On many fronts, 1991 was a landmark year for jazz in America.
Nationally, the music won important new forums that might have seemed inconceivable a few years ago:
– The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., launched a Jazz Masterworks Orchestra focusing, to date, on works of Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson and Jimmie Lunceford. All of its concerts were packed to capacity, with lines forming hours before concert time.
– Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York established a jazz department, for the first time giving the music equal billing with its opera, symphonic and ballet programs. In coming years, the still-fledgling jazz program is expected to accrue budget and staff equal to its Lincoln Center counterparts.
Locally, too, institutions of national importance pursued the same path, affording jazz the kind of platform it has not often enjoyed:
– The Ravinia Festival, under the new direction of Zarin Mehta, broke with tradition and opened the summer not with classical but with jazz concerts. The imposing new series offered 10 days of jazz, featuring no less than Ella Fitzgerald, the great Oscar Peterson Trio of the `50s and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan (whose artistic directorship of the series also helped legitimize it). Such was the acclaim of the series that it will be back next year, likely in more ambitious form.
– Orchestra Hall vastly expanded its jazz offerings this year, giving Chicago a marathon concert by Miles Davis; a fascinating, chamber-like performance from the Dave Brubeck Quartet; a first-rate duo evening by Chick Corea and Gary Burton; and many more. Considering that next year Orchestra Hall will be presenting Sonny Rollins and the Modern Jazz Quartet, among several others, it has established itself as a major presenter of jazz in Chicago.
– Neighborhood clubs eagerly jumped on the jazz bandwagon, with local and visiting musicians enjoying a dramatically increased number of stages. To date, the rich scene includes the Bop Shop, Christopher`s on Halsted, Club Lucky, Cotton Club, Moosehead Bar & Grill, Oz, Get Me High Jazz Club, Pops for Champagne, Elbo Room, Andy`s and many more.
– Pegasus Players, the small but intrepid Off-Loop theater company, made national news for its revival of the Duke Ellington musical ”Jump for Joy,” the first staging of the show since its premiere 50 years ago. The record-breaking audience response led the company to extend the run by roughly two months, to Jan. 5.
– And the University of Illinois made musical history of sorts with a rare, fully-staged revival of Scott Joplin`s lone surviving opera,
”Treemonisha.”
Despite all this increased activity, however, there was a downside, too, for much of the artistic thrust focused on revival rather than innovation. In other words, the creation of a Jazz Masterworks Orchestra devoted to vintage scores, the advent of a jazz wing at Lincoln Center directed by Wynton Marsalis, and the rejuvenation of shows by Ellington and Joplin all looked toward the jazz past rather than its future.
The newer music heard in Chicago spots such as Southend Musicworks, Club Lower Links and HotHouse remained a mostly esoteric affair. Even Jazz Showcase, Chicago`s most distinguished jazz room (in the Blackstone Hotel), generally saw smallish crowds during weeknights in these economically difficult times.
Or, put in other terms, it was the established stars (Fitzgerald and Brubeck) and well-known musical commodities (Ellington and Joplin revivals)
that listeners supported.
Still, even within this framework, there were revelatory evenings in Chicago jazz this year. The Chicago Jazz Festival yielded a major, if somewhat rough-hewn composition in George Gruntz`s ”Chicago Cantata,” a commission that dramatically tapped the city`s rich jazz, blues and gospel heritage. To hear pianist Sunnyland Slim, jazz great Von Freeman and various gospel choirs sharing a stage in a massive score proved to be one of the esthetic highlights of the year.
And Miles Davis, in the last year of his life, generously gave Chicago two unforgettable evenings. In Orchestra Hall last April, he offered an exultant, three-hour concert spanning the stylistic range of his life`s work, from shades of cool to high-tech funk.
And in Grant Park late in August, he played the penultimate concert of his life, focusing on his be-bop beginnings and playing with technical command and musical invention skeptics long claimed were beyond his reach.
Not a bad year at all.
