The city’s most reliable and adventurous showcase for jazz and improvised music returns for its eighth incarnation this week. The Umbrella Music Festival kicks off with a by-now-traditional mini fest, European Jazz Meets Chicago, at the Cultural Center on Wed 11/6 and Thu 11/7, where some of the finest talent from eight European countries will appear on three different stages, often side by side with top-notch locals. In previous years the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday concerts have been spread out among the three regular Umbrella Music venues: Elastic, which hosts improvised music on Thursdays; the Hideout, which hosts the Immediate Sound series on Wednesdays; and the Hungry Brain, which hosts the Transmission series on Sundays. But this year all that action will be concentrated at Constellation, a significantly larger venue opened in April by Umbrella member Mike Reed. Nearly every act is worth checking out—and in case you’re curious about which I’m most excited to hear, they’re the ones with the most lavish write-ups in the complete schedule that follows.
Lithuanian saxophonist Dovydas Stalmokas leads a strong local band with cornetist Josh Berman, bassist Kent Kessler, and drummer Tim Daisy.
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Dutch cornetist Eric Boeren released one of my favorite albums of 2012, the buoyant Coconut (Platenbakkerij), made with his long-running quartet of reedist Michael Moore, bassist Wilbert de Joode, and legendary drummer Han Bennink. As usual the specter of Ornette Coleman hangs over Boeren’s folksy melodies and killer front-line interactions, but he and his cohorts also stake out their own turf, injecting the wonderful loosey-goosey approach of the Dutch free-jazz scene into every possible formal element: freewheeling set lists, bleeding one piece into the next, or calling new tunes in midperformance. I’ve memorized most of the sudden twists and turns on the album, so I’m excited to hear its tunes totally reworked onstage—and of course to be introduced to new ones.
Thursday, November 7, Chicago Cultural Center, free
Seval 6:30 PMPreston Bradley Hall
Christoph Erb is an explosive improvising reedist from Lucerne, Switzerland, and ever since he visited Chicago as part of a sister cities program in 2011 he’s maintained strong ties with local players. Via his Veto Records label he’s also documented those collaborations—his ongoing Exchange series includes eight titles so far, all with gorgeous artwork by Chicago design duo Sonnenzimmer. Pianist and ARP synth master James Baker has been one of Erb’s most fruitful partners; he appears on two albums, including the recent Bottervagl, a splendid duo where Baker plays exclusively piano. Tonight they’re joined by drummer Frank Rosaly, who appears on Erb’s album Sack with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and bassist Jason Roebke.
Dave Rempis / David Stackenäs / Brian Labycz10 PM
Veteran bassist Mark Dresser, a full-time music professor at UC San Diego, has a rich history with some of jazz’s most progressive thinkers, including Anthony Braxton, Mark Feldman, and John Zorn, as well as with new-music figures such as Matthias Ziegler and Paul Dresher. He’s been important in the development of telematic performance, which uses the Internet to bring together live musicians in far-flung locales. He’s also a great improviser, and earlier this year he demonstrated his skills as a bandleader on Nourishments (Clean Feed), a finely etched quintet recording with reedist Rudresh Mahanthappa, trombonist Michael Dessen, “hyperpianist” Denman Maroney, and drummers Tom Rainey and Michael Sarin (who take turns). “Canales Row” is built around a 12-tone row and incorporates duo and trio passages between statements of its theme; “Aperitivo” subverts its C minor blues form by constantly modulating its meter. Like the best bandleaders and composers, Dresser doesn’t draw attention to his methods, but they give his cohorts fertile ground for their improvisations. The original Umbrella schedule called for Dresser to play with LA cornetist Bobby Bradford and avuncular New York trombonist Roswell Rudd, both iconoclasts from an older generation; on Dresser’s 2011 album with Bradford and trombonist Glenn Ferris, Live in LA (Clean Feed), all three members contributed profound and infectious pieces that took advantage of their instruments’ throaty, garrulous collective sound. Unfortunately, Bradford and Rudd both canceled due to illness, so Dresser will duet with masterful pianist and composer Anthony Davis, a collaborator and colleague at UCSD. Davis has also worked at Yale and Harvard, and he’s gone deeper into classical composition than Dresser, writing acclaimed operas such as X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and Amistad. But he devoted his early years to improvised music, working with the likes of George Lewis, Marion Brown, James Newton, and David Murray. This summer he visited Chicago in a band led by another old cohort, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and on the most recent album I’ve heard from him, a lovely 2010 duet with reedist Jason Robinson called Cerulean Landscape (Clean Feed), his jazz playing is sensitive, lyrical, and crisp.
Wed-Thu 11/6-11/7, 6 PMChicago Cultural CenterFree, all ages
Also Fri-Sun 11/8-11/10, 9 PMConstellation$20, 21+
