Chicago Reader: The Blog: Post No Bills

Locust Music Hosts an Eclectic Saturday Showcase

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:04:40 -0600

Starless & Bible Black

I haven’t had time to fully digest it, but Shape of the Shape, the new second album by British trio Starless & Bible Black, sure seems like a winner. And since the band is playing Saturday night at the Empty Bottle as part of a showcase presented by local label Locust Music, I don’t think I should wait to post about the band till after I’ve listened to the new album as thoroughly as I think I ought to. I remember liking the group’s self-titled 2006 debut, also on Locust, but it certainly didn’t impress me right out of the gate like Shape of the Shape did. Now I feel stupid for not giving the debut more of my attention when it came out.

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Matthew Shipp on His Own

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:43:40 -0600

Matthew Shipp

New York pianist Matthew Shipp, who plays solo tonight at Elastic as part of the Umbrella Music Festival, didn’t release his first solo recording, One (Thirsty Ear), until 2006, 18 years into his career. That record signaled a shift in his music. Though he hadn’t stopped working with his most famous collaborator, titanic tenor saxophonist David S. Ware, he’d been spending an increasing amount of time experimenting with electronic musicians and hip-hop artists (DJ Spooky, Anti-Pop Consortium, Spring Heel Jack)—but One signalled the start of a shift back toward acoustic sounds. One thing that Shipp never altered, though, was the rigor of his compositions and improvisations, regardless of context.

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Bold Pianists Kick off the Umbrella Music Festival Tonight

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:54:37 -0600

Achim Kaufmann

In this week’s paper I write about a couple of the international artists performing at the Chicago Cultural Center tonight as part of “European Jazz Meets Chicago,” the opening celebration of this year’s Umbrella Music Festival. But don’t take my focus on Liudas Mockunas and Martin Brandlmayr to mean the other musicians on the bill aren’t worthy. In fact, the two visiting pianists tonight would merit special attention any day of the year. (So would the other two guests, Swiss reedist Hans Koch and Swedish guitarist David Stackenas.)

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Tobin Summerfield Pares Down His Sound

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:22:29 -0600

Tobin Summerfield

If you know the name Tobin Summerfield, that’s likely due to the sprawling large-band works the local guitarist and bassist has made in the past few years under the name Never Enough Hope—he assembles upwards of 20 musicians from the jazz and rock worlds to bring to life his minimalist epics. But on Thursday night at the Hideout Summerfield celebrates the digital release of a much more modest piece of work, a solo outing called Working Up to Full Reflection (Contraphonic).

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The Visual Music of Swiss Director Peter Liechti

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:51:00 -0600

Hans Koch

The Umbrella Music Festival officially starts Thursday night with the six-act “European Jazz Meets Chicago” mini fest at the Chicago Cultural Center. But several visiting artists are getting an early jump by playing shows on Wednesday night. The Hideout presents two ad hoc groupings of top-notch European players, among them guitarist David Stackenas, drummer Martin Brandlmayr, and reedist Liudas Mockunas, and Swiss reedist Hans Koch plays a solo set presented by the Renaissance Society at the U. of C.'s Bond Chapel.

(Koch also plays a free solo set Friday at 4 PM at Corbett vs. Dempsey that isn't officially part of the festival.)]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Soulico Brings Its International Flavor to the Empty Bottle Tonight

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:14:30 -0600

Soulico

A bunch of high-profile cameos festoon the U.S. debut album by the Israeli production crew Soulico—including Ghostface, Rye Rye, Lyrics Born, and Del the Funky Homosapien—but frankly, they really aren’t needed. The music on Exotic on the Speaker (JDub) traffics in club-oriented hip-hop bangers, with the Tel Aviv foursome liberally drawing upon samples of Middle Eastern sounds, you know, for that regional flavor. The various singers and MCs who have a connection to the Middle East—Balkan Beat Box front man Tomer Yosef, Oren Barzilay, and Axum, who’s performing with the group tonight in their cover-free Chicago debut at the Empty Bottle—pack the most punch, fitting in easily with Soulico’s Mediterranean party vibe.

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A Snapshot—Musical and Visual—of the South Side in the 70s

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:25:49 -0500

Chicago’s invaluable Numero Group label has always complemented its superb collections with beautiful packaging—thorough, fascinating liner notes, rare archival photographs, lovely slipcases. In fact, over the imprint’s history it seems as though the physical presentation of each release has become more important and more elaborate, which makes sense considering how easy it is for most folks to simply illegally download something for free. For the label’s next knockout release, Light: On the Southside, the music is actually a complement to the art: a stunning 12-by-12, 132-page hardbound book featuring gorgeous black-and-white photographs shot by Michael L. Abramson at a handful of south-side blues clubs and lounges between 1975 and 1977.

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Iceland's Hildur Gudnadottir Puts the Cello in Front

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:23:29 -0500

Hildur Gudnadottir

Cellist Hildur Gudnadottir has been working with the Icelandic band Mum since the late 90s, both live and on record—and she’ll be performing with them tonight at the Logan Square Auditorium—but she’s never been a full-fledged member. Which is probably for the best, because she’s got so much else going on.

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Fred Lonberg-Holm: Cellist, Entrepreneur

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:33:41 -0500

Fred Lonberg-Holm

Chicago cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm is a busy guy, playing in countless ensembles (Frame Quartet, Vandermark 5, the Horse’s Ha, Fast Citizens, and his own Valentine Trio, among many others) and apparently pretty open to improvising with any player with a good idea or two in his head. He’s anything but a careerist—but he’s found his own low-key ways to make more of his music available over the years.

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ICE Cofounder Claire Chase Steps Out With Debut Solo Recording

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:59:25 -0500

Claire Chase

Is it just me, or is the killer new-music group and Chicago-New York presenting force International Contemporary Ensemble responsible for an inordinately large proportion of the exciting new music shows that happen in the city? A few weeks ago I saw violinist David Bowlin give a knockout performance of rarely performed work by Luigi Nono, and I’m super pumped about a program of works by the brilliant Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho happening next month at the MCA.

From the very start one of the key forces behind the organization has been the remarkable flutist Claire Chase, who plays a record release party at the Velvet Lounge tonight.

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Belated Recs: The Atlas Sound, With Broadcast Monday at the Bottom Lounge

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:31:56 -0500

Bradford Cox (Atlas Sound)

Tonight the superb British duo Broadcast performs at the Bottom Lounge. When I wrote my recommendation for the show a while back, I hadn't yet gotten a copy of Logos (Kranky/4AD), the terrific new album by headliner Atlas Sound, the solo project of Deerhunter singer Bradford Cox. So consider this a belated double recommendation.

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Radical Sound Artist Maryanne Amacher Dies

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:55:00 -0500

Maryanne Amacher

The singular sound artist Maryanne Amacher died yesterday at age 66; she’d suffered a stroke a couple weeks earlier. Although the one-time Stockhausen student released two stunning albums for John Zorn’s Tzadik label in the last decade—including last year’s remarkable Sound Characters 2—her work was really about the direct experience of sound through installations, where its psychoacoustic and deeply physical properties could be properly felt. Unfortunately, that discipline and purity relegated her to obscurity in most circles.

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You Weren't There (and Neither Was I)

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:45:00 -0500

Jeff Pezzati of Naked Raygun

This Saturday night at the Portage Theater filmmakers Joe Losurdo and Christina Tillman present another screening of You Weren’t There: A History of Chicago Punk 1977-84, their lively documentary about the early days of Chicago’s rock underground. (Miles Raymer reviewed the movie in his column when it came out in 2007.) On Tuesday, October 27, it will be released on DVD by Factory 25—and there will also be a limited-edition package that includes an LP compilation with tracks by most of the bands featured in the movie.

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The Chicago History Museum Wants Your Lounge Ax Stuff

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:40:04 -0500

Lounge Ax

Recently on its blog, the Chicago History Museum sent out a call for objects, photos, documents, and other ephemera pertaining to the well-loved Lincoln Park rock club Lounge Ax, which closed back in 2000 after years of licensing hassles and trouble with neighbors. The museum wants to better chronicle the venue's history, and to that end there's a donation form at the bottom of the post for those of you with something tangible to offer. If all you've got is memories, you can leave a comment. There are only 16 so far—I'm sure there are more people out there with something worth saying.

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Tribune Critic Julia Keller Plays Dumb

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:39:08 -0500

Julia Keller

In her review in Sunday’s paper, Tribune writer Julia Keller looks to be using her hatred of jazz mostly as a straw man—a way to give extra luster to her praise of David Hajdu’s new anthology, Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture (Da Capo). Her angle is more or less “he makes jazz sound so good in theory, I almost forget that I can’t stand the shit.” I’m not about to argue with her taste, but it was hard not to cringe reading the piece. Right off the bat she writes, “[Chicago] is a city that runs on jazz, that thrives on it. Jazz is the gas in our tanks. It’s the fizz in our drinks. Jazz is always just around the corner.”

What say?

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Afro-Peruvian Singers Eva Ayllon and Susana Baca Honor Chabuca Granda

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:22:00 -0500

Susana Baca

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was introduced to Afro-Peruvian music when Luaka Bop Records released the compilation Afro-Peruvian Classics: the Soul of Black Peru in 1995. The label signed singer Susana Baca, who, for many in the U.S., became the face of Afro-Peruvian music, if only because she was the only person whose recordings you could easily find. Though veteran group Peru Negro was also releasing albums and occasionally touring, they didn’t have a single recognizable face like Baca—or an expert marketing campaign behind them.

Over the years I’ve realized that there’s more to the tradition than Baca—who, despite her success abroad, isn’t a major star in her homeland. In fact, singer Eva Ayllon, who also had a track on that Luaka Bop comp, is much more popular. In the past few years she’s finally had some recordings released in the U.S., including the recent Kimba Fá (Times Square). She’s more of a pure entertainer than Baca, who infuses all her work with a strong sense of ethnomusicological mission, and her stylistic range is much broader—she’s more concerned in general with musical criollismo.

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Bulgarian Accordion Dynamo Petar Ralchev Blows Into Town

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:35:00 -0500

Petar Ralchev

To lots of Americans I suppose the phrase “Bulgarian wedding music” sounds like part of a punch line, but if you’ve heard the stuff—it’s one of the most exhilarating and technically demanding eastern European Romany styles—what those words will most likely bring to mind is the name Ivo Papasov. A virtuoso clarinetist, Papasov is credited with perfecting the mongrel form, which emerged as an underground phenomenon in the 70s after the communist regime cracked down on expressions of ethnic identity. Papasov and his cohorts took the music to wedding celebrations, where they played endless sets—keeping the party pumping while indulging their own love for experimentation.

The accordion is an important part of Bulgarian wedding music, and on his sporadic visits to the States, Papasov has brought along either Neshko Neshev or Ivan Milev; the former, now based in New York, is widely considered one of the greatest accordionists in the style. To be honest I wasn’t familiar with Petar Ralchev until I learned he was visiting Chicago this weekend; I looked him up, and it turns out I’ve already heard him. He’s played and recorded with Papasov, and he cowrote a tune with Stian Carstensen, leader of the brilliant Norwegian group Farmers Market, which is inspired by Bulgarian music.

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Han Bennink: Always a Pleasure

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:15:49 -0500

I usually don't post videos unless they illustrate something I couldn't explain in words, but I'll always make an exception for Dutch drummer Han Bennink. Earlier today I found this short video, where he appears to be on some kind of talk show. Uncharacteristically, he's wearing a necktie and has his bristly haircut slicked back, but once he starts playing—not at a drum kit, but at the desk used by the show's hosts—he quickly becomes himself. Few modern jazz musicians as unapologetically progressive as Bennink can also make audiences smile and laugh the way he does. He's a natural ham, but his humor and energy never compromise the seriousness of his musicianship.

You'll find the clip after the jump.

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Chicago, Meet French Electro-pop Chanteuse Emilie Simon

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:32:12 -0500

Emilie Simon

On Thursday night, as part of this year’s Decibelle Music and Culture Festival, French pop singer Emilie Simon makes her Chicago debut at Berlin. She’s probably best known for soundtracking the popular documentary La Marche de L'empereur—though when the film came out here, as March of the Penguins, it was accompanied by more conventional score from Alex Wurman. The producers apparently didn’t think North American audiences would’ve been able to handle Simon’s music.

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DJ Spooky's Hollow House

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:58:00 -0500

DJ Spooky

Back in 1995 New York's DJ Spooky (aka Paul D. Miller) made himself the face of the so-called illbient scene, a promising movement that styled DJs as sound sculptors just as likely to make use of the incidental noise of vinyl—pops, crackles, hisses, skips—as the actual music contained on it. But in the years since, just about all of Spooky's aesthetic comrades have evolved into artists much more compelling than he is, especially DJ Olive and Mutamassik, who've become viable, serious improvisers and collaborated with a dazzling range of musicians. Spooky seems better at lofty, often impenetrable rhetoric than music making, and when listened to outside the protective bubble of his theoretical mumbo-jumbo—rife with academic name-dropping and words like "datacloud" and "recombinant"—his output has usually been pedestrian if not downright boring.

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The Cinematic Sounds of Bill Frisell

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:57:00 -0500

Bill Frisell

In a career spanning nearly four decades, guitarist Bill Frisell has developed one of the most instantly recognizable voices in jazz—a clean, lushly textured, almost pastoral sound that evokes the wide-open spaces of the American west. Though his music has a lot of implied twang, it took Frisell many years to explicitly address Americana—he finally did it with his 1997 album Nashville. Since then he’s regularly worked with some of the most progressive pickers in country and bluegrass.

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Geof Bradfield's African Flowers

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:06:47 -0500

Geof Bradfield

Jazz has long been a favored tool of the U.S. State Department: Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, and Louis Armstrong, among many others, have gone abroad in a sanctioned ambassadorial role. Naturally, some of them have been inspired by their travels; Ellington created his famous Far East Suite following one such excursion.

Last year local reedist Geof Bradfield visited Africa under the auspices of a program called Rhythm Road, put together by the State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

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Baaba Maal: a Q&A, a short set, and another new direction

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:01:15 -0500

Baaba Maal

Brilliant Senegalese singer Baaba Maal has hopscotched around stylistically for most of his career. The musical traditions of his native Halpulaar community can always be heard in his work to one degree or another, but he has fearlessly—if not always successfully—borrowed from far and wide. Even so I was startled when I first heard his latest album, Television (Palm Pictures), a collaboration with pomo New York electro-pop band Brazilian Girls.

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Kobie Watkins Steps Out as a Leader

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:13:06 -0500

Kobie Watkins

For much of the current decade, drummer and Chicago native Kobie Watkins—he moved to New York in 2007, then to North Carolina earlier this year—has worked behind some of our city’s best-known jazzers, including guitarist Bobby Broom, pianist Ryan Cohan, and singer Kurt Elling. Since last year he’s been the drummer of choice for Sonny Rollins. You’d expect a sideman as flexible, talented, and experienced as Watkins to come on strong on his first recording as a bandleader—it makes sense that he’d want to show off everything he can do when he’s calling the shots.

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Post No Bills Podcast #4

mail@chicagoreader.com (Peter Margasak) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:16:00 -0500

Noveller

Only a few days late this time, here's the latest Post No Bills podcast. Your comments and questions are always appreciated. The show's playlist, including links to good places to buy each album, is after the jump. Thanks for listening.

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