Jazz & Blues Lounge

The Chicago Jazz Festival will be here before you know it and you should start making plans now. The Jazz Festival has grown steadily for years and while it is still the smaller and younger brother of the Chicago Blues Festival, it is starting to gain in popularity. It is starting to attract some of the biggest talent and the number of stages involved has grown as well. It closes out the festival season around here in Chicago and if you are a fan of jazz music, or just want an introduction to the scene, this is …read more

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One of the biggest festivals in the City of Chicago is going on right now and it is known as the “Taste of Chicago.” If you love food, and Chicago has lots and lots of great food, then you will love the Taste of Chicago. Click on that link and you will find all kinds of entertainment and plenty of great food. The crowds are thick, the lines are long and the food is great.
Oh yeah, and there is a lot of music.
Now, the main stage is known as the Petrillo Music Shell. Here …read more

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Well, it is the last weekend in the month of June for 2008. I still cannot believe I am writing that. The mere thought that my niece’s birthday will be here before I know it, her first birthday, is just beyond my imagining. How does time move so fast?
Anyway, the weather people are predicting a chance of storms around the Chicago area this weekend. It’s another great weekend to catch a live jazz or blues show. I want to thank and credit radio station WDCB for providing the information about the performances you will find …read more

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Well, I have to admit, the blues people have done a pretty good job of getting lots and lots of blues festivals together. The peopl who do all of the jazz stuff have a lot of websites and magazines, and the blues folks don’t quite have that down, but the blues folks have lots and lots of festivals. In fact, so many of them that there is a website dedicated to NOTHING BUT blues festivals and it is called “Blues Festival Guide.”
You can search for festivals by month and you can even search for festivals by year! …read more

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I went to Webster University which is located in Webster Groves, which is a suburb just west of St. Louis. It is a quaint little place, Webster Groves, with quiet tree-lined streets and lots of suburbanites. Of course, most of St. Louis is suburbanites, but this is a very picturesque kind of place. It has a section known as “Old Webster” which is the downtown area. This is the even-more quaint original part of the town. It has streets that actually are still cobblestone.
This is also the location of the “Old Webster Jazz Festival” and …read more

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I can’t believe how fast this year has gone so far. I cannot believe it is now summer and we are almost in the month of July. Who the heck hit the Fast-Forward button on my life and why didn’t they bother to tell me about it? It will be the 4th of July very soon and then, before you know it, the damn holiday season will be here again.
Sheesh! It’s just not fair, I tell ya.
Thankfully we have AllAboutJazz.com and their wonderful list of jazz new releases and reissues to keep us entertained even as …read more

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St. Louis is a pretty cool town. I went to school in St. Louis and that is where I developed my love and appreciation for jazz. They have a great radio station down there, WSIE, that is student run and out of Southern Illinois University that plays jazz. It’s pretty cool. I lived there for three years after college as well and it is definitely one of the major hubs for jazz and blues fans. If you are planning some kind of cross-country jazz and/or blues pilgrimmage, you need to book at least a night …read more

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Just a reminder that another great free jazz festival is fast-approaching. I first started writing about the Glen Ellyn Jazz Festival months ago. I cannot believe that it is now close enough to July 12 that I can start writing about it as being right around the corner.
The festival is in beautiful downtown Glen Ellyn which is in the far western suburbs of Chicago. It is sponsored by the radio station WDCB which you hear me ranting and raving about at least at once a week. It is July 12 and it is totally, …read more

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It is, at last, the weekend. Most of the city of Chicago is caught up in the infamous “Crosstown Classic” which is when the Chicago White Sox baseball team and the Chicago Cubs bseball team face off in inter-league play. I am a White Sox fan, but this weekend the Sox are in Cubs territory at Wrigley Field. As such, this may be a really good weekend to visit Chicago and check out a great live jazz show without running into too many actual Chicagoans. They may be in bars or busy getting in fist-fights somewhere.
Once …read more

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The twin cities of Bloomington and Normal sit about two hours to the south of Chicago. They are maybe three hours north of St. Louis. Bloomington is the international headquarters for State Farm Insurance and is also a big college town. It is also the LONGEST part of the drive either to and from Chicago and St. Louis. If you are driving from Chicago to St. Louis, the longest part of the journey (at least perception-wise) is that stretch between Chicago and Bloomington. The same holds true when you are driving back.
Well, they are the …read more

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