Biography
My Role
Arts critic/jazz critic of the Chicago Tribune, where I cover jazz, gospel, blues, cabaret, world music and various cultural issues. ...
Hardest-working woman in jazz
September 7, 2012
If you've ever attended a major jazz event in Chicago, there's a good chance you've met Judith Stein.
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From Esperanza Spalding to Ravi Coltrane, a lively lineup
September 7, 2012
The fall seasons looks so rich for jazz and related genres that these must be considered the highlights of the highlights:
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City Winery dips into jazz -- and more -- with David Grisman Sextet
September 7, 2012
Jazz listeners have cause to applaud: A potentially valuable new room has made its bow.
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Fall music preview: Chicago jazz greats coming home
September 6, 2012
Chicago always has produced jazz giants, larger-than-life figures whose art towers over that of mere mortals.
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Judy Roberts prepares to say farewell again
September 4, 2012
As she wound down a recent set at Chambers, in Niles, singer-pianist Judy Roberts leaned into the microphone and delivered what has become her favorite new closing line.
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34th Jazz Festival closes with victories and defeats
September 3, 2012
Some of the best music of the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival played during its finale on Sunday night. But so did some of the worst.
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Highs, lows and turbulent turns at the Chicago Jazz Festival
September 2, 2012
The Chicago Jazz Festival really ought to be marketed as a roller-coaster ride, its thrilling musical highs counterbalanced by its sudden, plummeting lows.
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Jazz Fest launches with a warm tribute to Ella Fitzgerald
August 31, 2012
The pleasant, populist program that opened the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival on Thursday night certainly had a great deal going for it.
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What to hear at the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival
August 30, 2012
Now that the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival is fully underway – having kicked off Thursday night at Millennium Park – Chicagoans can focus on figuring out what to catch this weekend.
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Logan Center announces opening weekend
August 29, 2012
A concert by Los Cenzontles featuring David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, a conversation with architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien and a reading of new works by poet Adam Zagajewski will be featured on the opening weekend of the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts.
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Wynton Marsalis plays homage to Von Freeman
August 29, 2012
Just moments after Wynton Marsalis took the stage of Orchestra Hall on Tuesday night he addressed a subject on many people's minds: Chicago tenor saxophonist Von Freeman, who died earlier this month at age 88.
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'Genius grant' winner Ken Vandermark gets nod from Chicago Jazz Festival
August 28, 2012
The most intriguing work at this year's Chicago Jazz Festival, running Thursday through Sunday, may come from the horn of MacArthur "genius grant" winner Ken Vandermark.
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The soaring vocal art of Sheila Jordan
August 25, 2012
A phone rings in the background. A siren screams in the distance. And the indomitable jazz singer Sheila Jordan works those random events into the lyric of the song, as if they had been planned all along.
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Ira Sullivan's brilliant tribute to Charlie Parker's bebop
August 24, 2012
How fitting that "August is Charlie Parker Month" festivities at the Jazz Showcase would culminate with a two-week stint by one of the greatest bebop players in the world, multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan.
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How to awaken a sleeping jazz festival
August 24, 2012
Two months ago, the Chicago Gospel Music Festival made a bold move, presenting performances for the first time on the South Side of Chicago, in Ellis Park. Throngs turned out.
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Nonstop week of music surrounds Chicago Jazz Festival
August 23, 2012
Though the 34th annual Chicago Jazz Festival surely has its flaws, it generates tremendous energy and interest for America's greatest gift to the arts: jazz.
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Cornet player Josh Berman explores past, future with a host of bold collaborators
August 23, 2012
Fascinating music constantly bubbles up from the caldron that is Chicago jazz, the latest example coming from the horn and pen of Josh Berman.
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Memorial set for Chicago jazz legend Von Freeman
August 21, 2012
A memorial service for Chicago tenor saxophone giant Von Freeman will take place at 6 p.m. Aug. 28 at Christ Universal Temple, 11901 S. Ashland Ave.
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Puerto Rican music meets Chicago jazz in Frank Rosaly's premiere
August 21, 2012
For anyone intrigued by Chicago jazz, Thursday night's concert at Millennium Park stands as one of the most intensely anticipated event of the summer.
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Artis's Lounge – a celebrated South Side blues den – closes
August 19, 2012
Artis's Lounge – a landmark blues club on the South Side for nearly 30 years – has lost its lease and closed.
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Tony Bennett in peak form at 86
August 19, 2012
If you didn't already know that singer Tony Bennett also happens to be a painter, you probably would have guessed it Saturday night at the Ravinia Festival, in Highland Park.
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Haunting New Year's Eve show exposed listeners to what Von Freeman was all about
August 16, 2012
The thin, elderly man onstage at the Green Mill Jazz Club sat nearly motionless. His legs, he told a few of us before the show, were failing him, and he needed to stay seated as long as possible.
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At 86, Tony Bennett still nurtures the art of literate songwriting
August 16, 2012
When Tony Bennett played here last summer, he was a mere 85-year-old, marking his birthday with a characteristically expansive performance that showed virtually no concessions to the passage of time.
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Matt Ulery's 'By a Little Light' to shine on Millennium Park
August 14, 2012
This is shaping up as a breakthrough year for Chicago bassist-bandleader Matt Ulery, whose double album "By a Little Light" has been inspiring enthusiastic reviews across the country and revelatory performances in Chicago.
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Von Freeman, Chicago jazz legend, dead at 88
August 13, 2012
Revered around the world but never a major star, worshipped by critics and connoisseurs but perpetually strapped for cash, the towering Chicago tenor saxophonist Von Freeman practically went out of his way to avoid commercial success. When trumpeter Miles Davis phoned Freeman, in the 1950s, looking for a replacement for John Coltrane, Freeman never returned the call.
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Charles McPherson recalls the majesty of Charlie Parker
August 10, 2012
Charlie Parker looms so large in jazz history that even a month-long tribute can't do justice to his musical legacy. But it's a significant gesture, especially considering that the Jazz Showcase has been presenting its "August is Charlie Parker Month" festivities for more than half a century.
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From bebop masters to rising stars, a jam-packed week in Chicago jazz
August 9, 2012
The next seven days in jazz listening will be rich. Among the highlights:
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When does Joe Segal get his Jazz Masters award?
August 8, 2012
Until three weeks ago, no jazz club owner ever had been selected to receive the country's pre-eminent jazz honor: the National Endowment for the Arts' Jazz Masters Fellowship, which carries with it $25,000 and considerable prestige.
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Music of Harold Arlen suffers at Ravinia
August 6, 2012
The songs of Harold Arlen cut deeper and darker than those of any other American composer of the 20th century, at least so far as Broadway and Hollywood idioms are concerned.
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Young talent and rising star ennoble South Shore jazz festival
August 6, 2012
A couple of months ago, veteran Chicago impresario Geraldine de Haas announced that she would have to cancel the annual South Shore JazzFest, after a major sponsor pulled out.
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South Shore jazz festival rises again
August 2, 2012
Two months ago, Chicago impresario Geraldine de Haas called to tell me that her South Shore JazzFest – which had attracted throngs to the South Shore Cultural Center since 1981 – was finished. Sponsorships had dried up and there was no time to raise sufficient support to stage the annual summertime event.
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Hyde Park Jazz Festival unfolds anew
July 31, 2012
Six years ago, it was a neighborhood soiree that — to everyone's surprise — attracted turn-away crowds.
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The softer side of Linda Eder at Viper Alley
July 29, 2012
Linda Eder performs so selectively that any opportunity to hear her counts as something of an event. All the more when she sings in a club as inviting as Viper Alley, which opened last year in Lincolnshire and stands poised to become a noteworthy venue in the northern suburbs.
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Claudio Roditi brings a touch of Brazil to Chicago
July 27, 2012
It's difficult to imagine how trumpeter Claudio Roditi could have played much more poetically than he did Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase.
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Linda Eder doesn't love the road, but it brings her here this weekend
July 26, 2012
Last year, singer Linda Eder released an album that many of her fans thought would never happen: a musical reunion with her ex-husband, songwriter Frank Wildhorn.
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Chicagoans respond to draft Chicago Cultural Plan
July 25, 2012
How do Chicagoans feel about the draft Chicago Cultural Plan 2012, which was released July 16?
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A late-in-life tribute to piano man Erwin Helfer
July 24, 2012
Even at 76, Chicago blues-and-boogie piano player Erwin Helfer never expected a grand civic celebration of his career.
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Good old-fashioned Hammond B-3 from organist Akiko Tsuruga
July 21, 2012
Akiko Tsuruga immigrated to the United States from Japan in 2001, but sometimes she sounds almost as if she grew up on the South Side of Chicago. As she showed Friday night at the Green Mill Jazz Club, Tsuruga plays Hammond B-3 organ with all the soulfulness and joy one might have encountered in a neighborhood joint back in the '50s.
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At last, Bobby Broom steps into spotlight at Showcase
July 20, 2012
Guitarist Bobby Broom moved to Chicago from New York in 1984 and quickly established himself as one of the city's most promising instrumentalists, his resume eventually including an ongoing stint with no less than tenor saxophone giant Sonny Rollins.
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Geof Bradfield's homage to a forgotten woman of jazz: Melba Liston
July 19, 2012
You'd think that any jazz musician who wrote for Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Billy Eckstine and Randy Weston – and also played trombone for Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones and Gerald Wilson – would be known to all the world.
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Andrea Marcovicci offers some very good reasons to 'Smile'
July 19, 2012
New shows tend to be rough, but not the one that Andrea Marcovicci unveiled Wednesday night at Davenport's. If you didn't know better, you might have assumed she had been performing "Smile" for ages.
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NEA chief Landesman and others champion Cultural Plan
July 18, 2012
The draft version of the Chicago Cultural Plan 2012 received a ringing endorsement Wednesday from the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts – as well as a closer look at how it may be implemented.
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Andrea Marcovicci: Searching for a 'Smile' in a difficult era
July 17, 2012
These are tough times for cabaret in America.
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Miguel Zenon to headline Hyde Park Jazz Festival
July 16, 2012
Miguel Zenon, a MacArthur "genius grant" winner and one of the most admired young musicians in jazz, will headline the 6th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival, a free event running Sept. 29 and 30 in various Hyde Park locations.
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A rough night for cabaret star Barbara Cook at Ravinia
July 16, 2012
When cabaret diva Barbara Cook played the Ravinia Festival's Martin Theatre in July of 2008, she was nearing her 81st birthday but sounded nothing like it. The warmth of her soprano and the suppleness of her instrument suggested youth, as if time very nearly had stood still for her.
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Draft of Cultural Plan lays out ambitious campaign
July 16, 2012
The draft for the Chicago Cultural Plan 2012 cites 10 priorities "for Chicago to realize its potential as a cultural leader" and identifies 36 recommendations for achieving them. Released Monday, the 64-page draft and 38-page supplemental materials estimate that "the majority of initiatives can be achieved within 18 months, with much of the remainder being completed within five years."
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Nice 'n easy does it for the Ben Paterson Organ Quartet
July 14, 2012
Not every band of young musicians tries to wallop its listeners with monster solos and bravura technique.
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Even now, Barry Manilow writes the songs that make his fans sing
July 13, 2012
Remember the '70s?
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South Shore jazz festival not canceled after all
July 12, 2012
The annual South Shore jazz festival, which had been canceled due to lack of sponsorship, will take place after all, according to planners.
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Jazz Camp for grown-ups: A new way of hearing the music
July 10, 2012
The phrase "jazz camp" probably strikes terror in the hearts of many listeners, conjuring thoughts of kids wailing mercilessly on their out-of-tune horns while their compadres bash away on drums and anything else within striking range.
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Howard Levy re-imagines what a harmonica can achieve
July 7, 2012
The introduction said it all.
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'Some Like it Hot!': Rebecca Kilgore sings Marilyn Monroe, warmly
July 6, 2012
For a club that never has been very favorably disposed toward singers, the Jazz Showcase lately has been presenting quite a run of them.
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Chicago saxophone great Eric Schneider plays the wee hours
July 5, 2012
Unless you frequent jazz clubs deep into the night, you might not know that one of the city's top saxophonists has been holding down the late-late-late slot at the Green Mill, in Uptown.
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Billy Strayhorn's music to bask in a brighter spotlight – in Chicago
July 3, 2012
He was the equal of Duke Ellington (at least) and the composer of such indelible works as "Take the 'A' Train," "Lush Life," "Chelsea Bridge" and other American classics.
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Matt Ulery's 'By a Little Light' glows at the Green Mill
July 2, 2012
Even listeners already familiar with Chicago bassist Matt Ulery's alluring new double-CD, "By a Little Light," had to be struck by how this music sounds in concert.
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Frank D'Rone: Swinging hard at 80
June 29, 2012
The veteran Chicago singer Frank D'Rone has been ill for awhile, so he was understandably concerned about how he would fare during his return to the stage this week at the Jazz Showcase.
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Sergio Mendes and Ramsey Lewis take fresh looks at jazz
June 29, 2012
The 1960s never really go away, at least not musically, the latest evidence arriving Wednesday night at the Ravinia Festival, in Highland Park, courtesy of Brazilian musician Sergio Mendes.
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Bassist Matt Ulery scores a breakthrough with 'By a Little Light'
June 28, 2012
It's only June, but one of the most hauntingly beautiful recordings of this year – or any other – already stands out.
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Esperanza Spalding: Daring art under strained circumstances
June 26, 2012
It has been a long time – if ever – since the world of jazz encountered a phenomenon quite like Esperanza Spalding.
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Jason Adasiewicz's Sun Rooms: New vibe at the Green Mill
June 24, 2012
Recordings, important though they are, do not come close to capturing the extraordinary tintinnabulation of Jason Adasiewicz's vibraphone.
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Gospel Fest brings good news to the South Side
June 24, 2012
Thousands of Chicagoans poured into Ellis Park, at 37th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, on Saturday, suggesting that a rather large cultural gamble had paid off handsomely.
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South Shore JazzFest may be saved
June 22, 2012
Earlier this month, Chicago impresario Geraldine de Haas announced that her South ShoreJazzFest -- which has played the South Shore Cultural Center annually since 1981 -- would be canceled.
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Gospel Fest opener a mixed blessing at Millennium Park
June 22, 2012
The reinvented, dramatically expanded Chicago Gospel Music Festival got off to a sometimes rousing, sometimes perplexing start Thursday night at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
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New boss for MacArthur 'genius grants'
June 21, 2012
Cecilia Conrad, vice president for academic affairs and dean of Pomona College, in Claremont, Ca., will be the next director of the MacArthur Fellows Program. She will replace Daniel Socolow, who last year announced he was leaving the position after 15 years.
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Jason Adasiewicz makes beautiful vibes
June 21, 2012
Chicago has a way of producing fabulously eccentric, fiercely individualistic jazz stars.
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From Gospel Fest to Esperanza Spalding, a busy week in Chicago
June 21, 2012
The next four days will be thick with music, starting with the Chicago Gospel Music Festival and culminating with jazz phenom Esperanza Spalding:
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Summer listening: Revelations from Ravi Coltrane to Bobby Broom
June 19, 2012
In jazz, summer listening does not necessarily mean easily listening. The music can be bold (as in Ravi Coltrane's new "Spirit Fiction"), genre-breaking (Matt Ulery's "By a Little Light") and unexpected (Bela Fleck and Marcus Roberts' "Across the Imaginary Divide").
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Karen Mason reveals secrets of the 'Divas'
June 16, 2012
No one in cabaret walks the line between humor and sorrow, joy and despair as nimbly as Karen Mason. She can switch emotional tone from one to the next in a flash, before the listener fully realizes what has happened.
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Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt makes the most of a lesser ensemble
June 15, 2012
The version of the Jeremy Pelt Quintet that opened Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase wasn't quite the same that appears on the trumpeter's engaging new release, "Soul" (HighNote), and earlier recordings. But the partnership of Pelt and tenor saxophonist J.D. Allen – long the core of Pelt's ensemble sound – proved strong enough to command considerable interest, if less than his well-honed working band.
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From Goines to Bridgewater, Chicago jazz heats up
June 14, 2012
A busy weekend in Chicago jazz:
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Gospel festival conversion
June 14, 2012
For decades, most of the city-sponsored summer music festivals have played as if they were produced on an assembly line. In one event after another, audiences have been funneled into Grant Park, where they've suffered the abysmal acoustics and sorry production values of the Petrillo Music Shell.
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Karen Mason promises 'Secrets of the Ancient Divas'
June 12, 2012
When Karen Mason takes the stage of Davenport's on Wednesday night, she'll be playing the world-premiere of her latest show, but also doing something more. For the first time, Mason will be devoting an evening to iconic songs associated with other members of a club she has long belonged to: diva.
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New Roosevelt cabaret appeals more to ear than eye
June 10, 2012
The wavy new Roosevelt University building on South Wabash Avenue entered the world of the performing arts over the weekend, with the unveiling of an intimate performance space.
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Garcia and Auguscik jazz the Beatles
June 8, 2012
So many artists have covered Beatles tunes in so many ways that one might wonder why anyone would bother anymore. What possibly could there be left to say in this music?
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Jason Moran takes on the myths of Fats Waller
May 31, 2012
If Fats Waller is remembered at all by the public at large these days, it's as a caricature, with bug-eyes wide open, cigarette dangling from lip and eyebrows perpetually bobbing underneath a derby hat as he hams it up at the keys.
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Chicago Jazz Ensemble, Center for Black Music Research face budget cuts
May 23, 2012
The Chicago Jazz Ensemble and the Center for Black Music Research, both based at Columbia College Chicago, will face reduced budgets and redefined missions, according to a plan issued by Columbia President Warrick Carter and obtained by the Tribune. The “Blueprint for Action” plan is subject to adoption by the college's board of trustees in late June.
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Stravinsky meets Marsalis in a merger of classical and jazz
May 14, 2012
Fourteen years ago, a large audience crowded Orchestra Hall for the Chicago premiere of Wynton Marsalis' "A Fiddler's Tale," a full-blooded jazz response to Igor Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du Soldat" ("The Soldier's Tale").
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Jazz meets classics: A Chicago pianist teams with Orion Ensemble
May 3, 2012
When Chicago pianist Miguel de la Cerna was growing up on the South Side, the sound of jazzand blues, gospel and funk, R&B and soul was everywhere. It blasted out of clubs and apartments, car radios and storefronts, inspiring a kid growing up near 41st Street and Berkeley Avenue to build his life in music.
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Wynton Marsalis heads to Symphony Center for weekend residency
April 24, 2012
For most of us, turning 50 represents a major personal landmark.
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Music and dance swing into Millennium Park for summer
April 18, 2012
Music and dance in Millennium Park will take on slightly new forms this summer, though several popular series will be returning.
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Gospel Fest set to play downtown and South Side
March 30, 2012
The 27th Chicago Gospel Music Festival – running June 21-24 – will take a new form, with two days unfolding in downtown Chicago and two days on the South Side, where the music first emerged.
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George Benson swings guitar back to jazz standards
March 21, 2012
Few living jazz musicians have enjoyed the broad acclaim of George Benson, and fewer still are likely to in the future. The implosion of the record industry and the marginalization of jazz in our popular culture — notwithstanding the recent crossover success of bassist-vocalist Esperanza Spalding and pianist-bandleader Robert Glasper — have made Benson's career quite the anomaly.
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Best jazz recordings of the year -- so far
March 13, 2012
The New Year hasn't yet produced a great jazz recording, but it certainly has yielded several excellent ones, all richly worth exploring.
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Nicholas Payton trumpets new orchestra
March 8, 2012
Even when he was a 16-year-old trumpeter in his native New Orleans — where I first heard him in 1989 — Nicholas Payton stood out for the clarion tone, striking technique and profound lyricism of his playing.
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Is this the twilight of blues music?
December 28, 2011
They buried Hubert Sumlin two weeks ago at Washington Memory Gardens Cemetery in Homewood, laying to rest the man whose ferocious guitar riffs galvanized Howlin' Wolf's classic recordings of the 1950s and '60s.
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Playing the blues in black AND white
November 26, 2011
On a recent Wednesday night at Blue Chicago, a long-running club downtown, you had to elbow your way forward just to get past the doorman. Men and women in business suits — collars loosened, beers in hand — packed the place, barely leaving room for the waitress to make her way to the bar and back.
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Chicago architect Jeanne Gang wins MacArthur Fellowship
September 20, 2011
At first glance, the sensuous curves of the 82-story Aqua building on North Columbus Drive and the sleekly horizontal lines of the Media Production Center of Columbia College Chicago, at 16th and State Streets, appear to have little in common.
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'He's the last of the bluesmen'
August 29, 2011
He was the son of a sharecropper, the grandson of a slave and -- for an extraordinary 80-plus years -- the voice of the Delta blues.
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Chicago camp teaches kids Blues 101
August 20, 2011
If you didn’t know better, you’d think Lady Gaga was in the house and the kids were piling in to catch a glance.
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21st century blues -- can an ancestral art form survive?
June 5, 2011
You can't find the blues on radio very easily these days, unless you hunt low down on the dial in the small hours of the morning.
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Bringing Big Bill Broonzy back into the spotlight
May 23, 2011
He was one of the most celebrated blues artists of his era, a visionary Chicago singer-songwriter who mentored Muddy Waters, introduced the music to Europe and inspired no less than Eric Clapton, Ray Davies and Pete Townshend (as they've all acknowledged).
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Self-styled 'arts crusader'
May 9, 2011
Chicago's newly appointed Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events happens to be one of the city's most influential jazz advocates.
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The moment that never was
April 30, 2011
In 34 years of covering music for the Tribune — including the 22 years of Richard Daley's mayoralty — I have not once seen him at a jazz concert. Unless you count that tiny photo of him smiling in the Chicago Jazz Festival program book.
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Delta blues legend won a Grammy at age 97
March 22, 2011
Pinetop Perkins lived the blues.
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Filming 'DuSable to Obama' – with a jazz beat
June 1, 2010
The idea seems so obvious, it's a wonder no one thought of it until now: a feature-length documentary film telling the story of "DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis."
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Letters: Honoring Marian Catholic's marching band
November 19, 2009
Readers from across the country responded to "Marching to Glory," a three-part series by Tribune critic Howard Reich on the Marian Catholic High School marching band and its journey to the Grand National Championships, led by band director Greg Bimm.
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Grand National championships: Victory defined
November 16, 2009
On the eve of war, leaders rouse their troops to vanquish the enemy, but not this time.
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Marching to glory with the Marian Catholic High School marching band
November 12, 2009
The kids in the Marian Catholic band look as if they're about to collapse.
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'Fiddler' by design
June 21, 2009
The voice still can thunder.
