Irrepressible and Matchless – The Chicago Jazz Festival

If you’ve been around long enough to remember the shock of 9/11, you recall; and may still recoil at, how much things changed in its aftermath.  Heightened security might have made us feel more safe boarding an airplane, but the precautions implemented after that fateful day also served to erode our sense of who we thought we were.  We persevered, adapted and settled into a refashioned normal.  This year’s annual Chicago Jazz Festival carried the earmarks of a new era of momentous change as well.  

Constrained for the last couple of years by Covid, 2022’s festival was conceived as a full blossom affair.  Neighborhood events ran from August 23rd to the 31st with the official events held from September 1^st through the 4^th in the splendor of Millennium Park.   Fine weather and a strong lineup made Friday night a particularly good evening to float in the magic of live music.

As usual, crowds swarmed along Michigan Avenue, swelling at the informal entrance to the park at Washington Street.  This year though, rather than seeing humanity flow freely up the broad staircase to the distinctive music pavilion, there was a long line formed along the street reminiscent of the TSA.  People were waiting to have their bags checked or to have a metal detecting wand swept over their bodies.  This isn’t the first time such safeguards had been implemented in the park.  Checkpoints at previous events were marked by an air of nonchalant formality, just another nuisance of the times. In the aftermath of Uvalde, Buffalo and other mass shootings, this line was much more serious; despite being unusually porous.  Once on the grounds, festival attendance appeared to rival that of previous years.  The number of people using the great lawn to spread a blanket and picnic with family and friends during the festivities was clearly down.  But foot traffic coursing around and through the festival was strong.  By mid-afternoon, most of the 4000 bright red seats facing the pavilion’s bandshell were already filled and that familiar air of warmth and camaraderie peculiar to the jazz festival once again filled the air.  Like the security line outside the park, the heavy police presence at the event was another surprise.  Clusters of armed personnel were liberally scattered throughout the venue.  They stood in pockets or roamed, always in groups, along the park’s and pavilion’s walkways.    Dressed in khaki-colored shirts and brown slacks, many sporting Kevlar vests, they weren’t affiliated with the CPD.  With their thick builds and aloof demeanor, they were chilling reminders of the dour and inescapable policing details filling the landscape of Rio de Janeiro’s famous Copacabana beach.  Despite their purpose, they too were ignored and failed to dampen the current of joyful expectation filling the park.

With jazz guitarist Bill Frisell as the evening’s headliner, Friday night’s performances stood out for their unabashed reach.  Intent on showcasing musical excellence and the heights of individual artistry, the roster paid tribute to a genius and showed how uniquely jazz allows musicians and vocalists express their imagination and creativity.  That ability was in high relief all night and began with Ethan Philion’s musical love offering to bassist Charles Mingus. Mingus’s music can be complex, searing, spry, angry, searching and quite commonly, remarkable.  Playing several of the great bassist’s classics including “Haitian Fight Song” and “Remember Rockefeller at Attica”, Philion and his “little big band” attempted to re-create the urgency and insight Mingus’s music embodied.   Swathed in sincerity and an abundance of talent, theirs’s was an extremely ambitious undertaking that ultimately succeeded in conjuring the immensity of Mingus.  Trumpeters Russ Johnson and Victor Garcia were characteristically impeccable.  The set also provided an opportunity to finally hear Chicago pianist Alexis Lombre perform live.  Well suited to both the nuance and the bombast of Mingus’s musical mind, her playing glowed with natural virtuosity. 

Far too elusive to categorize, you can always be assured that JD Allen’s sound is strong and singular.  A tenor saxophonist from Detroit following in the footsteps of Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson, Allen uniquely specializes in the trio format.  Joining Kayvon Gordon on drums and Tyrone Allen on bass, JD Allen did what he most often does and chose to mesh with rather than dominate his talented combo. It’s a tact that allows him to revel in the power of three.  Riding a zip line between free form and melodic composition, the music the threesome presented was curious, accomplished and strived to create its own niche in the sonic universe. 

Jazzmeia Horn brought the vocal side of jazz to the party.  Hailing from Dallas, Horn’s acclaim in the jazz world came shortly after she won the coveted Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition in 2015.  Since then, she’s already collected a couple of Grammys.  What she has not yet done is produce a live recording; making her stylistic capabilities a complete mystery until you’re able to catch her in the flesh.  Her vocal range is astonishing.  Live, she also effortlessly takes scatting to a whole new dimension.  An avid admirer of the late Betty Carter, Horn exudes a similar brashness and has the same ability to contemporize standards; turning them into spanking new masterpieces in the process.  As she kept flashing telling glimpses of her power and prowess, the audience waited for her to completely free her vocal instrument and soar.  Too much chatting up the faithful transpired for that to occur.  We at least got a peek of where Ms. Horn can go and got a feel for how those two Grammys came about.  Maybe the next time we catch her live, an even brighter image of her talents will emerge.   

And then there’s Bill Frisell.  It’s hard to believe this guy has been dazzling listeners for over forty years. His sound has the adventurousness and intrepidation of a kid.  Sadly, you don’t notice the surety of his musical sense as keenly when he’s performing his own compositions.  It’s when he reclothes the Beatles, “Stardust” or some other classic that you find yourself swooning.  Beautiful just shouldn’t be that pretty, jaw dropping or mesmerizing. Frisell’s music sits in a remote corner of jazz’s terrain.  With Heartland oozing from its pores, his music exalts in its kinship to Americana and folk.  But it has jazz’s sense of exploration at its core and that is its magic. You know you’ve arrived as a performer when nearly every face in the audience reveals how much people are lost in what they’re hearing.  Maybe that’s why Frisell has sixty-three guitars.  To make sure the sound he’s trying to capture at any moment in time can be found in one of them. Listening to the transportive bliss of “Shenandoah” as realized by Frisell on guitar, Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston on drums was to understand the curative power of jazz.  The kinds of treasures scattered through Friday night’s sets can be found throughout a Jazz Fest schedule. Those whose lives are enhanced by them won’t be deterred by the inconveniences of security lines or the dourness of armed guards.

Chicago Jazz Festival

Millennium Park

2022