All About Jazz

By Mark Corroto

Even though the 11th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival is on the books and the music is no longer audible, the spirit of the weekend endures. What has become an annual rite and celebration of music, culture, and maybe above, all the spirit of Chicago's South side, is a bucket list experience that you can repeat yearly. The two-day celebration features thirty- five performances at thirteen different venues in and around the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park. If you do the math, that's sixteen hours of music. Kind of like an ultra-endurance event for the ears.

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Chicago Tribune

By Howard Reich

Two world premieres, one piano colossus, a brilliant look at Thelonious Monk and a couple of vibraphonists swinging hard in a house of worship.

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DownBeat Magazine

By Michael Jackson

The 11th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival, populating a dozen varied venues amid the picturesque splendor of the festival’s namesake neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, proved as stimulating as ever this time around (Sept. 23–24). Programmed for the sixth year by the astute, visionary Kate Dumbleton—and assisted by music manager Carolyn Albritton, managing director Olivia Junell and stalwart new operations manager Dave Rempis, among others—the HPJF is unlike any other festival in its intensity and pace.

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Chicago Reader

By Peter Margasak

The 11th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival kicks off tomorrow with a typically packed schedule of diverse sounds, focusing on some of the city's most important and creative forces while making room for a selective smattering of national and international attractions. In this week's paper I highlighted a couple of duo performances by Nick Mazzarella & Tomeka Reid and Andrew Cyrille & Bill McHenry, but naturally there's much more that's worth your time.

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Chicago Magazine

By Christian Belanger

Up next in our series of interviews with notable, in-the-know locals: Kate Dumbleton, executive and artistic director of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, which starts Saturday.

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Chicago Tribune

By Howard Reich

In 2007, when a group of South Side visionaries launched the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, they hoped to bring long overdue attention to a neighborhood rich in jazz history.

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Time Out Chicago

By Zach Long

Marking the tail end of summer music festival season (and September's second big jazz-oriented event), the Hyde Park Jazz Festival brings Chicago's best performers and some talented visitors to the South Side neighborhood. Spread out over the course of two days and taking place at various venues, the festival is packed with worthwhile performances, but it can be difficult to decide what to see, even if you frequent Chicago jazz clubs. To make the decision as easy as possible, we've picked our five favorite performances on the Hyde Park Jazz Festival lineup, including a set from local drummer Makaya McCraven and a hotly anticipated collaboration between bandleaders from Chicago and Mali.

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Hyde Park Herald

By Evan Hamlin

Thelonious Monk, a musician whose personality was as enigmatic as his music was influential, will be celebrated at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Sept. 23 – 24, in honor of his 100th birthday.

Four events will be held in tribute of Monk’s visionary style. The first will be a lecture by University of California, Los Angeles Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History Robin Kelley. Kelley’s lecture will draw on information from his acclaimed 2009 book on Monk titled “Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original.”

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Hyde Park Herald

By Neil Tesser

Offering a sort of drum roll for the upcoming Hyde Park Jazz Festival, GRAMMY® Award-winning journalist and jazz aficionado Neil Tesser shared his understanding of improvisation as it relates to what he described as “a truly American artform” with residents and visitors at Montgomery Place, 5550 South Shore Drive on Thursday, Sept. 14.

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Chicago Reader

By Peter Margasak

One feature of the Hyde Park Jazz Fest that has quietly distinguished it over the last few years is the prevalence of dynamic duos, whether the pairings are new or seasoned, improvised or driven by tunes. Notable among this year’s terrific offerings is the first local performance by alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella and cellist Tomeka Reid since the release of their superb debut album, Signaling (Nessa).

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When I attended this year’s Winter Jazz Fest in New York, no set gave me greater pleasure or made me think as much as a performance by endlessly inventive drummer Andrew Cyrille and often-overlooked tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry, who played music from their excellent 2016 album, Proximity (Sunnyside).

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Chicago Reader

By Chicago Reader

This annual fest showcasing Chicago's rich jazz scene includes some great out-of-town headliners in the two-day lineup of its 11th iteration, among them trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and the duo of drummer Andrew Cyrille & Bill McHenry. As usual, though, locals provide most of the heat: to name just two, veteran saxophonist Ari Brown leads a group with Oliver Lake, and flutist Nicole Mitchell debuts a collaboration with Malian kora master Ballaké Sissoko.1 PM, multiple venues, $5 suggested donation per show, $125 Jazz Pass available for priority seating at all shows. For the full lineup, see hydeparkjazzfestival.org, all ages.

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Chicago Reader

By Peter Margasak

This free fest is a constellation of international stars—including Afrobeat scion Seun Kuti, rambunctious Cape Verdean accordionist Bitori, and Afro-Venezuelan flame keeper Betsayda Machado.

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Rolling Out

By Tony Binns

Considered one of the most important composers and pianists in 20th-century music, Thelonious Monk is one of the most enigmatic figures of his era. Noted professor Robin D.G. Kelley will be delivering a lecture titled Thelonious Monk: An American Original based on his highly acclaimed 2009 book, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, at the 2017 Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Sept. 23-24, 2017.

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Chicago Tribune

By Howard Reich

World premieres, unexpected collaborations, a spotlight on women bandleaders and an in-depth look at Thelonious Monk at 100 will top the 11th Hyde Park Jazz Festival, running Sept. 23-24.

As always, the free event will unfold in multiple indoor and outdoor venues — 13 stages, to be exact — across the historic neighborhood. No other jazz festival in the Chicago area, and few elsewhere in the country, embraces and celebrates its neighborhood as effectively as the Hyde Park event has since its inception.

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Chamber Music America

By Peter Margasak

With a committed volunteer network and an inclusive programming philosophy, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival has forged a uniquely unifying musical presence on Chicago’s South Side.

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3Arts

By Nicole Mitchell

As a musician, I’ve dreamed for years about bringing two artistic communities together: Chicago’s modern jazz with the traditional sounds and instrumentation of Bamako, Mali. With Bamako*Chicago Sound System, I am raising funds to support an extended stay and expansive programming with West African kora master, Ballaké Sissoko and his group. This will include visiting youth in Chicago Public Schools, conducting a workshop for Chicago musicians, and developing a new collaborative musical piece with the Black Earth Ensemble that will premiere this fall at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival.

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Chicago Tribune

By Howard Reich

For years, the genre-bending flutist Nicole Mitchell has dreamed of collaborating with musicians from Mali.

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DownBeat Magazine

By Michael Jackson

On the afternoon of Sept. 25, mulling over how to open this review as I ambled between the music stages on Midway Plaisance, a verdant stretch of Chicago’s South Side, the perfection of the summer-to-fall weather that has blessed this 10-years-young indoor/outdoor festival came to mind. Moments later, skies cracked unexpectedly and the first aggressive downpour I can recall during the history of this two-day event ensued.

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The Yardbird Suite

By Dominic Guanzon

Race is weighing deeply on the national consciousness whether we want it to or not. No matter how we argue the issues, we can’t argue that the issue of minority-police relations has had a lasting impact on the 2016 Presidential Election, the use of social media, the way local government interacts with citizenry, and – from my student experience – the collegiate discussion experience.

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