Jazz & Blues Lounge

You have to love the news and the people who do weather.  You would have thought that the snow storm that blew through the Chicago area was going to somehow kill every living being here.  You would have thought that so much snow would fall that every building in the city would collapse, burying millions beneath the rubble.
Of course, the East Coast news people go exactly the opposite way.  It only becomes news to them when it actually hits New York.  Chicago COULD have been wiped out by a freak snow fall and they wouldn’t notice or acknowledge it until …read more

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Writing yesterday about Ramsey Lewis and his morning show on WNUA here in Chicago got me thinking about the two major types of jazz that most people probably know.  Of course, like most genres of music, the various types of jazz just show what a wide and diverse and exciting genre it is.
Of course, Chip and other purists will be quick to point out there are a lot more than two types of jazz.  I know that.  There’s Latin jazz and other forms of jazz from around the world.  New Orleans jazz is just a little different than Chicago jazz …read more

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So, I have been fighting some kind of nasty illness that I am calling (with all due respect to writer Dave Barry, from whom I am stealing) “The Martian Death Flu.”  Of course, what does this have to do with jazz and blues?  Very little really, but I will make a stab at it.
It all started exactly one week ago when the weather changed and I began coughing.  It was a cough as loud and annoying as any wrong note Charlie Parker may have ever played when he first picked up his saxophone.  I could only wish the coughing would …read more

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There are times it is just hard to come in here and write.  I love writing this blog and I love writing about jazz, but after you  have spent the entire afternoon pushing around a vacuum cleaner and then a broom and then a mop and you have cleaned everything including a toilet…well… There are just times when the last thing on your mind is writing about jazz or blues.  I may be wanting to sing the blues as my shoulders scream at me from all of the work, but I don’t really have the blues on my mind.
Still, I hate …read more

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The tough bloggers just steal stuff from other websites.  OK, I am actually starting a new job today.  However,  I still feel dedicated enough to want to keep posting about the exciting jazz and blues activities here in Chicago.  What is a person to do?
Well, thankfully, we have radio station WDCB which does jazz here in Chicago and they have a great events calendar filled with all kinds of cool jazz goings-on for you to check out.  In fact, you really should visit www.wdcb.org from time to time and just take the time to listen to the station through their …read more

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