Jazz & Blues Lounge

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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I am still trying to keep an eye out for various festivals and things in and around the Chicago area.  Thankfully, there are a lot of those, especially when you consider the suburbs as well.  Of course, many of them are still a long ways off, but it never hurts to plan ahead.  Thanks to WDCB for the information below about the JazzCit Latin Jazz Festival.
JIC’s JazzCity Series: Latin Jazz Festival 
General Event Information 
Price:  free 
 
Dates and Times:  Friday, July 11; 7 p.m. 
Artist/Group:  Carlos Garcia’s Cuatrissimo, vocalist Nythia Rivera, and Jose Papo Santiago’s Infraverde 
Description 
Produced in cooperation with the Chicago Park District, and sponsored by …read more

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A man by the name of Israel “Cachao” López has passed away.  He often just went by the name of Cachao (Ka-chow) and he was a bassist.  However, that would be like saying John Lennon was just a singer or Mozart was just a guy who can play piano.  Cachao was the man who pretty much invented the style of music we know today as “mambo.”
Now, technically speaking, mambo may not be jazz, but the way Cachao played, it was very close.  According to the WIKIPEDIA entry for Cachao:
“A possibly more important move took place in 1957, when Cachao gathered …read more

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