Chicago is home to one of the most thriving “free” and improvised jazz scenes on the planet, and this music has never been better represented at the Chicago Jazz Festival (through Sunday at Grant Park) than this year. Returning veterans like Kalaparush McIntyre and Roscoe Mitchell are on the bill, and MacArthur Grant-winning reedist Ken Vandermark is leading a band on the Petrillo Band Shell mainstage for the first time.
But this isn’t just a Jazz Fest thing. A look at the grass roots shows the strength of Chicago’s musical world that, like free jazz, exists outside the melody.
“I keep meeting people who move here just because of the free jazz scene,” says jazz drummer Mike Reed.
Even musicians like Neil Jendon, a guitarist whose only recordings are self-released on recordable CDs, can get gigs on the city’s busy scene. Says Jendon, “There’s not a night of the week that you can’t hear something that you’ve never heard before.”
Free jazz, labeled so because it is free from the chord changes, structure and familiar tonality of traditional jazz, first appeared in the mid-1950s, when players like saxophonist Ornette Coleman and pianist Cecil Taylor first broke out of bebop’s increasing rigidity. Commonly mischaracterized as the province of questionably talented players playing off the top of their heads, free playing has evolved into a varied and often highly disciplined approach to music that can borrow from other genres. Coleman, who will appear at Orchestra Hall on Sept. 26, has played with orchestras, Moroccan folk musicians and Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. And in turn, popular musicians as diverse as Sonic Youth and Radiohead have borrowed from free jazz’s palette of extreme timbres, impassioned tones and willingness to take chances.
Chicago’s relationship with free jazz is rich, but rocky. Here, in the ’50s, the eccentric Sun Ra formed his Arkestra, whose music fused swinging big band charts, squalling electronics, Afrocentric percussion and sci-fi pageantry. But they left town in search of more plentiful bookings in 1961. Four years later another group of players, dissatisfied with Chicago’s meager opportunities to play challenging music, formed the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
Mitchell, a founding member of the AACM, says via telephone from his home in Madison, Wis., “the AACM formed because the scene was changing. The licensing laws changed. Before, there were plenty of opportunities for groups up to quintets to play. But deejays started to come up, and if you had larger than a three piece then you had to pay for a different license.”
Further, the AACM wanted to redefine jazz musicians’ roles in business and society. “There was a need for musicians to be able to operate in different ways–they wanted to have more control over their destinies,” continues Mitchell, who plays a vast array of reeds, woodwinds, and percussion.
The AACM produced concerts in churches, theaters and coffee houses and issued their recordings on small, local labels like Delmark and Nessa. And they instituted a music school, some of whose students subsequently joined the collective.
Although the organization endures to this day, many AACM members (including Mitchell) left during the ’70s in search of greater opportunities, and the chances for free players waned. The tide began to turn about a decade ago when a new wave of improvising musicians, typified by saxophone and clarinet player Ken Vandermark, appeared. These artists were as comfortable performing in underground rock clubs as in eclectic arts venues like HotHouse and Links Hall. In 1996 Vandermark and journalist-guitarist-deejay John Corbett initiated a weekly concert series at a rock club called the Empty Bottle. They thought it might last three months; six years later, it’s still going strong.
Vandermark’s quintet plays there every Tuesday that they’re in town, and most Wednesdays you can see an improvising ensemble of some renown. The Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music that takes place each spring has expanded to include concerts at other locations like the Chicago Cultural Center and the Lincoln Park Conservatory.
This year, however, has been a mixed year for Chicago’s free jazz scene, as two well-established venues have had run-ins with the city over licensing issues.
HotHouse closed down for a few days, while the Velvet Lounge, a South Side tavern that hosts both AACM vets and younger players, has had to stop taking a cover charge at the door. Instead, musicians ask for donations from the stage. On the other hand, Vandermark’s main stage Jazz Fest appearance, with his 10-piece Crisis Ensemble, is a sign of health.
“The band,” Vandermark explained via e-mail sent from Norway, “was organized as an attempt to present a cross section of some of the current talent in Chicago’s free jazz scene, from the youngest generation to one of the oldest.”
Representing the new breed are five players in their 20s: bassist Jason Ajemian, drummer Tim Daisy, multi-reedists Aram Shelton and Dave Rempis, and cornetist Josh Berman. Not only are they all fine musicians, but Rempis and Berman have taken it upon themselves to ensure that they and their peers have places to play by starting music series for free and improvised players.
For a music scene to grow, after all, there must be places where new musicians can play. On the city’s South Side, the Velvet Lounge, Cafe Mestizo, and AACM Nu Beginnings all host Sunday jam sessions that give young players a chance to work with seasoned vets like saxophonists Ernest Dawkins and David Boykins.
On the North Side a handful of spaces offer another alternative: All are run by musicians, who give their fellow players carte blanche onstage. Also, since none of the venues hold performance licenses, they scrupulously avoid collecting cover charges.
Some of these spaces are hard to find. The Candlestick Maker, a tiny storefront at 4432 N. Kedzie Ave. that doubles as percussionist Michael Zerang’s rehearsal space, doesn’t advertise or post its name. Audiences learn about its irregular concerts by e-mail, and walk through a door that bears the name of a former tenant, a rubber stamp shop, to hear experimental rock and jazz musicians in a very intimate setting. Candlestick Maker has no PA, but since it only holds 30 people, it doesn’t need one.
It’s easier to locate 3030; the venue’s name is also its address on West Cortland Avenue. That’s where the Elastic Revolution took over a former Pentecostal church five years ago and began staging “recordings, theater, concerts, and puppet shows for the kids,” says saxophonist Dave Rempis.
“It’s an artist’s cooperative. No one makes any money–they pay to be members of the collective.” Rempis isn’t a member himself, but last year he accepted the group’s invitation to book a concert series there. “I book shows on Thursdays and sometimes on weekends,” he says.
Rempis, who leads his own quartet, is also a member of the group Triage and plays with the Vandermark 5, pursues a diverse booking policy: “A combination of people I know who are active in the local scene; out-of-town groups who are touring; or people who are in town for one project at the Cultural Center or the Empty Bottle and want to do another gig.” Rempis has applied a valuable lesson that he learned in Vandermark’s group, which charges $3 for its Empty Bottle gigs–keep things cheap.
“That’s a key to getting audiences out. People don’t have to worry about a cover charge.”
Mike Reed and Josh Berman, who book free jazz on Sunday nights at the Hungry Brain, a bar at 2319 W. Belmont Ave., keep things accessible. Once more, there’s no cover charge. “The place doesn’t have a performance license,” explains Berman. Instead he wanders through the bar between sets collecting donations for the musicians in a bicycle basket.
Despite their shoestring finances, the two men are committed to building a scene for their fellow musicians. “Ninety percent of the time, maybe more, the musicians we book are from in town,” says Berman. “I got involved for this scene.”
He and Reed have been booking shows at the Hungry Brain for three years, and plan to hold their third annual weekend-long Phrenology Festival in October. They’ve also obtained non-profit status; Reed is the president and Berman the vice president of “Emerging Improvisors.”
Says Reed, “We have to try to have some organization around it to try to get it to the point where there might be funding down the road.”
Sometimes it just takes one person’s organizational efforts to make a difference. It’d be hard to think of concerts more different than those organized by Dave Pecoraro, who prefers the alias DJ Rotten Milk. Pecoraro plays a wide array of instruments, but he makes the most noise as the organizer of two concert series.
One, Rotten Tuesdays, resided until recently at a bar in Andersonville called Leadway. Currently it’s drifting from place to place while Pecoraro tries to find the series a new home. Says Jendon, a fan and an occasional performer at the Leadway, “Dave has certainly lived up to the word `free.’ Not only is it no pay to get in, there were also free hot dogs.”
“There are tons of great shows going on in this city all the time, but not everyone can afford to go,” explains Pecoraro. “I think it’s important that there are options for those of us without any money.”
The music on Rotten Tuesdays tends towards cutting-edge free-form electronics, but other elements give shows a historical context. “Rotten Tuesdays are like a happening, in the ’60s sense of the word,” says Jendon, “with crazy stuff like old horror movies being projected on the players.” Yet even those elements get tossed aside in Pecoraro’s other series, “Improvise with your buddY,” an “Improv-Lotto” held at Buddy Gallery, a multi-disciplinary gallery at 1542 N. Milwaukee Ave.
“First I collect the names and e-mail addresses of those interested in participating, then I put these names in a hat,” Pecoraro says. “I roll a die to determine how many players go in each group, then I pull names at random from the hat. The idea behind the Improv-Lotto is that by allowing for chance, we force musicians out of their comfort zones.
“My favorite lotto groups are the most mismatched ones. One that comes to mind, there was a keyboard player, a saxophone player who also mixed video live, a harpist, and a guy with a sequencer program for his Gameboy. Halfway through the night, the harpist and the Gameboy player switched instruments!
“This is the kind of atmosphere I’m interested in fostering; one where people are comfortable to take chances and try something new.”
Where to find the ‘free jazz’ sounds
Here are a few places to hear free and improvised music around town. The schedule varies from venue to venue, so call ahead. An excellent resource is at www.restructures.net/chicago/music.htm, and Web addresses are included for venues where applicable.
Buddy Gallery, 1542 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-342-7332;
www.lumpen.com/buddy/yes.html
The Candlestick Maker, 4432 N. Kedzie Ave., 773-463-0158;
www.candlestickmaker.org
Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., 773-276-3600;
www.emptybottle.com
HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo Drive, 312-362-9707;
www.hothouse.net
Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont Ave., 773-935-2118
Velvet Lounge, 2128 1/2 S. Indiana Ave., 888-644-8007;
www.velvetlounge.net
3030, 3030 W. Cortland Ave., 773-862-3616;
www.elasticrevolution.com
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25th annual Chicago Jazz Festival
When: Through Aug. 31
Where: Grant Park, Columbus Drive and Jackson Boulevard
Price: Free; 312-427-1676 or 312-744-6630 or www.ci.chi.il.us/ specialevents/Festivals/Jazz2003/JazzSchedule2003.html
