Chicago Jazz Fest

[dhosek]

Anyone else going to check it out? There will be a couple notable bass-centric performances: Tomorrow at 4.15 Tetsu Aoki will be performing a new piece melding Japanese music and jazz. Sunday there will be a bass quartet performing. The blurb in the Reader summary was ridiculously pessimistic:

Hinton, who died in December, inspired great affection in fellow bassists. Four of them -- John Bany, Dan Shapera, John Whitfield, and James Willis -- will honor his memory in an improbable format: a bass quartet plus George Hughes on drums. Even two good jazz bassists can have trouble playing in tune and avoiding collisions, so how well it'll work is anyone's guess.

Obviously the reviewer's not heard much of the genre...

-dh

[dhosek]

Well I caught just a little bit of Testsu Aoki, and was disappointed as rather than the cool avant-jazz I was expecting, there was some drearily conventional stuff going on. Plus the crowd was a bit impenetrable so I decided to go back home shortly after arriving.

The bass quartet on Sunday was ok, but played too short of a set (15 minutes, with 2 songs played). It seemed like these guys really needed more rehearsal time together to have pulled the set off better than they did.

Oh well.

-dh

[Herm]

I've gone almost every year for the last ten years (when I lived in downtown Chicago), but had to miss it this year. Really sorry I did, though - it's always fun.