alongside saxophonist Isaiah Collier’s exploration of the African Diaspora.
“We’re commissioning the next generation of artists in thinking about the future of the music,” Dumbleton said.
A panel of DJs from Chicago’s mid-2oth Century underground jazz scene — highlighted in July’s Back Alley Jazz Festival — will follow Bat Dawid’s performance at the Logan Center.
The panelists have “incredible stories about the jazz scene during that time and the way that people convened around it, built a community around it,” Dumbleton said. “The music was central to neighborhood life.”