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Alden Global Capital is in the business of making money, not journalismon July 15, 2021 at 1:00 pm

Cheating Death

Alden Global Capital is in the business of making money, not journalism

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Alden Global Capital is in the business of making money, not journalismon July 15, 2021 at 1:00 pm Read More »

Koeosaeme’s Annulus builds a cohesive world of glossy, blissed-out reveriesJoshua Minsoo Kimon July 15, 2021 at 11:00 am

Japanese producer Ryu Yoshizawa has a rich career that includes making music for business conglomerates Square Enix and Lotte, spending 17 years and counting in sound artists’ group Office Intenzio, and providing live support for synth-pop pioneers Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi. His output as Koeosaeme has been varied too. His 2017 debut under that alias, Sonorant, features confetti-blasted footwork abstractions; 2018’s Float is all brooding drones and minimal electronics; and 2019’s Obanikeshi embraces full-blown sound-collage frenzy, with kaleidoscopic productions that often move at breakneck speeds. On his new record, Annulus (Orange Milk), he dials things back, pairing glossy instrumentation with sparse arrangements; each track is deliberate, unhurried, and above all lush. There’s a greater sense of continuity than on his previous releases, largely due to how spacious and airy each song feels. This lightness is key, causing every small sonic variation to feel like a crucial development, and “1520219:44” provides the album’s first taste of such economical sound slinging. Atop winding percussion and the faintest of ambience, a flurry of mouth noises–clicks and spurts and spitting–creates blissed-out reveries in a dizzying array of flavors. “12520219:05” is more straight-ahead in its dreaminess, adorning synth pads with Harold Budd-esque piano ambience, but even as the song gets busier, a sustained string note reins it in. This sort of careful balancing act defines every track, and it’s necessary to maintain the overarching playfulness of Annulus. Yoshizawa’s charming way of handling MIDI instrumentation throughout the album–mirroring percussion and vocals on “2720217:06,” for instance, or marrying electronic blips with a lumbering beat on “122202115:12”–elevates these tracks from mere curios into fleshed-out explorations of density, rhythm, and timbre. He also brings a beautiful mix of the traditional and the contemporary into play, with throat singing and various Asian percussion instruments melding with retrofuturistic synth flourishes on “1214202018:07.” Yoshizawa constantly aims to surprise, and with Annulus, he does so while delivering a cohesive vision. v

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Koeosaeme’s Annulus builds a cohesive world of glossy, blissed-out reveriesJoshua Minsoo Kimon July 15, 2021 at 11:00 am Read More »

Ari Brown belongs in Chicago’s canon of great tenor saxophonistsSteve Krakowon July 15, 2021 at 11:00 am

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Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

The Windy City has lost most of its legendary tenor saxophone players: Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin, Fred Anderson, Von Freeman. Luckily, several titanic Chicago saxophonists are still among us, including avant-jazz legend Roscoe Mitchell, genre-crossing out cat David Boykin, and the versatile but underappreciated Ari Brown, whose thoughtful playing bridges the nimble intricacies of bebop and the wooly eruptions of free jazz.

Brown was born February 1, 1944, and grew up on the south side of Chicago, where he learned to groove from his father’s jazz records. He began as a pianist, playing for soul, blues, and R&B artists around the midwest (Gene Chandler, the Chi-Lites, B.B. King, Lou Rawls, Chuck Berry, the Four Tops), and in 1965 he switched to tenor saxophone. At that point he was attending Woodrow Wilson Junior College (soon to be renamed Kennedy-King), where he met a crowd of future legends, including Jack DeJohnette and several founders or early members of the brand-new Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians: Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Joseph Jarman.

Brown would join the AACM himself in 1971, but he felt out of his depth at first. “The meetings were kind of intimidating to me, because all these musicians, they were already made musicians,” he told the Tribune‘s Howard Reich in 2018. “I was just a new face in the crowd. When I joined the group, Muhal wanted everyone to have a group and feature their own compositions and so forth. And I was really scared, because I hadn’t written a composition. I had never led a band before. So I’m not sure what I did. But I guess it worked.”

Revolutionary soul-jazz group the Awakening, which included several AACM affiliates (and appeared in a previous Secret History), enlisted Brown for its two groundbreaking albums, released via the Black Jazz label in 1972 and ’73. Sadly, in 1974 Brown suffered a major setback: a terrible car crash in which he lost several teeth. He was unable to play saxophone as he recuperated, so at first he fell back on his piano skills. After seven months, he tried to return to his horn and discovered that someone had added insult to injury–the instrument was gone, stolen from his home. Undeterred, Brown borrowed his father’s sax and got his chops back into shape.

In the late 1970s, Brown began playing mostly jazz, gigging with the likes of McCoy Tyner, Don Patterson, and Sonny Stitt. In 1979 the great drummer Elvin Jones asked him to be his touring saxophonist, a gig that would continue on and off for more than 20 years. All this time, Brown also held down a day job: he’d earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from the VanderCook College of Music in Bronzeville in 1968, and in 1974 he began work as a teacher for Chicago Public Schools. The multitasking Brown even appeared on the 1976 LP Flowers by Windy City soul and R&B group the Emotions, which went gold.

In the 1980s and onward, Brown would perform all over the world. He started his own regular group, the Ari Brown Quintet, and continued to gig widely with other projects and bandleaders. His resume is vast, but highlights include the AACM Experimental Orchestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton (for his 1990s Charlie Parker Project), Donald Byrd, Malachi Favors, Von Freeman, Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and Orbert Davis‘s Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. In 1989 he joined drummer Kahil El’Zabar in his Ritual Trio, which is still active (albeit with a different lineup).

Though Brown appears on more than 75 records, he didn’t make an album as a bandleader until 1995. That year he recorded Ultimate Frontier for Delmark, working with several frequent collaborators: his brother Kirk Brown on piano, Yosef Ben Israel on bass, and Avreeayl Ra on drums. The music honored bop’s past while looking forward to the freedom music it had spawned, and it led to several more Delmark albums: 1998’s Venus, 2007’s Live at the Green Mill, and most recently 2013’s Groove Awakening.

Brown continues to teach, and has nurtured generations of musicians at Columbia College, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and other institutions. He’s played venues and events as diverse as the Smithsonian Institution, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Village Vanguard, the Newport Jazz Festival, and the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands. Despite working more as a sideman or in support roles than at center stage, Brown has received plenty of recognition throughout his career, including four awards from the National Endowment of the Arts. In 2018 the Tribune declared him one of its Chicagoans of the Year in the Arts.

Brown was part of the ensemble on the 2020 album Cloud Script by bassist Joshua Abrams, and he’s continued to perform as the pandemic allows. In March 2021, he and Kirk recorded a duo set at Constellation that was streamed as part of the virtual series Chicago Takes 10, and in April ’21 he played a string of limited-capacity shows at the Jazz Showcase. In June he participated in Elastic’s streaming Z Festival, playing in a band led by bassist Marlene Rosenberg, and on September 4 he’ll perform as part of a Millennium Park jazz concert during the Chicago in Tune festival. If you get a chance to catch this forward-thinking living legend onstage, don’t pass it up. v

The radio version of the Secret History of Chicago Music airs on Outside the Loop on WGN Radio 720 AM, Saturdays at 5 AM with host Mike Stephen. Past shows are archived here.

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Ari Brown belongs in Chicago’s canon of great tenor saxophonistsSteve Krakowon July 15, 2021 at 11:00 am Read More »

Dick Tidrow, former Cubs & White Sox pitcher, dies at 74Janie McCauley | Associated Presson July 15, 2021 at 4:34 am

SAN FRANCISCO — Dick Tidrow, a former major league pitcher and longtime member of the San Francisco Giants’ front office, has died. He was 74.

The Giants announced his death Wednesday on behalf of the Tidrow family. He died unexpectedly Saturday in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.

“Our entire organization is heartbroken by the news of Dick’s passing,” Giants President and CEO Larry Baer said. “So much of our success over these past three decades is directly linked to Dick’s contributions. He will be truly missed by all of us and our thoughts are with Mari Jo and his entire family during this difficult time.”

Tidrow pitched parts of 13 major league seasons for the Indians, the Yankees, Cubs, White Sox and Mets. The 6-foot-4 right-hander had a 100-94 career record with a 3.68 ERA over 620 appearances with 138 starts.

Tidrow most recently served as the Giants’ senior adviser to the President of Baseball Operations, He spent 28 seasons in a half-dozen roles with the Giants after joining the franchise before the 1994 season as a major league scout.

The former pitcher’s guidance was crucial during the Giants’ three World Series championship seasons of 2010, ’12 and ’14. The 2010 championship was the first for the franchise since moving West in 1958.

“Dick was a unique and special person whose influence and impact was legendary throughout the game and whose fingerprints are all over our three World Series trophies,” said Brian Sabean, the Giants; executive vice president and senior adviser. “On a personal level, we shared some incredible highs and lows together and I’m forever grateful for his 40 years of friendship and support.”

Before returning to his native San Francisco, Tidrow worked as a special assignment scout for the Yankees from 1985 through 1993.

“Crushing! Yet another great baseball man we have lost!” former Giants infielder Kevin Frandsen posted on Twitter. “The ‘ninja’ was so influential with all of us. His random times he’d pop up, maybe say a few words that might help you out, say a few words that you might not of wanted to hear at the time. But he ALWAYS was HONEST!”

Tidrow was born on May 14, 1947, in San Francisco. A former Marine, he attended high school and college in the East Bay suburb of Hayward, graduating from Mount Eden High in 1965 and Chabot Junior College two years later.

He is survived by wife, Mari Jo, three children — Andy, Matt and Richelle — and one grandchild, Trista.

“Dick was truly one of a kind. He is loved and missed beyond measure and irreplaceable in our hearts and lives,” Mari Jo Tidrow said.

Services were pending.

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Dick Tidrow, former Cubs & White Sox pitcher, dies at 74Janie McCauley | Associated Presson July 15, 2021 at 4:34 am Read More »

Candace Parker makes a historic (cover) shot for Sky, WNBAAnnie Costabileon July 15, 2021 at 4:30 am

LAS VEGAS — The sports world woke up Wednesday to Candace Parker’s making history as the first woman and WNBA player to grace the cover of an NBA 2K video game.

The response was instant and the praise universal. Parker eclipsed the hype surrounding the 17th WNBA All-Star Game that pitted Team WNBA against Team USA.

“It’s a signal and a sign around our players and the league,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. “It’s a signal that the WNBA is here to stay and the next 25 years are going to be really interesting.”

In her first All-Star appearance in 2013, Parker finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds. On Wednesday night, Parker played in her sixth All-Star Game, and she had five points, five rebounds and five assists. Team WNBA won 93-85, and Arike Ogunbowale was named MVP.

Engelbert said after the game that she never saw so much defense played in an All-Star Game.

Parker’s performance with the Sky left no question in anyone’s mind that she belonged on the All-Star roster. Despite sitting out eight games with a high ankle sprain at the beginning of the season, Parker’s impact on the team can’t be overstated.

Without Parker, the Sky had a seven-game skid. Upon her return, they flipped the script with a franchise-setting seven-game winning streak. Parker is the franchise player the Sky have needed since they traded away Elena Delle Donne, but even better. In her 14th season, Parker is the Sky’s second-leading scorer behind first-time All-Star Kahleah Copper with 13.3 points. Parker also has pulled down 8.8 rebounds and dished out 3.8 assists. The Sky are 10-10 at the Olympic break but 9-3 with her on the floor.

Parker’s NBA 2K22 cover is not only a signal of what’s to come for the WNBA, but what the future might hold for the Sky.

“Candace’s impact on basketball is like very few in the game,” Sky coach and general manager James Wade said.

Sky owner Michael Alter said Parker’s image on the cover reinforces what the organization has been building. But what stood out more to Alter was the support shown by the entire team.

This year’s Sky team has a unique connection and one that is not a given for every organization. Almost every member of the Sky was in Las Vegas supporting Parker, Copper, Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley, who won her third three-point contest.

“I am blown away by the cover, truly,” Diamond DeShields said. “As someone who grew up playing video games, that’s literally always been a dream. I’m just amazed, to be honest.”

Parker is the biggest piece of the Sky’s puzzle and their pursuit of another history-making moment, winning the franchise’s first WNBA championship. The focus for the team coming out of the Olympic break needs to be on developing consistency. When the Sky has clicked on all cylinders, their offense has run at a high pace and their defense has been disruptive. When that happens, they are a top team.

They need to figure out a way to be that squad through four quarters.

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Candace Parker makes a historic (cover) shot for Sky, WNBAAnnie Costabileon July 15, 2021 at 4:30 am Read More »

Chicago Craft Beer Weekend, July 16-18on July 15, 2021 at 4:33 am

The Beeronaut

Chicago Craft Beer Weekend, July 16-18

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Chicago Craft Beer Weekend, July 16-18on July 15, 2021 at 4:33 am Read More »

Teach phonics in schools to help students master EnglishLetters to the Editoron July 15, 2021 at 2:54 am

As the nation applauds 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde as the first Black American winner of the National Spelling Bee, a deep dive into the history of Black participation in it reveals the same ignominious treatment consistent with the racist thinking and attitudes that long prevailed, discouraging Black participation. Fortunately, racist impediments to Black competition are now behind us. May the best speller win.

SEND LETTERS TO: [email protected]. Please include your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be approximately 350 words or less.

But celebrating her win has so far overlooked two implications deriving from it:

(1) That the past unfairness is part and parcel of the totality of American racial history that reactionaries, led by right-wing lawmakers, want it not to be taught in our schools, true though it is. They castigate it as “Critical Race Theory,” though it is common factual knowledge, not “theory.” The more the nation knows about such history, previously excluded from our schools, the sooner racial reconciliation can occur.

(2) The best spellers, competing or not, are those who were taught pure phonics, sounding out words, which was the universal standard until the mid-’50’s when our educational establishment inexplicably abandoned it in favor of the unproven, newfangled notion called “whole word recognition.” Correct spelling was de-emphasized as well. Emphasis was put on “context” and the vague hope that, uncorrected, kids would magically become good spellers over time. The result: Three generations of citizens have graduated from our high schools with substandard spelling ability and weaknesses in writing ability. By now, most teachers grounded in phonics have all retired.

We’ve all seen kids of East Indian descent winning spelling bees over the years without it dawning on us that in India, phonics remained the standard, so that adherence to it carried through among E. Indian families in the U.S. independent of what our schools taught.

Many parents of old who knew the value of phonics and could afford it bought “Hooked On Phonics,” a home-teaching aid to compensate for what the schools no longer taught. The sooner all schools return to a phonics-only teaching system, the sooner our population regains its ability to master spelling, the first step in learning English, which is inherently a tricky language to master. And the sooner all schools teach the part of our common history previously erased from the history books, including the unpalatable story of slavery, the sooner all Americans can eventually know how our nation became the nation it is.

Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park

Political theater

The article “Biden Calls ‘Remarkable’ Cuba Protests a ‘Call for Freedom'” (July 13) fails to point out that the “food shortages and high prices” that sparked the street protests are the direct result of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, which was just condemned for the 29th year in a row by the U.N., this time by a vote of 182 to 2.

For some 60 years (with a brief and partial respite under President Barack Obama), the U.S. State Department and CIA have done everything in their power – including invasion, assassination attempts, germ warfare, sabotage and sanctions – to overthrow Castro and his successors. Even the pandemic has not softened our efforts at regime change, born of the fear that the Cuban model of governing on behalf of the nation’s own people rather than foreign corporations may spread.

For President Joe Biden to applaud these protests is like the director of a play loudly cheering his own show. This political theater will never fool the mass of Cubans, who know the real source of their suffering. Economic torture may cause pain and anger, but it does not induce the victims to love their torturer.

Hugh Iglarsh, Skokie

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Teach phonics in schools to help students master EnglishLetters to the Editoron July 15, 2021 at 2:54 am Read More »

Baseball by the numbers: Is 2021 season deja vu? Not exactly.John Grochowskion July 15, 2021 at 3:02 am

Major-league baseball has reached the All-Star break with a .240 batting average. Comparisons to 1968 roll easy off the keyboard.

There are major differences, but to start with the similarities, MLB’s 1968 BA was a record-low .237. The 2021 BA is the lowest since and the fourth-lowest of all-time. You have to reach back to the 19th century (.239 in 1888) and the dead-ball era (.239 in 1908) to find the second- and third-lowest.

In 1968, Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA set a record low. In 2021, the Mets’ Jacob deGrom is challenging Gibson at 1.08.

The state of offense worried the lords of baseball in 1968, as it does now. In 1968, they responded by shrinking the strike zone and lowering the mound.

This year, we’ve seen a partial ban on sticky substances that help pitchers increase spin rates, and there’s discussion about lowering the mound again, moving the mound back and making the bases bigger.

But this is not a carbon copy of 1968.

Scoring

In the 1968 Year of the Pitcher, scoring plummeted to 3.42 runs per team per game. Only 1908 was lower at 3.38.

In 2021, the average is 4.47, more than a run higher than 1968. It’s lower than the 4.65 last year and 4.83 in 2019, but about on par with the 4.45 in 2018. Of the 20 seasons from 2001 to 2020, 13 were higher-scoring than 2021, seven were lower-scoring.

Power

Scoring is being kept at normal levels largely because of home runs. In 1968, teams averaged .61 home runs per game. The 2021 average is nearly double that at 1.19.

MLB’s .403 slugging percentage is 63 points higher than that of 1968. By isolated power — the portion of slugging percentage that comes from extra bases — MLB is at .163 in 2021 vs. .103 in 1968.

Strikeouts and walks

Here’s a reason for worry in 2021: Strikeouts are at an all-time high of 8.86 per team per game, while they were at a mere 5.89 in 1968. Walks are at 3.33 per team per game vs. 2.82 in 1968.

In 1968, Sam McDowell led MLB with 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings. Gibson was at 7.9, Cubs leader Fergie Jenkins at 7.6 and White Sox leader Gary Peters at 6.1. This season, deGrom leads at 14.3, with Carlos Rodon at 13.0 to lead four Sox starters averaging double figures. The Cubs’ Adbert Alzolay is at 9.4.

Workload

In 1968, pitchers averaged 6.65 innings per start. In 2021, the average is 5.09. More innings are going to relievers, who are averaging 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings. In 1968, the average was 5.83 strikeouts per nine.

The 2021 baseball world has a steep increase in the number of hard-throwing pitchers, emphasis on spin rates no one knew about in 1968 and offenses built for power to counteract the difficulty of stringing hits against today’s pitching.

It’s a challenging time, but the challenges are different than in 1968, when scoring crashed along with batting averages.

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Baseball by the numbers: Is 2021 season deja vu? Not exactly.John Grochowskion July 15, 2021 at 3:02 am Read More »

What To Expect At The 2021 NHL DraftDrew Krieson July 15, 2021 at 3:47 am

Hockey fans, the time has come. We’re less than ten days away from the 2021 NHL Draft. The NHL Draft normally takes place in June, but this year it was pushed back due to the late finish of the NHL season that was caused by the pandemic. And from July 23  to the 24th, the draft will take place virtually for the second year in a row.

The 2021 NHL Draft happens to be a special one given that there’s a new hockey franchise entering the league. The newest NHL team is named the Seattle Kraken. If you recall from last time the league expanded with the addition of the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the Kraken actually have their own draft where they get to select from other teams players. This draft is known as the, “Expansion Draft”, while the 2021 NHL Draft is technically known as the, “Entry Draft”. The Kraken do take part in the Entry Draft after their Expansion Draft on July 21, but they only start making picks in round two. Which, all things considered, seems pretty fair after you poach from everyone else.

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Top Prospects In The 2021 NHL Draft

NHL Draft prospects are different from leagues like the NBA or NFL in that unless you’re a diehard fan of the sport, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of the top guys until they’re picked. This is the case for us too because when it comes to the Chicago Blackhawks, we’re diehard fans. But, for the rest of the sport and especially outside of the NHL, we don’t really pay as much attention.

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Luckily though, there’s experts who do. And those experts have certainly been busy compiling their consensus prospect rankings for the 2021 NHL Draft. 

At the top of their list is 18-year old, Owen Power, from the University of Michigan. Interestingly enough, at one point in his career Owen played for the Chicago Steel, a hockey team based out of Geneva with players aged from 16 – 20. Owen Power is by far and away everyone’s prediction to go first overall. That pick belongs to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The expert’s number two man is Matty Beniers, another fellow University of Michigan player. We might not know a lot about hockey outside of the Blackhawks, but even we aren’t surprised that two Wolverines lead the list. At number three is William Eklund, an international player from Sweden. Jumping all the way to the 11th prospect on the list is Chaz Lucius. Chaz will play for the Minnesota Golden Gophers next year, but expect him to be dominant at putting the puck in the net. If you’re wondering why we skipped to 11, well, that’s where the Chicago Blackhawks find themselves drafting in the 2021 NHL Draft.

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What Can We Expect For The Chicago Blackhawks?

But wait, didn’t Chicago receive the 12th pick in the draft instead of the 11th? Yes, technically that’s true. However, thanks to some rule breaking by the Arizona Coyotes, the Blackhawks moved up to 11. Unfortunately for Arizona, they lost their first round pick this year.

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The 11th pick gives us a good chance to find a solid youngster from the 2021 NHL Draft. We can’t definitively guess who they end up with that late in the round, whether it be Chaz Lucius or someone else. We do have the knowledge to say where all of Chicago’s picks are going to be in the draft. After the first round, they’ll pick 43rd overall and 61st overall in the second round. Their next selections are a pair of picks in the fourth , one in the sixth, and two more in the seventh. Will they find a superstar early on, or will a diamond in the rough appear out of the later rounds? That, Chicago Blackhawks fans, remains to be seen.

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What To Expect At The 2021 NHL DraftDrew Krieson July 15, 2021 at 3:47 am Read More »

17-year-old boy critically hurt in South Chicago shootingSun-Times Wireon July 15, 2021 at 1:18 am

A 17-year-old boy was critically hurt in a shooting Wednesday night in South Chicago.

Just after 7 p.m., the boy was standing in front of a home in the 8500 block of South Marquette Avenue when a vehicle approached and someone inside fired shots, Chicago police said.

He was struck in the side of the body and the arm and transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, police said.

No one is in custody as area detectives investigate.

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17-year-old boy critically hurt in South Chicago shootingSun-Times Wireon July 15, 2021 at 1:18 am Read More »