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Click Pictures of Herbie's band for an article on his performance at the festival!

Herbie Hancock was a wonderful way to start off my Chicago Jazz Festival excursion. The next morning bright and early I was on my way back to the Symphony Center. The performance space where I saw Herbie is only one component to the complex. In another hall there was a film about New Orleans musicians produced by Valerie Shields called “Follow the Second Line”. She is a film writer who was inspired by the plight of the musicians after Katrina and wanted to document how musicians were proceeding forward in the aftermath of one of the world’s most devastating disasters. She told her story primarily through the eyes of one individual named Evan Christopher, a clarinet player from New Orleans. We did not get a chance to see the entire film but the excerpt she produced for us gave us a strong idea with respect to the style, concept and manner in which she approached the film.

This part of the film actually does not take place in New Orleans at all but in Paris! Evan traveled to Paris to go on the road to with his fellow New Orleans musicians to spread the word, the music and the energy of New Orleans to let those in other parts of the world letting them know that this is real, people are still affected by the tragedy and most of all to support the cause so that “They Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans”!

After the film, in the darkness and still, under the auspicious spell of the footage we have just witnessed, Evan played his solo clarinet, a touching way to blend the story of reality with reality itself. Valerie had a guest panel, which included Evan as well as the New Orleans educator and tenor extraordinaire Kidd Jordan. The other panel members included Delmark record label owner/founder Bob Koester, Mark Ruffin, Edward Wilderson, Fred Anderson and they talked about the plight of what is happening (or not happening) now, the music, the musicians as well as their own personal stories and a Q & A.

Next on my list were the evening performances, which featured all kinds of wonderful artists. It was interesting because the Detroit Jazz Festival was happening at the same exact time so for these few days, jazz was rockin’ the Mid West in a big way!

The week prior to the Chicago Jazz Festival I had an interview, on my weekly segment “Live with the Jazzcat”, with Michele Rosewoman who was slotted to perform with her band at the festival and  was bringin’ it to em’ with the power of sound diversity! She led a cast of characters to the fork in the road and dropped them off. Each had the freedom to take the music in their own direction and they all met back at the crossroads jamin’ on the corner of funky and musical diversity!

The Latin Jazz All-Stars had me and everyone else screamin’ with super hot clavination; All in tribute to bless the memory of a beautiful cat and wonderful pianist who left us tragically and way too soon, Mr. Hilton Ruiz. He was and still is certainly one loved cat. The Latin Jazz All-Stars feature a number of great players including Arturo O’Farrill on piano, Steve Turre on trombone and Ray Vega on trumpet.

Ray is loaded with personality and charisma! He introduces all of the cats one by one and each player is bangin’ hard at the top of their game. The rhythm is Nutella rich and just as delicious. Arturo O’Farill is incredible and burning in the brightest chords and colors.

The dance is all up in the music and it is full of happiness. They are playing the music of Hilton as well as tunes that he liked playing like ‘Home Cookin’”, an original and a favorite of Hilton’s. The great pianist also has a beautiful and spirited daughter named Ida who is doing a great job at keeping Hilton’s name and music in the forefront of our hearts and memories. These boys have “Puente of Soul”; obviously a tune dedicated to the great Tito Puente and another favorite of Hilton’s.  If you look out in the crowd, Grant Park is packed with Chicago jazz fans and the All-Star Latin Band had them up on their feet groovin’!

Another favorite of the crowd was Medeski, Martin, and Wood together with John Scofield they rocked the house with electric funkified super groove rhythms blended with rock, soul and perhaps a splash of the JA double on the side, making for crowd pleasing, intoxicating funky fun!

Now any band calling themselves “The Cookers” is bound to be using gas. Night and day, they are the ones. When can you ever see such an exciting group of headliners combining their talents and turning the music into a stealth display of fine engineering. Eddie Henderson, James Spaulding, Cecil McBee, and Billy Harper, etc are some of the best in the business and still holdin’ it down to “The Core”, a Freddie Hubbard composition.

Cecil McBee is lighting up the bass and Billy Harper’s sound on that gorgeous black saxophone is enough to make you want to do thangs! When the Cookers play on one of his tunes, the energy is so intense. These are guys that you don’t often see in the West.

Frankly, speaking of Wes, I am so happy to see Mr. Frank Wes looking and sounding so magnificent! The facility and structure are firmly in place and besides a couple of minor sound problems with speakers, Frank put in a nice days work! I am on of the Master of Ceremonies at the Monterey Jazz Festival and a few years back, Frank was suppose to perform with “Flutology”, a group with two other flutists, Ali Ryerson and Holly Hoffman. He missed the performance due to illness but, this time the dapper gentleman of jazz is doing fine and playing is full romantic swing. He is shortly joined by Miss Ernestine Anderson as they sing, play the blues, and express how “They Love Being Here with You”!

Charlie Haden was a hard workingman this weekend. He was the Chicago Jazz Festival’s 2007 Artist-in-Residence and performed each day at the festival in different configurations. He performed with the students, his own band and he brought out all of the instruments for his very powerful re-emergence of the “Liberation Orchestra’; liberated music, freedom of speech, power to and for the people; a blend of brass and rhythm whose big luminous sound marches like the strong willed political views that the concept represents. Carla Bley arranged all of the music.

On Sunday, Bobby Watson was onstage with his band and their passion, honesty and integrity were superbly in sync with the delivery of the music. These cats feel the music and it is more than just great sound. Bobby is such a warm cat that you know his spirit, energy and good nature transfer into the music.

“Country Cornflakes”, “Monk He See, Monk He Do”, “The Look of Love” and “Lemons and Moonshine” were just a few of the delightful tunes in the repertoire. This is truly “Horizon Re-Esembled”. Romantic harmonies, dancing melodies and tunes that burn with passion is what this “Messenger” brings every time!

The big man, Charles Mingus lives forever through the big sound of the “Mingus Big Band”. Sue Mingus is relentless in her efforts to keep Mingus music in the forefront of American culture and she does so by having the band play a regular gig at the Iriduim in New York City as well as booking the band at all of the major jazz venues and world festivals.

“Black Saint and the Sinner Lady” was originally composed as one piece but, for the sake of commercialism, it was broken down into smaller digestible segments. Today, we get to hear it in its entirety. By far the most animated compatriot of the Mingus Big Band Legacy is Frank Lacy; leading, conducting, singing and playing the trombone with captivating passion all in honor of the underdog. At times also orchestrates the audience to clap in time and join in on the rhythm.

Mingus music is a living drama, performed by a passionate group of killer musicians destine to express the sentiments of a misunderstood giant, whose physical emotion produced great music, generous compositions and controversy of proportions just as large. Epitaph, one of the world’s largest compositions written, which has close to 4000 measures, was literally a life’s work in progress for Mingus. The big band swung through the measures as well as beautiful rendition of a piece written about the great Lester Young, “Good Bye Pork Pie Hat”.

John Stubblefield was a member of the Mingus Big Band and also played with Charles for many years and wrote this arrangement of ‘Song of Orange” while on his deathbed. Seamus Blake does the arrangement and the music justice as he blows his breathy saxophone on the piece.

That was how they did it and do it every year at the Chicago Jazz Festival. Hopefully, next year I will see you there!

LeRoy Downs