The Hyde Park Jazz Festival celebrates its 10th Anniversary with three dozen performances and programs on 11 stages across the neighborhood this weekend. Many of the performances, to their credit, lack easy categorization, and truly exemplify the spirit of Jazz from the South Side of Chicago (multi-layered, collaborative, and connected to the community). A few highlights:
The South Side of Chicago has a rich history of Jazz music, and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival’s schedule represents keepers of that flame, like Maggie Brown (pictured, who is a daughter of the iconic Oscar Brown, Jr. and an electrifying vocalist in her own right); as well as younger creators such as the Thaddeus Tukes / Isaiah Collier Duo.
Stretching out the boundaries of traditional Jazz programming are a restaging of Supreme Love (a live music and tap dance performance set to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme). In collaboration with dancers from M.A.D.D. Rhythms, musicians on the set include Isaiah Spencer on drums and Junius Paul on bass.
Also as part of the festival, Marvin Tate will present The Weight of Rage, which was initially presented at the Hyde Park Art Center earlier this year. The visual component is an exhibition of work developed in classes in the Prison and Neighborhood Arts Project at Stateville Prison. The show brings together work from incarcerated artists and teaching artists and writers (including Marvin Tate) in the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project (PNAP) at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, IL to explore the question, “how does the state identify you?” There will be a music performance by a sextet as part of Saturday’s presentation of The Weight of Rage, as well.
The Festival also announced a new partnership with the Hyde Park Art Center that commissioned visual artists to install site-specific artwork on Midway Plaisance.
Three main projects have been selected for this inaugural year: Juan Angel Chavez, “Gramaphone”; Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford and Faheem Majeed, “Floating Museum”; and Sabina Ott, “Mountain Variation.”
And, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival Story Share Project continues this year, in which visitors are invited to share stories about their relationship to Jazz (particularly Jazz on the South Side of Chicago). All stories are archived for the Hyde Park Jazz Society, and select stories will be made available via an dedicated web platform that is currently in production.
For more on the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (including a full calendar), click here.
Jive on!
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Coffee and Cigarettes
Café Jumping Bean on 18th Street (near Laflin) in Pilsen has a lock on deliciousness. Both of these thumbs are up. Last time I was there, I had a scrumptious sandwich and (my joint) cafe con leche. Sigh.
The only other café I feel at home at is Istria café (at Hyde Park Art Center, 50th & Cornell). They make a Latte…..Double Sigh. Not to mention the gelato. Got hooked on both while taking a Screenprinting class at HPAC.
I lied. I really dig Little Black Pearl and Bronzeville Coffee House (528 E. 43rd St.), too [ Especially Bronzeville’s book exchange, and those muffins…].
There’s a song by Otis Redding called “Cigarettes and Coffee”:
It’s early in the morning
About a quarter til Three
I’m sittin’ here talkin’ with my baby
over cigarettes and coffee….
I’ve never smoked, but that song made me believe in the common luxury of both. Remember when, if visiting someone’s house, the cupboards may have been bare…but they’d still offer you some coffee (even instant). That’s why Starbucks bugs me. It’s not just the “corporate cog” issue. It’s the “make something as basic as coffee into a status symbol” issue. Not cool.
“Coffee and Cigarettes” is also a film directed by Jim Jarmusch. Here’s a clip, featuring GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray:
I’ll leave you with some (disjointed) words I inadvertently memorized in high school:
It is with the bitter lives
Of bitter people
that I sweeten my coffee
on this beautiful morning
in Ipanema
–Fierreira Gullar
Leave a comment | tags: bronzeville, Chicago, coffee, coffee and cigarettes, film short, GZA, hyde park, Otis Redding, Pilsen, Reviews, RZA | posted in Arts & Culture, Commentary, Film and Television, Music, Reviews