A hypochondriac’s obsession with disease seems more like material for a psychological drama than a song cycle commissioned by an acclaimed contemporary classical music group. Yet the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) has recently done just that—allowing composer Corey Dargel to use the ailment as subject matter for his piece “Thirteen Near-Death Experiences.” But Dargel insists that he has put extensive thought into the bizarre theme. “I know [hypochondria] seems dark and depressing. I want people to come away with a sense of hypochondria as an extreme form of anxiety and maybe loneliness, but I want them to connect to it,” he says gently. Read the rest of this entry »

Thinking of Chicago, jazz and blues probably come to mind almost as readily as improv comedy and the Bears. Between famous venues and even more famous performers, the city’s connection with jazz runs deep. One of these famous establishments is the historic Jazz Showcase, which since 1947 has played host to many of the genre’s great artists, many of whose portraits line the walls. It was here on Wednesday, February 11, that Chicago singer/songwriter Dee Alexander continued that tradition, taking the stage at her album release show to excited applause from a crowd of familiar faces. Read the rest of this entry »

The lights are dim in Berlin’s B-Flat club. A single room painted in shades of gray extends indefinitely past the bar. Fifteen-page drink menus lean against cloudy glass candleholders on constellations of small round tables. Tonight, the chic middle-aged couples, students, and bohemian types are packed six to the square meter. Eight-euro cocktails traverse the room on trays like flying saucers. An outlandishly tall man, stooping from age and habit, climbs onto the stage. Attacking jazz standards with disarming energy and emotional intensity, the legendary experimental jazz pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach holds the crowd in rapt attention.

In Chicago, Schlippenbach would probably have trouble finding suitable venues. Read the rest of this entry »

The electric Rhodes piano essentially consists of a series of hammered tuning forks instead of piano strings. The traditional electric Rhodes piano has one output. Eric Glick Rieman’s modified version has eight: three traditional electric outputs as well as five contact microphones, which enable magnification of mechanical percussions. “Everything has a resonance inside of it, and it’s a question of finding those resonances,” he says. Rieman has built a sound board into his piano speared with zinc rods for bowing like a violin and a copper light-switch plate on which he grates granite and grinds coral into dust. Read the rest of this entry »

“Don’t you listen to a single word against rock ‘n roll. The new religion, the electric church, the only way to go,” sang Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead in the 1986 song “Built For Speed.” A Motörhead fan wearing long hair, a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and frayed jeans, the young Karl E. H. Seigfried must have appeared a true follower. Seigfried, who would later become a prolific, genre-defying Chicago musician working in and beyond the jazz, rock, and classical idioms, taught himself to play the electric bass in high school, inspired by bands like Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, and Deep Purple. Read the rest of this entry »

We asked some leading lights of the South Side art scene: Why does art matter? What is the social relevance of art? Why do we need it on the South Side? What follows are their responses. Read the rest of this entry »

The Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) is a not-for-profit organization created in Chicago in 1965 during an era of social and racial strife. Forty-two years later, Fred Anderson, one of the officers of The Velvet Lounge (a frequent stage for AACM musicians and “all musicians of the Chicago community”) assures me that the AACM is still very socially involved within the city’s vibrant communities, giving many free concerts around Chicago. Needless to say, the AACM is involved in many projects. For one, it has its very own music school, the AACM School of Music, which caters to the city’s disadvantaged youth. Read the rest of this entry »