Claire Hungerford

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Corey Wilkes and the Velvet Lounge All-Stars are standing in front of three tall mirrors in the South Loop Hotel’s L26 Restaurant and Lounge, getting ready to kick off the first show of the Velvet Birdhouse Concert Series. “We’re gonna fly on with some new music,” Wilkes says into the microphone. “This first set we’re gonna dedicate to Fred Anderson”—the crowd starts to laugh a little bit—“as well as the second set,” he adds with a smile. “The first set is gonna contain the music of Mr. Charlie ‘Yardbird’ Parker, because that was Fred’s main man; he always would talk about Bird. Every time I would rap with him he would say, you know, ‘Man check out this recording of Bird,’ so he would lock us in the Velvet and we had to listen to these old tunes.”

L26 is full, every table smiling along with Wilkes and the rest of the Velvet Lounge All-Stars. A few have come in looking for a bite to eat but most everyone is there to honor the legacy of Fred Anderson, tenor saxophonist and owner of the Velvet Lounge, who died last June after a heart attack at the age of 81. “A lot of us here standing on stage right now started our careers at the Velvet in Chicago,” says Nicole Mitchell before the show starts.

Mitchell, a flutist and composer, is the co-president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a non-profit organization of Chicago musicians and composers that Anderson helped establish in 1965. The AACM is a part of the Velvet Birdhouse Coalition, a newly formed group looking to maintain the musical innovation and sense of community Anderson fostered at the Velvet Lounge. The Coalition, which according to Mitchell also includes members from the Jazz Institute of Chicago, Asian Improv Arts Midwest, Umbrella Music, “and other longtime supporters of Fred Anderson’s Velvet Lounge,” is presenting the Birdhouse Concert Series. Named after Anderson’s two clubs, the two-part series begins with tonight’s performance. “His first club years ago was called the Birdhouse, named for Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, the great saxophonist.”

Opened in the ’70s on Lincoln Avenue, the Birdhouse was soon closed due to city zoning ordinances, according to the Velvet Lounge’s website. “It was a space where there was no alcohol, just music,” said Anderson in a 2001 interview with Fred Jung of Jazz Weekly. “I had trouble trying to get some license—a ‘public place for amusement’ license. I never took the time. This was back in ’79. In the neighborhood I was in, I wasn’t really welcome, so we had a lot of problems.”

In 1982 Anderson took over the Velvet Lounge after the death of its previous owner, a long-time friend. “The Velvet was all about making opportunities for musicians in Chicago to hone their craft,” says Mitchell, whose group, Black Earth Ensemble, started at the Lounge. “It was one of very few clubs that you could try out new music, not just play jazz standards. And it was one of very few jazz venues left on the South Side of Chicago.”

After the death of Anderson in June, ownership transferred to his sons, Michael and Eugene. Anderson’s granddaughters, Jasmine Sebaggala and Rasminee’ Harris, were allowed to run the Velvet until late November. “They decided they no longer wanted us to run it,” says Harris. On December 1st the Velvet Lounge was shuttered. “They said they were going to do a good job and keep it the way it was; put money in it, a shrine of granddaddy and everything.” But since December the sign outside the Velvet has read “closed until further notice.”

“We’re going to reopen. We should have everything straightened out in a few days or so,” said Michael Anderson in a December 13th Chicago Tribune article.

While the future of the Velvet Lounge remains uncertain, the Birdhouse Concert Series is an attempt at holding together the Velvet Lounge community. “With these concerts we want to continue making the music happen in the spirit of innovation and on Chicago’s South Side, as this was Fred Anderson’s legacy. It’s so important to Chicago’s jazz community that this legacy lives on,” says Mitchell. “Fred Anderson’s legacy of making a space for this innovation in jazz is really important. That’s why people have been up in arms about the Velvet closing, and why some of us have come together to find a way to continue this legacy in Chicago even if it means finding another location to do the music.”

Four blocks south of the Lounge’s Cermak and Wabash location, L26 has become the new Velvet Lounge. “Word got out about my venue being available, I had heard what was happening through the newspapers, and I got in touch with Nicole Mitchell,” says owner Tony Glenn.

Friday night and the place is full for the ten o’clock show, everyone seated close or standing up by the bar. The crowd’s mixed but most everyone is there to support Fred: journalists (jazz critics and freelancers, photographers starting to line up at the front of the room), jazz fans, musicians, diners and hotel guests who just happened by. All of them are waiting for Nicole Mitchell to step to the front of the room and introduce the All-Stars behind her: Corey Wilkes on the trumpet, who recorded with her Black Earth Ensemble on 2003’s “Afrika Rising”; Kevin Nabors on the saxophone; Justin Dillard, “Dr. Funky Fingers, Dr. Rev. Pastor Funky Fingers on the keys,” as Wilkes calls him at the end of the first set; Christian Dilingham on the bass; and Isaiah Spencer on the drums.

“The Velvet Lounge, it lives in our hearts. It’s a spirit Fred gave to us and I know Fred is right here with us tonight,” says Mitchell to applause and amens from the audience. It’s the most somber moment of the evening—and then Wilkes tells the audience, “We’re gonna fly” and the first set begins with Charlie Parker’s “Segment.” Sax, trumpet, keyboard, and drum solos. Lean-back music. Tap-your-foot music. Most everyone closing their eyes at some point in the set of Parker tunes that included “Groovin’ High,” “Now’s the Time” (reworked and renamed “Now’s That Time”), and what Wilkes calls “a jazz kumbaya,” a medley of three Charlie Parker ballads. Nabors groans and shouts in between sax riffs and Wilkes calls out adjustments—“Hey, take down the tempo,” he says to Isaiah, and the piece flows into a trumpet solo that has Wilkes leaning back and the room growing silent.

The second set of the night features modern pieces composed by members of the group or by Anderson himself, the first piece fittingly titled “Fred’s Hungry Brain.”  Anderson’s performances were generally of his own compositions—his book, “ Exercises for the Creative Musician” (co-authored with Paul Steinbeck), features three Anderson compositions and a transcription of one of his improv sessions. “[Improvisation is] just like a thought, like telling a story,” said Anderson in the book’s introduction.

“My role in the city is to keep young musicians playing,” said Anderson in a 2005 interview with Jeff Stockton. “I will always have a place for them to play. Under his ownership the Velvet Lounge hosted Sunday jam sessions where young musicians could perform and improvise with Anderson and other established Chicago musicians. “This is my life. This is the way I’ll probably go out. Duke [Ellington] and them were traveling on the road all the way until they died. Everybody’s got some kind of destiny. This is the way I’m going. We all dedicate ourselves to something and we do it. Whatever legacy you leave, you leave. You gotta keep doing something. Keep on moving.”

Birdhouse Concert Series presents the Nicole Mitchell Quartet. L26 Restaurant in the South Loop Hotel, 2600 S State St. February 25. Friday, 10pm; doors 9pm. $15.(312)225-7000. chicagosouthloophotel.com

In the past twenty years, the South Loop has gone from historical to happening. Poor Irish, German, and African-American immigrants first built up the neighborhood
in the mid-19th century, but after the neighborhood avoided the brunt of the Great Fire it became a popular district with the Chicago elite. However, their massive mansions gave way to vice and crime by the start of the 20th century. When the South Loop’s seediness became common knowledge on a national level, the city made an effort to move criminal elements elsewhere. The South Loop then became a hub of industry, with specialized districts like Printer’s Row and Auto Row proliferating. Reinvented once more, it is not hard to argue that the South Loop is currently at its zenith for visitors. Its population has exploded in the past few years, as massive high-rise condos seem to spring up every few weeks. The rise in popularity of the South Loop has led to many businesses opening second locations in the area, and big stores like Whole Foods and Best Buy have set up shop just west of the river. Luckily, the neighborhood has maintained some local spots as well, and will hopefully continue to do so as the South Loop settles into its latest identity.

best place to get everything
Maxwell Street Market

The Maxwell Street Market is currently in its second rendition, and has quite the name to live up to—Old Maxwell Street introduced the world to the Polish sausage. The market has traditionally been home to the new waves of immigrants coming through the city; Jewish, Polish, and Greek stands have largely given way to a burgeoning Mexican population. Vendors’ stalls are filled with all sorts of items, from produce to auto parts to paintings to building materials. If it exists, you can likely find it here. Regardless of one’s desire to shop, the market is worth the trip if only for the amazing Mexican food. Cooks serve up carnitas, churros, and chorizo nonstop. You’d be hard pressed to find a better way to spend Sunday morning. And don’t be fooled by the name—the market now occupies a portion of Des Plaines Avenue between Roosevelt and Harrison. The market is open every Sunday, all year, inclement weather be damned. S. Des Plaines Ave. between W. Harrison St. and W. Roosevelt Rd. Sundays, 7am-3pm (David Sisco Casey)

best muddy waters murals
Velvet Lounge

No knock on the Green Mill, but you don’t have to go to the North Side to hear great jazz. Case in point: South Loop’s Velvet Lounge, a serious jazz club with a serious pedigree. Fred Anderson opened the place in 1982, after his North Side club, the Birdhouse, had to close. Since then, the Velvet Lounge has become famous both as a venue where you can hear great Chicago talent five nights a week and as a place that has a decidedly dressed-down, homey feel to it (patrons were treated to cake and ice cream every year on the owner’s birthday). Sadly, Mr. Anderson passed away this June, but the club still maintains its heritage. The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the premier avant-garde jazz band of which Mr. Anderson was an alumnus, performs the first two weekends of every month, and there is a weekly jam session on Sunday nights. 67 E. Cermak Rd. Wednesday-Thursday, doors open at 8:30pm; Friday-Sunday, doors open at 9:30pm; first two Sundays of each month, AACM showcase, 7-9pm. (312)791-9050 (Ruben Montiel)

best all-hours greasy food provider
White Palace Grill

For whatever zoning or loitering law reason, Hyde Park lacks a 24-hour diner
(and no, Dunkin’ Donuts does not count). So if you’re in a comfort food state of mind, be it 3pm on a Saturday or Tuesday at 3am, the White Palace Grill
is an excellent option. The grill has been around since the 1930s, and has
held its ground against the surrounding high-rises and electronics
stores that now dwarf it; there’s an old-school Americana charm to the place that has led to its cult status. The food is greasy and delicious—try the chilaquiles, American or Mexican style. Just don’t expect your instructor at the nearby CorePower Yoga to respect you afterwards. 1159 S. Canal Street. 24 hours. (312)939-7167 (David Sisco Casey)

best blockbuster experience
ShowPlace ICON at Roosevelt Collection

When the feature at Hyde Park’s Doc Films is a little too obscure, stay clear of the AMCRiver East and head to this brand-new South Loop theater for the best first-run
movie venue in the city. The ShowPlace ICON takes a luxury approach to the
movie experience, allowing viewers to reserve whatever seats they want in the
theater and offering frozen yogurt along with usual movie fare. For 21+ guests,
the ICON has a fantastic lounge on the upper floor with a mod vibe, full bar, and
food ranging from tenderloin sliders to pear and Gorgonzola pizzas. The bacon
popcorn will leave your tastebuds especially confused and excited. The ICON
also offers two screens with VIP Reserved Setting, where waiters will deliver
drinks and food to your extra-wide seats. 150 W. Roosevelt Road. (312)564-
2104 (David Sisco Casey)

best place to drink classy
The Shrine

Most of the South Side’s nightlife is told in the past tense, but just off the same strip of Michigan that once housed Chess Records, the Shrine nightclub is again making the future look classy. Taking its name from Afrobeat originator Fela Kuti’s Nigerian nightclub, and its inspiration from black music the world over, the young venue is giving some South Side depth to Chicago nightlife. Inside the decor is safari-luxury, and a long procession of records lining the wall of the club’s entrance pays homage to past greats, from Rakim to Miles Davis. Week nights range from new hip-hop to Wednesday’s UPR!SE, which offers an eclectic mix of soul, funk, raregroove, and afrobeat. For such a small venue, the place has drawn some big acts, including Common and the Roots, Ludacris, and Lupe Fiasco, and even bigger guests, Jay-Z and LeBron James among them. The clientele is largely young African-American professionals, but the crowd on any given night is strikingly diverse. And despite its exploding popularity, the club has (so far) stayed accessible, keeping drink prices comparatively low (think $5 a beer), offering free shows, hosting spoken word events, and even showing Brazil’s World Cup-run on a giant screen accompanied by Caipirinhas. 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Tuesdays-Fridays, 9pm-2am; Saturdays, 9pm-3am. Cover: free-$20. Bottle service: way, way more. (312) 753-5700 (Harry Backlund and David Sisco Casey)

(Luke Batten and Jonathan Sadler)

His new work, whose Chicago premiere takes place this Saturday at the Velvet Lounge, is certainly an unusual take on the disorder, but the unexpected is not exactly new territory for Dargel or ICE. Both the singer-songwriter and the group boast a commitment to the unconventional. Dargel’s motivation stems from his desire to create artful pop music that is “immediate and engaging and personal, but has a level of meaning beyond your average Top 40 pop song.” ”Thirteen Near-Death Experiences” represents his return to classical writing. “It’s an evening of songs I’m singing with the ensemble,” he explains, “but [all of the songs are] classically notated.”

Although Dargel himself is not a member, he has been around since ICE’s beginning. He first became familiar with group’s earliest form at Oberlin, where many of its founding members went to college. Joshua Rubin, ICE’s Program Director, describes how ICE founder and flutist “Claire Chase hand-picked early members.” According to Dargel, her choices led ICE to become “a group of extremely skilled and virtuosic musicians, surveying the landscape of new, contemporary music.” He says there is a particularly “omnivorous” character to their repertoire that stems from a voracious interest in different kinds of music.

Founded in 2001, the ensemble has grown into a thirty-piece chamber group and expanded from its original headquarters in Chicago to include a New York City base as well. “All of us have other music jobs [such as] freelance gigs and teaching, but we’ve gotten so close and work so well together that we’ve really been able to grow as a group,” says Rubin. “ICE is the result of many years of combined sustained efforts—we all love it. It’s not just love though; it’s also a part of our professional careers.”

ICE concentrates on showcasing the work of young and emerging artists, although Rubin admits that “Corey Dargel specifically has a little different sound.” Dargel definitely believes this to be the case. “This piece is probably unlike anything you’ve heard,” he says in an unassuming tone. “It’s heartfelt and earnest but it has a complexity that gives it staying power.”

ICE was able to commission Dargel’s work after receiving an award from the Multi-Arts Production Fund, which seeks to help contemporary performance groups by granting one million dollars to up to forty projects per year. Eric Lamb, one of two ICE flutists, said, “This song cycle is so ICE, but yet so [Dargel]. I don’t think he has made any compromises aesthetically for our sake.” Dargel gladly agrees with this assessment, saying, “It feels good to be part of that [group]. I hope that I’m giving them something in return for what they’re giving me.”

Rubin remarks that the Velvet Lounge is a particularly significant venue because of Chicago’s history as a bastion for jazz. He says, “The Velvet Lounge has changed over the years, but it’s always a great place to perform in.” Dargel and six ICE members including Lamb and Rubin will be performing there to an audience that will hopefully, as Dargel says, “find something familiar in the music and feel perhaps a little less lonely than when they got there.”
Velvet Lounge, 67 E. Cermak Rd. March 13. Saturday, 9:30pm. (312)791-9050. iceorg.org

A born-and bred-Chicagoan, Alexander is more than proud of her roots: “When I fly over that skyline, I know that there is no place like home. Chicago is a beautiful city with a plethora of talent.” She had put out three self-produced albums before the release of “Wild is the Wind,” on the independent label BluJazz Productions, so it’s clear that both her talent and her determination are considerable. From R&B smoothness to bebop scatting, she demonstrates vocal versatility. A veteran performer who’s sung with soul legends Roy Ayers and the O’Jays, Alexander has the commanding stage presence that only comes with experience, a fact apparent at the “Wild is the Wind” release show, where the audience went wild as she strutted around onstage.

Asked what’s inspired her over the years, Alexander replies, “Listening to everything around me. There is always something I hear that can be incorporated into my musical style. Car horns, a bird’s call, or laughter, every sound is essential in my musical journey.” For Alexander, the act of taking chances is another big part of the process of musical development: “I love an artist who takes one song and applies different treatments to that same song each time they perform. Being creative and thinking outside the box is what makes jazz so special. Jazz music has always been a platform for self-expression, but it ministers to the audience as well as the musicians.” Furthermore, she says, “There is reciprocation between the artist and the listener: Artists express themselves from the heart and soul, and once the audience absorbs that energy, a beautiful journey begins.”

And where does that journey end? “A place of peace, anger, joy and freedom.” For Alexander and most other jazz fans, the pure emotional experience of the music can be almost ineffable. But what truly great things can ever be expressed in mere words?

Upcoming performance: Velvet Lounge. 67 E. Cermak Rd. March 21. Sunday, 7pm. (773)791-9050. velvetlounge.net

In Chicago, Schlippenbach would probably have trouble finding suitable venues. His celebrity status affords him one of the clubs whose names have become metonyms for the Chicago jazz scene: Green Dolphin Street, the Green Mill. However, the regulars there would have trouble responding to such a progressive performer after a century of modal jazz standards. There is a major rift between the traditional jazz of Bird and Monk and experimental jazz—the latter encompasses Nu jazz (jazz combined with other types of music) and free jazz (jazz that rejects traditional chord progressions and meters). The audiences that enjoy one won’t necessarily dig the other.

Experimental jazz is loose, emotional, and unstructured. Improvisation plays a much larger role, and musicians rarely riff off traditional standards. The sound resembles anything from rock to avant-garde classical to circuit-bent reel-to-reels. Experimental jazz musicians have successfully applied their talents in genre-expanding projects like Chicago rock group The Sea and Cake, but rarely play outside small venues like Elastic or Heaven, rarely drawing audiences much larger than fifty.

In the rock ‘n’ roll scene, a band like Times New Viking can go from performing for a handful of dirty punks in a basement to packing the Metro in less than a year. Hereabouts, movin’ on up is the way business is done. Venues fall into a hierarchy of profitability, where unknown and fringe acts perform at unknown and fringe venues until they become mainstream enough to move on to larger, better-known venues. Better-known venues bring bigger audiences, bigger audiences bring more popularity, and so on until the band is playing at the Auditorium Theatre, or a stadium.

The Chicago jazz scene does not work that way. The experimental jazz scene in Chicago has no venues with the networking and advertising capabilities of places like the Metro, and it’s still struggling to find its way out of the shadow of Chicago’s well-known traditional jazz scene. Even as they organize regular shows featuring relative celebrities of experimental jazz, promoters and musicians cannot separate themselves from the Green Mill enough to garner the interest of people who might be interested in their music—probably the very same people who show up at small rock venues.

With this problem in mind, a group of experimental jazz musicians and promoters launched Umbrella Music in 2005. Umbrella Music is an organization that networks venues with the ultimate aim of increasing interest in experimental jazz and attendance at their shows—and differentiating experimental jazz from the jazz everyone knows.

This week Umbrella kicks off its biggest event of the year, the second annual European Jazz Meets Chicago. Umbrella brings a slew of Europe’s most creative musical minds to Chicago, where they’ll play a weeklong program of shows alongside neglected Chicago greats like Ken Vandermark and Dave Rempis. It kicks off on Wednesday at the Chicago Cultural Center with a show headlined by Schlippenbach (whose musical preoccupation, by the way, is deconstructing the jazz standards that keep the Green Mill open). Thursday night he’ll headline a show at the Velvet Lounge in Chinatown. It’s not the B-Flat, but experimental jazz was never about class.
Velvet Lounge, 67 E. Cermak Rd. November 6. Thursday, 9pm. $15. velvetlounge.net, umbrellamusic.org

But as much as tuned zinc rods suggest a scientific method, Rieman tries to escape specific, composer-directed evocation. “I’m more of a trial-and-error kind of guy. I’m into imprecision,” he says. And so he will alter his instrument and alter his score, or let them be altered, “in a way that [readers and listeners] really have to think about it.” A lot of this imprecision comes from not specifying certain elements of the piece, such as the dynamics, or even how to read the score. Recently Rieman has been writing “graphic scores,” or pictures which may or may not specify how the musician is to interact with what’s on the page.

Rieman occasionally hosts snails from his garden to assist in composing graphic scores. He benefits from them in at least two different ways. One benefit is that it helps ensure the human musicians he plays with are good improvisers—since they are ready to improvise from a snail score, trailed and chewed through into intricate patterns of holes and slime. Another benefit is that “[the snails] are more in contact with the score than I am. Because they’re sitting on it for one thing.” The snails respond differently to different weights of paper, and chance—at least from our limited human perspective—plays a big role in the music.

Rieman’s work has been influenced significantly by John Cage. “Cage is not chaos. It is music that is made by chance procedures. But it’s [also] made by a person.” Rieman notes that how you react depends on how you feel, what you ate earlier that day, whether you’ve had a fight with your significant other. “You start to hear all the sound in the room. Cage was trying to say that everything is music, and that everything can be listened to in that way,” he explains. Rieman embraces street noise during his performances; in his view, “it’s not bad when a siren goes by.”

Asked if he is considering working with any other animals besides snails, Rieman seems firmly committed to his current hermaphroditic collaborators, two of which recently reproduced, leaving Rieman to care for over fifty of the gastropods. “Honestly, I want to spend some time with the snails,” he states. “I want to be influential as a composer…and also ruled by the snails in a way…It’s very egocentric as a composer. In this way I’m escaping my ego,” he explains.

“I think that [Cage’s] goal was to get his ego out of [his music],” Rieman says. “We think that we’re these special people and we think the world revolves around us—we’re just little drops of water and when the right wind comes along we’ll just evaporate.” He quotes his teacher Fred Frith: “‘Losing control is a discipline like any other.’ I think that’s really true… people go to see performers [who] are right on the edge between control and noncontrol.”

Like his snails, Rieman’s work testifies that any two “random” associations can bear fruit, whether it be the interaction between street noise with his Chicago improvisations, or the gastropod itself—literally, “stomach foot” —ingesting a score in unpredictable ways. “I try to approach all this on a visceral level, and it’s exciting…trying to touch the edge a little bit,” says Rieman. When you listen to his collaborations exploring control and noncontrol, don’t be afraid to listen for the sirens.
Rieman will be performing as part of the Chicago Calling Festival, now through October 11th. October 9: Thursday, 8pm. Velvet Lounge, 67 E. Cermak. October 10: Friday, 8pm. Little Black Pearl, 1060 E. 47th St.

Influenced by Charles Mingus and Paul Chambers, Seigfried picked up the double bass in his twenties and developed his jazz playing under the tutelage of Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, and Jimmy Cheatam at the University of California, San Diego. At the time, Seigfried’s jazz band was full of California surfers who didn’t care about jazz but needed a venue for their electric guitar playing. Charles MacPherson, Jr., subbing one day for George Lewis as the instructor of Seigfried’s improvisation class, heard the rock styling in the band members’ improvisations and instructed them to take a break from rock n’ roll for five or ten years. They needed to immerse themselves in jazz to learn its language. Seigfried took this advice to heart: he put away his rock T-shirts, and got a haircut.

A Master’s Degree and a doctorate in classical double bass performance later, Seigfried is unwilling to so limit himself to a single musical language. A highly active Chicago musician, he plays across a wide range of genres, from classical, to noise, to jazz. Seigfried’s most recent project, the New Quartet, combines jazz, contemporary classical music, rock, and Carnatic music, a tradition of classical music from the south of India. The New Quartet will be performing at the Velvet Lounge on Saturday, May 31st, in celebration of the release of their album “Blue Rhizome” on Imaginary Chicago Records. In addition to Seigfried, who plays bass and electric guitar on the album, the New Quartet consists of saxophonist and flautist Greg Ward, violinist Carmel Raz, and drummer Chris Avergin. On Saturday, the New Quartet’s performance will be followed by a set by Soul Power Trio, who will play heavy metal reinterpretations of the material on “Blue Rhizome.” Another of Seigfried’s many projects, Soul Power Trio features Seigfried on electric guitar, Avergin on drums, and Aaron Getsug on electric bass.

“The composition of this piece was inspired by a crisis of faith. Not religious faith, faith in humanity,” begins a brief essay Seigfried wrote for the “Blue Rhizome” liner notes. He observes that humanity, by way of “ethnicity, race, religion, culture, and nationality,” divides itself into tribes. These divisions narrow humanity’s world view and shut out new, potentially enlightening experiences. The New Quartet’s blending of seemingly disparate genres of music provides an example of cross-tribal synthesis. Seigfried relates this idea to self-segregation within the Chicago jazz community. Chicago’s major jazz organizations, the largely African-American Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Asian Improv Arts, and the European-American-oriented Umbrella Music are generally divided along racial lines. Seigfried believes that one of the most important things he can do as a musician is to assemble diverse musical ensembles. To him, the beauty of the United States of America is that diverse people can come together to make something new. Seeing a diverse group of musicians working together on stage has the potential to make a powerful and progressive emotional impression on the audience, encouraging them to reach beyond their own tribal boundaries.

In recent years, Seigfried has observed an increasing number of Chicago musicians who, like the performers in the New Quartet, are committed to breaking down tribal divisions. Difficult to pigeonhole into any one style or genre, these diverse musicians constitute what Seigfried calls the “New Chicago Sound.” They are versed in many styles of music and blend styles effortlessly. While the wide exposure to music afforded by the Internet has made genre blending common, contributors to the “New Chicago Sound” differ from many genre benders in their respect for tradition. They digest the styles they perform completely, and harbor great respect for their histories. As a result, the music they perform is organic and coherent to the novice and the aficionado alike.

The New Quartet performs at the Velvet Lounge, 67 E Cermak Rd. May 31. Saturday, 9pm. www.velvetlounge.net.

Art’s always been important. Not just music; all kinds of art. It’s spiritual. I mean, it’s hard to explain: it’s just a feeling. I’d be creating music…Right now, I’m creating music and it depends on how I’m feeling. Everyday is different. The whole picture is relative.

You need art everywhere. It keeps us alive. We just happen to be on the South Side. If we’d be on the North Side it would be the same.

…We need art. Art has always been. We develop and play music here [at the Velvet Lounge] and some musicians might not go far, but some will.
- Fred Anderson
Velvet Lounge

Pilsen has given me a great opportunity to interact with the public directly from my art studio. Living and working within the Chicago Arts District for the past four years has helped me actively put my work out on the Chicago scene. Being able to work full-time on my art and support myself is important. I definitely have been lucky, but utilizing the tools that surround me has aided my pursuits.
- Gabe Lanza
Lanza Studio

Art matters because at its core art does not matter. That’s what I love about it. Our lives are full of things that “matter,” be it our jobs, our family and friends, the things going on in our city, not to mention the country and the world. Art is an oasis. It is the open and empty space we can fill with whatever we want. And the beauty of it is that at the end of the day what we put on that blank canvas does not matter (except maybe to our ego). It does not matter whether we like it or not. It does not matter whether we understand it or not. It doesn’t even matter whether we pay attention to it or not. And so we can say, “try it, do it, why the hell not!” We need art because we need the blank canvas. We need empty spaces to experiment, to explore, to be bold, and most importantly make mistakes and fail. It is how we learn and how we grow.

This is why I love being an artist in Chicago. Chicago is a city characterized by its empty spaces and “blank canvases,” where art can happen in this unique way. Whether it is the physical space of our raw, empty lofts and industrial spaces, the mental space marked by the lack of the “industry” mentality that dominates other cities, or even our Midwestern sense of humility, sincerity and accessibility, Chicago’s artistic culture is infused with a spirit of “it does not matter.” It’s why many of America’s greatest artists and entertainers got their start in Chicago. It is a city in which artists can feel free to explore, develop and find their artistic voices while testing that voice in the arena of a great city. And while we lament that our artists often leave Chicago for greener pastures, I know that these same artists take pride in saying they are from Chicago—even going so far as to still call it home. I’d like to think that, like home, it is that place of comfort. It is that place you can always return to. To create art that does not matter.
It’s not that Chicago needs art. Art needs Chicago.
- Nat Soti
Chicago Art Department

On the “South Side” we would say your question is bogus!

The purpose of art is linked with the purpose of human life. Human beings make, and have always made, meaningful and communicative marks on all types of surfaces within their environments. It is a defining feature of our species. Art matters if we matter. So why is there today a question coming from the University of Chicago community on the purpose and need of art on the “South Side”? What branch of intellectual study questions the need of essentials in a geographical area? All of us need art to be human.

Art is being created on the “South Side” of Chicago and has been created continually on the south side of every other place since ‘day one.’ What type of being questions art’s significance for a particular area of the globe? … Are they dismissing an area as devoid of art, and in dire need of art, because they have not ventured into that area to see the marks that are made there?… Or are they actually questioning the significance/existence of art in those areas because they see the residents as “others” incapable of producing “art”?… Or worse are they anti-intellectual and have never fully studied their own art history, its borrowings, influences, cross fertilizations, and believe theirs is the only evolved significant art? If they didn’t do it, no art exists?

I am part of an organization (Diasporal Rhythms) that promotes the collection of contemporary art produced by artists of African descent (others?). What we find is that art has always been produced, collected, and appreciated on “every” side and that the appreciators of such have an obligation to hold it up for acclaim. If it isn’t held up, it is usually lost. Our organization is within a long art appreciation tradition stretching back to the founder of this city. The art history of the “South Side” needs to be carefully studied.

The questions posed to your University audience should, more appropriately, be (a) how do we assist in the promotion of art creation and art appreciation activities that are already occurring in and around the University and (b) how do we leverage the material and intellectual resources of the University (without changing its mission) in concert with those of community individuals and cultural institutions to read, study, and preserve the artistic marks produced, and being produced, and thereby foster a fuller understanding of local art history and reduce the concept of “otherness” in this community?
- Patric McCoy
Diasporal Rhythms

I will mention only the relevance in terms of art’s audience. One thing art does is to attract and affect an audience. What the members of the audience discover is that they are together in their appreciation of the art, and this is of enormous importance in their coming to understand that they have things in common with one another, and to that degree that they are alike. Of course this happens with things besides art, but it is especially pronounced in the case of art, and often most complicated and textured there.

The South Side art I’m most familiar with is jazz. The role it plays here, in addition to what I noted above, is an extremely important interracial role. Oddly, ironically, and somewhat sadly, although historically jazz is very much the creation of black artists, of late its principal audience is mostly white. On Chicago’s South Side, however, both the musicians and their audience are racially mixed. The commonality thus engendered is enormously valuable, and it can lead to much more. This is perhaps not so very different from the racially mixed audiences for sporting events, and the fans of Chicago teams, but here, somehow, the object of interest seems more subtle and deep.

The University does what it can, I suppose, and lately it has been doing more. No university can do everything, and traditionally the University of Chicago is academically conservative. This is its strength, no doubt, but it means that the University cannot afford heavy investments in things outside canonical academic pursuits. There is no strong tradition here, for instance, of the performing arts. It is nearly impossible for students to earn academic credit in the performing arts. This isn’t such a bad thing. It means that the opportunities for amateur artistic activity are extensive, and the room is not being taken up by professional and pre-professional artists.
- Ted Cohen
Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago

People trying to make positive change in poor neighborhoods often seem focused solely on providing basics like improved housing or after school programs or health care. There is no question that services of this kind are crucial, but it is equally as important to remember that having access to things that are beautiful is part of what makes life worth living. One reason that Art in Action is so valuable is because it helps, in a small way, to satisfy this very real need for pleasure, fun, and loveliness in Woodlawn. Moreover, I think that making and enjoying art is something that speaks to most everyone, regardless of age, background, or socio-economic status. In this context, Art in Action unites citizens of the University and the surrounding neighborhood by illuminating what we have in common, and providing a safe forum for the discussion of how we can all come together over making the area we share the best it can be, regardless of our differences. The experience of creating art with people who we don’t typically relate to or empathize with helps us all to deconstruct the traditional boundaries, misunderstandings, and stereotypes that keep University students, faculty, and staff separate from our neighbors to the south. Even if it is just for a day, Art in Action draws us together as one community, and ideally, equips us to better understand and relate to one another even after it has come to an end.
- Hannah Birnbaum
Southside Solidarity Network, a University of Chicago club that organizes the Art in Action Festival every spring

I think [art] is very significant, the artists that create works of art are a voice to the public speaking on different issues—especially in the African-American community. It gives people a visual opportunity to conceive the concerns they’re dealing with on an ongoing basis, and see how people view the world at a specific point in time…what I create in 2008 can be looked back at in 2048. Art provides a historical point of view for the future. And from there we can see how things are constantly repeating themselves…like education, politicians have been talking about how we have to fix it for the past 200 years, but if I cover it in an art piece, it’s like, let’s get this thing fixed already.

[As for South Side art], I would have to say that from an institutional point of view the South Side art is primarily African-American, and in Chicago the institutions that support art are not primarily African-American—they show African-American art, but it’s not an institutionalized thing, you can’t see it on an everyday basis…it’s not [accessible] over a period of time and you don’t have that tangential access to it. If we didn’t have these institutions [on the South Side], a lot of people would have to go downtown—we need to spread these institutions across the city, get more people access to it. [When you can only view art downtown], people get intimidated—like you have to have a certain status to [view] it…I want it to be an ordinary process, get people’s mindsets to change a little bit, have people feel like it’s no big deal.

We look at our lives in the world as certain things we know we need for sure like shelter, or food and water…but just try to image a world without art—no music, no theater, no visual arts—what would you be doing? It’d be outrageous, it’d be like having no water…we need to get art into people’s lives, give people a way to express themselves.
-Bryant Johnson
Steelelife Gallery

Reported by: Sam Feldman, Laura Harmon, Yennie Lee, Julia Pagnamenta, Sean Redmond, Rachel Reed, and John Thompson

It’s 10pm on a Sunday night and Todd Frugia, proprietor of Rooms gallery in Pilsen, had just gotten home after a long day at work on the set of a McDonald’s commercial. Unlike some of his peers who complain about the need to do corporate work to pay the bills, Frugia doesn’t despair. “There’s a point where, in that realm, I’m pleasing my client, and I need my paycheck! I will acquiesce there, and do what they want. And then when I come home [to my studio], no one tells me what to do!” Frugia and his wife, Marakesh, have worked and lived in Pilsen for about ten years. The second floor of their gallery, called Rooms, is their home. “One of the guys I hired to do my camera operation is from the South Side; there’s a group of us (here) that are sort of professionals, sort of artists—there’s a real community.” Indeed, a “personal connection” between artists and their galleries distinguishes the community in Pilsen.

“It’s different from the intimidating galleries in the West Loop; they do great work, but I go in and I feel separated from it. And I come down here and see Gabe Lanza’s illustrations and I meet his family and his cats, and he’s (also) worried about bills; and his work is outstanding and it’s right there and I could buy a piece! It’s that personal connection. Even the MCA or the Art Institute, I go and expect beautiful pieces, but it’s so far away…” In regards to his experience as an artist on the South Side, Frugia ruminates, “we came here and met some friends who are photographers and video artists and almost immediately they took us in and we began to collaborate—that’s the spirit here.” Once Rooms Productions settled into its home on West 18th Street and built a small inventory of actors, camera crew, etc, Frugia noticed “…a texture to this environment, it’s just addictive: you want to stay here and work and create… It’s such a welcoming community: you can come in on any level, and if you’ve got good ideas you can work. That’s what’s unique to the South Side, and Pilsen in particular.”

Frugia recently returned from teaching an acting class at Colorado College. He thought it might also be a good opportunity to get some work of his own done. He admits it was a meaningful teaching experience, “but as far as writing or creating—I wasn’t like Walt Whitman, I just wanted to ski and relax. And then I come home and back to the texture.” He added, “I’ve never created as much as I have down here, it’s important to foster that. The key for me here is there’s a lot of energy…The South Side helps bring art out of you.” So for Frugia, the need is not bringing art to the South Side as much as bringing people to the South Side to see it. Those people comprise essentially two groups. On the one hand, those who live on the South Side but “feel intimidated by the gallery, as if it wasn’t for them.” On the other hand are artists on the North Side that show reluctance to trek down south, with excuses like safety and parking, despite support from artists in this area. “It’s about making the neighborhood more comfortable with that, but (also) making those North Siders more comfortable with it.” While Frugia doesn’t view art on the North vs. South Sides as a competition, “you start rooting for the South Side [all the same]” he admits. “On the one hand there’s a logical, aesthetic piece of me that says it’s great to bring [art] to this area; the North Side has this great history of art and theater but…something in the air down here, it’s more energized.”

When asked about incentive to work on the South Side, his response was anything but martyrdom. Quite the opposite, “I just saw it and thought wow, that looks like a great place to create… There’s just that right mix of grittiness, life, art and vibrancy that makes this area so vivid…it’s not about bringing art to the South Side, art already lives here, we just need to bring it out…” Every third Thursday Frugia personally helps bring art out rather than to the South Side, when he opens Rooms gallery for “Salon.” This is an impromptu performance, essentially prepared by forming a list of individuals from whom Frugia has received interest. It is an outlet for aspiring artists to perform or display any form of art. This in part responds to his “gripe” concerning the South Side: “When I was on the North Side, I kept feeling like I needed a lucky break.” Frugia noted numerous organizations that help showcase South Side art: the South Side Arts Network (which his wife Marrakesh recently joined), the Mexican Cultural Center, and the integral “Second Friday” event in Pilsen. The proximity of artists to their art is unique to the South Side, and for Frugia this is an important goal of art. “People like us who have to go during the day do the corporate work but come back to your gallery and do what you want.” (Rachel Reed)

For Sociology professor Terry Clark, art is part of “making culture into magic.” It fulfills the aesthetic demands of particular social groups and serves as an integral part of the rise of “scenes,” an increasingly vibrant unit of social activity. With post-industrial trends like a general increase in education, income level, individualism, and social tolerance, individuals come to regard art as a valuable amenity, not just a peculiar or interesting aspect of cultural life. This trend makes art socially meaningful not just on an individual level, but on the broader level of community cohesion, political action, and economic development.

“Traditional models of urban economic growth point to production, land, labor, capital, management, and later, human capital. But as these new post-industrial, post-modern cultural trends take place, cultural amenities such as art become increasingly important elements of economic growth as they attract the creative, young classes who have the human capital necessary to fulfill the needs of the new creative, service-based economy. But,” he clarifies, “it is not art in general that inherently holds social value, it’s about the kinds of art and scenes in specific locations and how they cater to the different aesthetic styles and cultural values of individuals.”

Particular local cultural preferences manifest themselves in “scenes,” which can be described in terms as diverse as “Disney Haven” and “Cool Cosmopolitanism.” Art acts as an essential part of these scenes, attracting individuals who want to consume particular kinds of culture and participate in new kinds of social interaction as well as tourists. From the local to the global level, the growing importance of art summed up in scenes is reshaping political and economic trends, as governments must respond to scenes as important social entities and businesses must respond to the cultural sensitivities they demand. (Laura Harmon)

The success of the AACM is undeniably attributed to the organization’s leadership in Chicago’s urban community, most notably on the South Side, where the AACM headquarters are located. In the words of Anderson, the AACM “covers the ram”—musicians play everything from “yesterday’s to today’s music.” The AACM is an exceptional organization as much for its social work as for its work with young and emerging artists. Therefore it isn’t strange that a frequent platform of the AACM, aside from the Velvet Lounge, has been the University of Chicago. What better place to perform experimental and eclectic music than a campus of young students in a college known for promoting “the life of the mind”? After all, the AACM strives to further social and cultural advancement through music and the arts, which is no easy task.

To experience the many talents and facets of the AACM in the next week, a brisk walk to one of the campus’ auditoriums will not do. Instead, a trip on public transportation will be necessary to reach the Velvet Lounge, situated at 67 E Cermak Road, where the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble will perform live on October 21, from 6 to 8pm.

However—and this is where the bad news kicks in—students who are not 21 or older will not be allowed to enter the Velvet Lounge; though Anderson did suggest that younger students could get in if they were accompanied by an adult who was visibly older than 21. Of course, finding such an adult might not be the easiest task on a college campus where most students are between the ages of 18 and 22.

Regardless, the Velvet Lounge, like the AACM, is another South Side landmark and has called the South Loop its home since 1982 when Anderson relocated from the North Side. Open 5 days a week, the Velvet Lounge is a great venue for diverse live performances, and like the AACM, it should not be overlooked. Such valuable organizations and music spaces should not be taken for granted, especially when one considers that both rely on continual financial support from the public. In fact, the AACM’s website states that one of its primary goals right now is the “purchase of a building where the AACM will house and expand its activities,” since currently it relies on a small rental space. Both the Velvet Lounge and the AACM are sites of rich Chicago history entrenched in a community that absolutely needs them. It is no exaggeration to state that not only the South Side but the entire city of Chicago would suffer a resounding loss if the AACM or the Velvet Lounge were forced to close or relocate.

AACM, Velvet Lounge, 67 E Cermak Rd. October 20-21. Saturday-Sunday, 9pm. (312) 791-9050.