Jazz & Blues Lounge

The new releases are here again. If you recall, and you can page down if you don’t, I was talking about the website called AllAbouJazz.com for one of the best places on the web for jazz information and news. I raved about thta yesterday, and today I am using them because it is the big day for new releases and reissues.
It’s another impressive list and I want to thank the AllAboutJazz.com people for providing all of this information on a regular basis. They really do a great job and you should check them out.
NEW RELEASES
Tuesday July 22, …read more

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There is a website I visit every week. I try hard to mention them here and give them as much credit as I can. They deserve it. The world of jazz music is filled with organizations trying to keep jazz music alive and doing so on an entirely volunteer basis. It’s tough to get paid when you love jazz. It’s a great genre of music, as is the blues, but jazz is not the most popular form of music out there. People are intimidated by it and that is too bad.
I am, of course, …read more

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I was a punk kid who was into Pink Floyd. What I really wanted to do was be on the radio. I thought I was going to be the next Howard Stern or, more likely, the next Steve and Garry (two Chicago radio legends). I had worked at the tiny AM station that my college, Webster University, has created first. It was known as WEBU AM 660 and you could pick pretty much any shift you wanted and play whatever the hell you wanted. This created a scattered program schedule and no one ever listened. …read more

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As I mentioned in an earlier post today, there is a jazz festival in the Chicago are. This is known as the JVC Jazz Festival and they apparently do festivals all over the country. I also appears to be performances at a whole variety of very cool Chicago jazz clubs.
From their website (linked above) the line up is:
Friday, July 18, 2008
Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo
House of Blues
329 N. Dearborn Street
(312) 923-2000
Doors open at 7:30pm
Show at 9pm
Tickets: Standing only: $45.50
Age: 17+
The Corey Wilkes Quartet featuring Greg Osby
Andy’s Jazz Club
11 E. Hubbard Street
(312) 642-6805
8pm & 10:30pm
Tickets: $21.50 in …read more

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Another weekend is here. While I am planning on standing in lines and cramming into a movie theater to see The Dark Knight, you may have other plans or desire to see some live music. Thankfully, summer in Chicago is a great time for that. There is a jazz festival this weekend. Buddy Guy is having a CD release party at his club “Buddy Guy’s Legends.” It’s all here and a special thanks goes out, as always, to radio station WDCB for the information you find here.
This weekend is predicted to be a real scorcher …read more

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Every week I rave about Chicago radio station WDCB and what they do. I can’t help myself. Here in Chicago, our options are very limited when it comes to listening to jazz on the radio. At one time the local NPR outlet, during the nighttime hours, used to broadcast classic jazz music. Then someone decided that they should do other things and jazz fans lost a major outlet. Fortunately, this has been a major boon to humble College of DuPage, publicly-funded, suburban radio station WDCB.
They do a program just known as “All Things …read more

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Earlier this year you may remember me raving about Cassie Taylor, the daughter of the great blues musician Otis Taylor. Cassie is a fantastic musician in her own right, of course, and I mean no slight by mentioning her father. I saw her at the Chicago Blues Festival last month and I was captivated. Not only is she gorgeous, she is also very talented. She also was trying to get onto the Blues Foundation as one of the youngest members.
Unfortunately, I have not heard from her since that time. I did hope to …read more

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Can you believe it’s July 15 already? I know, I keep harping on how fast things are flying this year, or every year, but it’s so true. It seems like just yesterday that everyone was complaining about how brutal the winter was and I was slipping and falling on the ice while trying to get into my car. Now, it’s brutally hot and there are severe thunderstorms every other day and everyone is complaining about the heat.
One thing always helps and that’s being able to tell you about the new releases and various re-issues that …read more

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I am declaring this Mingus Monday. I have no idea why other than I was rooting around online for some cool jazz to listen to and came across some of Charles and his and from 1975 which you will see below. He was playing live at Montreux at the time and playing his classic “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” I don’t even know what a Pork Pie Hat is, but I like the music.
For me, my all-time favorite Charles Mingus tune is called “Haitian Fight Song.” You will be hard-pressed to find a tune that builds …read more

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Jazz in Chicago (JIC) is an organization I was busy raving about just yesterday. It’s an organization dedicated to promoting jazz and jazz music in and around Chicago. They sponsors and put together and promote all kinds of jazz performances and jazz education programs. They are a very cool organization and they do good work for a form of music that far too many people don’t know enough about. Too many people find jazz intimidating or off-putting and that’s too bad.
One of the up-coming events is the performance of the Chicago Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble. …read more

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