MADD Vibes is a new jazz lab project created by Chicago vibraphonist, composer, and music director Thaddeus Tukes, born out of his love for tap dance and his ongoing work as music director for the Chicago Tap Summit hosted by M.A.D.D. Rhythms. Blending live band performance with percussive dance, MADD Vibes explores the many ways tap dancers function not simply as featured performers, but as full members of the band, shaping rhythm and musical conversation in real time.

Led by Tukes, a DownBeat Rising Star vibraphonist and one of Chicago’s leading voices on the vibraphone, the project reimagines the hey-day of Jazz, when music and dance were tethered. Tukes has performed nationally and internationally, including at World Expo 2020 Dubai, Chicago’s Symphony Center, and many of the city’s major jazz stages. As a bandleader, composer, educator, and cultural curator, his work centers the vibraphone as both a historic Chicago instrument and a contemporary voice for innovation.

For Hyde Park Jazz Festival, MADD Vibes offers an energetic, exploratory meeting of tap dance and live jazz, celebrating dancers as musicians, improvisers, and essential collaborators in the sound of the ensemble.

MADD Rhythms is Chicago-based tap collective and performing arts company dedicated to preserving, promoting, and advancing the art form of tap dance. Founded from the creative vision of Bril Barrett and Martin “Tre” Dumas III, the company has become known for representing the true essence of tap: rhythm, musicality, culture, and community. Through performances, education, youth programming, and advocacy, M.A.D.D. Rhythms carries forward the history of tap while creating new possibilities for its future, using the dance as both a musical language and a tool for connection, discipline, joy, and expression.