Jazz & Blues Lounge

Continuing the theme of festival week (or month or whatever) I thought you might want to know about the Illinois Blues Festival which is right downtown in beautiful (ahem) Peoria Illinois. Yes, the same Peoria people used to use when they would say, “Yeah, but will it play in Peoria?” The home of Catepillar tractors and construction equipment.
These days Peoria is experiencing a bit of a comeback. They have a casino now and they have begun to build up their riverfront which goes right through the heart of the downtown area. I hear it’s …read more

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Milwaukee is an interesting city.  It is maybe, at the most, two hours from Chicago.  By today’s standards, that practically makes it a suburb of Chicago, but don’t try telling that to anyone who lives or grew up in Milwaukee.  It’s a great city, really, and I have been to a few towns and cities in Wisconsin.  For me, Milwaukee is the only one I think I could live in and not go crazy.
So, of course, there is jazz here in Milwaukee.  This close to Chicago, of course there’s jazz, and Milwaukee has had a history of jazz and been a …read more

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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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