What’s New

Like any music fest, the Chicago Jazz Festival is basically a Choose Your Own Adventure that you listen to. It’s even more multifarious than most—not only does it take over Millennium Park for four days, it also books events at the Cultural Center and Maxwell Street Market and a series of neighborhood concerts (copresented with local promoters) that begins the week before.

There’s no best way through the fest, of course. My recommendation? Hit the homegrown acts. I’ve put together a sort of Jazz Festival jukebox featuring six records that dropped (or will drop) in 2022, all by Chicago-based artists appearing at the fest. My selections are hardly exhaustive, but they still convey the breadth and variety of this year’s bookings. Think of this as an appetizer for the ears.

Chicago Jazz FestivalThu 9/1, 11 AM-9 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, and Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph; Fri 9/2-Sat 9/3, 11:30 AM-9 PM, Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph; Sun 9/4, 11 AM-9 PM, Maxwell Street Market, 800 S. Desplaines, and Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph; free, all ages

In order of festival appearance: 

Mike Allemana, Vonology (Ears & Eyes)

It’s a tall order to sum up Von Freeman: a once-in-a-generation tenor saxophone talent, a mentor to countless musicians, a paradigm of Chicago-over-everything obstinacy. (He famously turned down an invitation to join Miles Davis’s band so he could stay in his hometown.) But guitarist Mike Allemana, who played with Freeman for nearly 15 years in his final quartet, is the right guy to give it a shot.

Allemana’s album-length suite Vonology goes beyond mere tribute, instead aiming to evoke something more essential about the late saxophonist. The music is influenced by Freeman’s abiding interest in astrology, and Allemana went so far as to analyze Freeman’s birth chart and assign musical modes to its elements. The way Freeman embodied his own sun sign inspired two movements: “The Mediator” derives its melodies and its lopsided groove from Allemana’s interpretation of Von’s chart, and “Libra Channeling” features a brambly and expansive tenor saxophone solo by Geof Bradfield. The piece closes as it opens, with a sunburst-like chorus of vocalists from Allemana’s Come Sunday gospel project. This August 11 was the tenth anniversary of Freeman’s death, but Vonology declares that his spirit has gone nowhere.

Mike Allemana and his ensemble perform Vonology on Thu 9/1 at 6:30 PM at Pritzker Pavilion.

The five tracks on Vonology feature a total of 16 musicians.

Roya Naldi, This Madness (Rivermont)

The term “historically informed performance” (HIP for short) usually refers to Western classical musicians adopting defunct performance practices or instrumentation, determined by consulting primary sources. But why restrict it to that genre? Roya Naldi sings century-old jazz with the directness and sparing vibrato of a 1920s chanteuse—she and her band sound like an old 78 with the static cleaned up. The arrangements on Naldi’s new EP, This Madness, belong in a cramped speakeasy, not a large dance hall—her pocket-size acoustic ensemble has a muted, velvety sound, with a delightfully tinny upright piano and wide-wobbling winds. That “ensemble” is really just two members of the Chicago Cellar Boys, the swing-era specialists in residence at the Green Mill on Tuesdays: banjoist Jimmy Barrett and multi-instrumentalist Andy Schumm, who covers piano, tenor sax, clarinet, and cornet. 

This Madness is a postscript to Naldi’s full-length debut, A Night in June (2020). Its four songs represent a delectable slice of her repertoire, including the foxtrotting “He’s the Hottest Man in Town” and the ballad “You Call It Madness (But I Call It Love),” first recorded in 1931 by its co-composer, baritone Russ Columbo. Naldi’s delivery on the latter sometimes out-suaves Columbo’s in its apparent effortlessness, more a nonchalant shrug than a wink. 

Roya Naldi performs Fri 9/2 at noon on the Harris Theater rooftop (entrance at 205 E. Randolph). 

This Madness includes four of Roya Naldi’s favorite songs from the jazz age.The LowDown Brass Band Credit: Alan Maniacek

LowDown Brass Band, LowDown Nights (self-released)

As a brass band with a genre-defying spin, LowDown are a close cousin of the Rebirth and Dirty Dozen brass bands from New Orleans. The distinctive second-line sound seeps into LowDown too, but in combination with local referents. LowDown’s sound calls back to the muscular horn sections of Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago, and their ebullient stylings—not least the smoothly delivered bars of MC and front man Anthony “Billa Camp” Evora—evoke hip-hop projects such as the Social Experiment and Sidewalk Chalk. To quote the liner notes to LowDown’s self-titled 2008 debut, “It’s the New Orleans hump with a Chi-town bump.”

LowDown Nights is one of two albums the band recorded during the pandemic shutdown, along with last year’s The Reel Sessions, and it’s fast-paced, high-energy fun from start to finish. That’s good news for fans who wear their dancing shoes to the Chicago Jazz Festival, since LowDown’s set will likely have something for everyone. The bilingual “Ranura de la Noche” rides on tango rhythms, “Be the One Tonight” announces itself with a groove reminiscent of early house music, and “We Dem Boys” is thick, syncopated funk held down by Lance Loiselle’s sousaphone. 

The LowDown Brass Band perform Fri 9/2 at 3 PM on the Harris Theater rooftop (entrance at 205 E. Randolph). 

More than half the tracks on LowDown Nights use remote recordings made during the pandemic.

Ethan Philion onstage at the Green Mill with members of his Mingus tribute project Credit: Isabel Firpo

Ethan Philion, Meditations on Mingus (Sunnyside) 

Charles Mingus would’ve turned 100 this year, and tributes are pouring in around the globe. Chicago bassist Ethan Philion homes in on Mingus’s compositional legacy, focusing on material where Mingus spoke truth to power and confronted injustice. To execute his arrangements, Philion enlists a star-powered ten-piece that includes drummer Dana Hall, trumpeter Victor Garcia, pianist Alexis Lombre, and saxophonist Geof Bradfield. (Garcia and Bradfield also appear on Mike Allemana’s Vonology.) 

For the most part, Philion faithfully follows each work’s blueprint, building it up with muscular vamps, lush textures, and virtuosic soloing from his large-format band. He also leans into Mingus’s offbeat grit, which is plentiful in the mercurial “Once Upon a Time There Was a Holding Corporation Called Old America” and an increasingly frenetic version of “Meditations for a Pair of Wirecutters.” (The latter tune, the first of the set that Philion arranged, gave the project its name.) Mingus composed “Prayer for Passive Resistance” as a showcase for an alto saxophonist, and it assumes the same role in Philion’s version—Rajiv Halim stumps energetically throughout the track. 

Meditations on Mingus perform Philion’s arrangements on Fri 9/2 at 4:15 PM at Pritzker Pavilion.

Mingus wrote the first piece in this collection in response to inhumane imprisonment in the south.

Christy Bennett’s Fumée Credit: Sandy Babusci

Fumée, Good Morning Heartache: The Music of Irene Higginbotham (self-released)

Irene Higginbotham (1918–1988) could keep up with Tin Pan Alley’s most prolific songwriters, and her tunes were performed and popularized by the likes of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Nat King Cole. Her most famous song is “Good Morning Heartache,” one of several she composed for Billie Holiday. Holiday first recorded it in 1946, and it roared belatedly onto the charts after Diana Ross portrayed her in the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues.

Higginbotham advocated extensively for the intellectual property rights of Black songwriters. However, despite many high-profile recordings of her songs, she posthumously fell victim to the broken system she organized against. To work around restrictive agreements with publishers and performing-rights agencies, Higginbotham published material under many names (most commonly “Glenn Gibson,” which sounded not just male but also white). This had the tragic side effect of relegating her to the margins of jazz history. 

Fumée bandleader and vocalist Christy Bennett searched the archives at the Library of Congress, whose copyright records document Higginbotham’s song submissions, and at Brigham Young University, which somehow ended up with a trove of her work. Due in October, Fumée’s Good Morning Heartache: The Music of Irene Higginbothammight be the first album-length tribute to the songwriter. It renders her work with Fumée’s distinctive instrumentation, drumless and inflected with Eastern European sounds: though the group’s personnel varies, mandolin (Don Stiernberg), accordion (Don Stille), and bass (Christian Dillingham or Ethan Philion) hold down the rhythms onstage and on the album.

Fumée performs Sat 9/3 at 11:30 AM at the Von Freeman Pavilion (North Promenade).

Nothing from Good Morning Heartache is streaming yet, but Fumée have been playing some of its material for years.Gustavo Cortiñas (center) with the band on his new album: from left, Emily Kuhn, Katie Ernst, Meghan Stagl, and Erik Skov Credit: Courtesy the artists

Gustavo Cortiñas, Kind Regards/Saludos Afectuosos (Desafío Candente) 

For a few fleeting minutes in 2019, children on opposite sides of the U.S.-Mexico border shared seesaws. Bubblegum pink and slim enough to fit through the slots in the border fence separating El Paso and Juárez, they were designed by two California professors who later won an award for their design.

That moment is captured, not without some cynicism, in the illustration on the cover of Kind Regards/Saludos Afectuosos, which drummer Gustavo Cortiñas releases this week as a follow-up to last year’s Desafío Candente. The latter is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime achievement that an artist often needs years to complete, then years to recover from—it’s as lush as an untroubled forest yet just as searing as its inspiration, Eduardo Galeano’s 1971 anti-imperialist book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. 

Miraculously, Saludos Afectuosos manages to be just as staggering. Cortiñas tries his hand at songwriting (in both English and Spanish) and proves himself just as savvy a lyricist as a composer. It helps that he has a secret weapon in Meghan Stagl, doing double duty on piano and bilingual vocals and sounding weightless on both. “You rode the beast and migrated north,” she sings over desolate synths in “Emigraste”; that image, with everything it implies, is still darkening the air when the band picks up with a buoyant 6/8 groove. This technique is more or less a constant on Saludos Afectuosos: the tension between gutting lyrics and breezy delivery. It feels true to our twisted reality, just like those garish pink seesaws.

Gustavo Cortiñas celebrates the release of Kind Regards/Saludos Afectuosos on Sun 9/4 at 1:30 PM on the Harris Theater rooftop (entrance at 205 E. Randolph).

The Bandcamp page for the new Gustavo Cortiñas album says that it “gives life through music to words that attempt to build bridges and understanding in times of borders and ignorance.”

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The titular girlfriend in the local premiere of the two-person musical (book by Todd Almond, music and lyrics by Matthew Sweet) kicking off PrideArts’s 2022-23 season never appears. Referred to only fleetingly, she is nevertheless both presence and absence throughout the story of two young gay men who fall in love after their high school graduation in Alliance, Nebraska, in the summer of 1993. 

Girlfriend Through 9/25: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Pride Arts Center, 4139 N. Broadway, 773-857-0222, pridearts.org, $35 ($30 students and seniors)

Will (Joe Lewis), directionless and only beginning to come to terms with his sexuality, is given a mixtape—that ultimate symbol of affection and commitment back in the 90s—by Mike (Peter Stielstra), an athlete with both a domineering father and a girlfriend who conveniently lives out of town. Beginning with a tense date at the drive-in, Will becomes closer with the tightly wound Mike just as the clock begins ticking toward Mike’s departure for college at the end of the summer.Folks escaping stultifying small-town life has become a trope for contemporary gay storytelling, but Almond’s script and Sweet’s songs foreground Mike and Will’s emotional growth more than dwelling on the homophobia around them; the latter feel like music that 90s teens would be into. Nevertheless, the two characters are very aware of being constantly watched. At one point, Will breaks the fourth wall to accusingly ask the audience, “What are you looking at?” Lewis and Stielstra are excellent, harnessing both Will and Mike’s New Relationship Energy and burgeoning self-awareness. The house band under the direction of Robert Ollis and stage direction by Jay Españo expertly capture the frenetic excitement of young love.

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I love Dracula. I’ve loved him ever since a Saturday afternoon in the late 70s or early 80s when I saw Bela Lugosi portray him on TV as part of Creature Double Feature. Max Schreck, Christopher Lee, and many other actors have only deepened my appreciation for the immortal bloodsucker. I always root for him and I’m always sad when he’s destroyed. Any new production of Bram Stoker’s book has a high bar to clear and a lot of baggage to haul. 

Orson Welles’ DraculaThrough 9/25: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark, 773-338-2177, glassappletheatre.com, $25 ($15 students, seniors, industry, and military/veterans)

Brian McKnight has added an extra challenge in adapting Orson Welles’s 1938 radio play to the stage for Glass Apple Theatre. The magic of audio drama is that the listener imagines the action with only voices to guide them. There’s nothing wrong with McKnight’s cast. Their costumes look period-accurate to late-19th century Europe, and the shape of an Art Deco radio against the back wall of the stage—with video projections of stormy seas and brooding Transylvanian landscape coming through the sound mesh—is a nice touch. But the characters are stuck statically behind four lecterns, reciting text, then exiting stage left or right. They can’t touch because they represent only voices. Here, unlike in the movies, Dracula is almost a bit part. He’s just a guy glowering in a handsome burgundy suit. He doesn’t bite or fly but stalks offstage meekly when his lines are finished.

I spent minutes at a time listening with my eyes closed, and that was a mildly enjoyable way to take in what comes off as a dated Gothic tale. It would have worked much better coming out of the speakers of my stereo at home. But even then, none of the menace, erotic tension, or mystery of so many other iterations I know would have been there. I was perfectly happy with this Dracula turning to dust; he didn’t have much life to lose.

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For several years now, the heart of the Chicago Jazz Festival has been in Millennium Park. This year the four days of the fest also include programming at the Cultural Center (from 11 AM till 5:15 PM on Thursday, September 1) and a lunchtime show at the Maxwell Street Market on Sunday, September 4. Around the city, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and local music organizations have jointly booked more than a dozen neighborhood concerts from Tuesday, August 23, through Wednesday, August 31. 

Of course, the local venues that routinely host jazz aren’t about to stop during the jazziest weekend of the year—in fact, many of them put in extra effort to attract concertgoers in a festival mood. Below I’ve listed the best of those shows. If you stick it out till the last note at Pritzker Pavilion, you’ll get to some of these pretty late—but not too late to enjoy some top-shelf music.

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After the initial 53-man roster was released, the Chicago Bears had a handful of impressive players who worked hard and earned their spot.

Maybe none was more of a success story than undrafted linebacker Jack Sanborn out of the University of Wisconsin.

As one of the top linebackers in the country last year, Sanborn earned First Team All Big Ten. Yet, he failed to hear his name called on draft weekend, mostly due to him running a slower time in the 40-yard dash.

But, looking at his college tape, there was no doubt that this kid could play, and the Bears were smart to give him his shot. Now, he finds himself on the team — and potentially a long-term fit, too.

The stars could align for Jack Sanborn to be next in line of some excellent Chicago Bears middle linebackers.

Over the offseason, the Bears signed a pair of starting linebackers in Nicholas Morrow and Matthew Adams. Neither of them have been longtime starters previously, though, and both signed a 1-year deal in Chicago.

Because of this, the door is wide open for Sanborn to impress and stick around on this team for years to come.

Sanborn enjoyed a stellar preseason, finishing with 13 tackles, one interception, one pass defended, one fumble recovery in three game appearances.

Over his career at Wisconsin, which saw him start in three of four years, Sanborn tallied 228 tackles, 29.0 for a loss, 11.5 sacks, four passes defended, four interceptions, three forced fumbles and a pair of recoveries.

This year, Sanborn will likely contribute mostly on special teams. But, if he performs well and plays with the intensity that he did all of his college career and in the preseason, he’ll have a real shot to stick around and potentially start in the coming years.

Look, if we’ve learned anything about Ryan Poles thus far it’s that he wants mostly “his guys” on this roster, as would any new general manager. Sanborn could end up being a huge success story and someone Poles can hang his hat on as one of the very first intelligent moves he’s made with the Bears.

Going into 2023, the Bears will have a ton of cap space to work with and plenty of roster spots to fill after many of these short-term deals expire. The best gift that can be given to any general manager is a highly-talented starting player on a rookie deal — and that’s exactly what Sanborn presents.

After this season, the Bears could choose to keep Sanborn for the future and allow him to flourish into their starting middle linebacker. Playing this year on special teams and taking the coaching and direction from Matt Eberflus could pay huge dividends for Sanborn. He is now in a position where he may control his own destiny.

The Bears don’t have any starting linebackers locked up for beyond the 2022 season, including Roquan Smith.

Now is the time for Sanborn, and he must take full advantage of this opportunity.

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Despite the growing acceptance and accessibility of cannabis in states where it’s been legalized, many outdated stigmas surrounding the plant remain. That means that even people who use cannabis for recreational or medical purposes might know more about its associations with party culture or old-school anti-marijuana films that depicted it as a societal menace (remember 1936’s Reefer Madness?) than how to properly consume it. So, let’s talk about how cannabis impacts the body and how to avoid overconsumption. Just like any other medication or supplement, though, please speak to your doctor before you begin using cannabis, as it can potentially interact with prescription medications.

How does cannabis impact the body when it is consumed?

When cannabis is ingested by smoking or vaping, it goes directly to the lungs and into the bloodstream, which signals the brain to release the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. This process creates the euphoric feelings or psychoactive “high” associated with THC. Any amount of THC in the system can potentially increase emotions, heighten senses, impaired judgment, trigger “the munchies,” or result in memory loss or hallucinations. 

When cannabis is consumed in an edible, it takes longer to feel the effects because it must travel through the digestive system and be processed through the liver before being absorbed into the bloodstream. Cannabis can also be used sublingually as a tincture or transdermally as an oil-based topical cream or balm that is absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin. (Note: Topicals without an oil or fat-based carrier, such as a water-based lotion, will not impact the bloodstream, and should not cause a high or positive drug test result). 

How much should I consume?

The average cannabis dose is between 5mg-10mg. Regular users may have a much higher tolerance and require a larger dose to get their desired effect. This is because the CB1 receptors found in the body are oversaturated and no longer produce the same response as someone who does not regularly consume cannabis.

Whether you are an experienced user or just trying it out, you may find that your reaction changes based on your metabolism, and what you have eaten that day. For example, fatty foods cause THC to be absorbed more quickly. Your dispensary agent, or budrista, can help you select the right dose for your needs and experience level.

What happens to the body when cannabis is over consumed?Smoking too much cannabis or overindulging on edibles can lead to a rather unpleasant experience, but there have been no reported fatalities due to overconsuming cannabis alone. A combination of time, proper hydration, and a calm environment may help alleviate unwanted feelings. However, in rare cases a person might have a “white out” or “green out” episode, where they may experience heightened paranoia, panic attacks, sweating, dizziness, nausea—or in extreme cases—fainting. Talk to your dispensary agent for information on how to come down safely if you accidentally get too high.

How can I avoid accidentally consuming too much cannabis?

Double check your dose – Always check the recommended dosage and adjust according to your tolerance. “Start low and go slow” – Incremental dosing can greatly impact one’s experience with cannabis products, and it is especially important when it comes to using cannabis for medicinal purposes. Making it a practice to start with small amounts of cannabis and wait for a specific amount of time to see how it affects you before consuming more can help you avoid overconsuming while learning which dosing regimen works best for you.  Take THC tolerance consumption breaks –  Abstaining from cannabis use for an extended period of time can help reset your CB1 and CB2 receptors, which bind to THC and allows it to have an effect on your mind and body.

Remember that while medical and recreational cannabis use has been legalized in Illinois, cannabis remains illegal on a federal level. It is also illegal to drive under the influence of cannabis. Consume responsibly and enjoy.

Sources:

https://www.leafly.com/learn/cannabis-glossary/cb1-receptor

https://www.healthline.com/health/effects-of-cannabis-on-body#Respiratory-system

Be sure to follow @naturesgraceil on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky riffs on the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty, and interviews politicians, activists, journalists and other political know-it-alls. Presented by the Chicago Reader, the show is available by 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays at chicagoreader.com/joravsky—or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss Oh, What a Week!–the Friday feature in which Ben & producer Dennis (aka, Dr. D.) review the week’s top stories. Also, bonus interviews drop on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. 

Chicago Reader podcasts are recorded on Shure microphones. Learn more at Shure.com.

Chicago Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky discusses the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty on The Ben Joravsky Show.

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Despite the growing acceptance and accessibility of cannabis in states where it’s been legalized, many outdated stigmas surrounding the plant remain. That means that even people who use cannabis for recreational or medical purposes might know more about its associations with party culture or old-school anti-marijuana films that depicted it as a societal menace (remember 1936’s Reefer Madness?) than how to properly consume it. So, let’s talk about how cannabis impacts the body and how to avoid overconsumption. Just like any other medication or supplement, though, please speak to your doctor before you begin using cannabis, as it can potentially interact with prescription medications.

How does cannabis impact the body when it is consumed?

When cannabis is ingested by smoking or vaping, it goes directly to the lungs and into the bloodstream, which signals the brain to release the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. This process creates the euphoric feelings or psychoactive “high” associated with THC. Any amount of THC in the system can potentially increase emotions, heighten senses, impaired judgment, trigger “the munchies,” or result in memory loss or hallucinations. 

When cannabis is consumed in an edible, it takes longer to feel the effects because it must travel through the digestive system and be processed through the liver before being absorbed into the bloodstream. Cannabis can also be used sublingually as a tincture or transdermally as an oil-based topical cream or balm that is absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin. (Note: Topicals without an oil or fat-based carrier, such as a water-based lotion, will not impact the bloodstream, and should not cause a high or positive drug test result). 

How much should I consume?

The average cannabis dose is between 5mg-10mg. Regular users may have a much higher tolerance and require a larger dose to get their desired effect. This is because the CB1 receptors found in the body are oversaturated and no longer produce the same response as someone who does not regularly consume cannabis.

Whether you are an experienced user or just trying it out, you may find that your reaction changes based on your metabolism, and what you have eaten that day. For example, fatty foods cause THC to be absorbed more quickly. Your dispensary agent, or budrista, can help you select the right dose for your needs and experience level.

What happens to the body when cannabis is over consumed?Smoking too much cannabis or overindulging on edibles can lead to a rather unpleasant experience, but there have been no reported fatalities due to overconsuming cannabis alone. A combination of time, proper hydration, and a calm environment may help alleviate unwanted feelings. However, in rare cases a person might have a “white out” or “green out” episode, where they may experience heightened paranoia, panic attacks, sweating, dizziness, nausea—or in extreme cases—fainting. Talk to your dispensary agent for information on how to come down safely if you accidentally get too high.

How can I avoid accidentally consuming too much cannabis?

Double check your dose – Always check the recommended dosage and adjust according to your tolerance. “Start low and go slow” – Incremental dosing can greatly impact one’s experience with cannabis products, and it is especially important when it comes to using cannabis for medicinal purposes. Making it a practice to start with small amounts of cannabis and wait for a specific amount of time to see how it affects you before consuming more can help you avoid overconsuming while learning which dosing regimen works best for you.  Take THC tolerance consumption breaks –  Abstaining from cannabis use for an extended period of time can help reset your CB1 and CB2 receptors, which bind to THC and allows it to have an effect on your mind and body.

Remember that while medical and recreational cannabis use has been legalized in Illinois, cannabis remains illegal on a federal level. It is also illegal to drive under the influence of cannabis. Consume responsibly and enjoy.

Sources:

https://www.leafly.com/learn/cannabis-glossary/cb1-receptor

https://www.healthline.com/health/effects-of-cannabis-on-body#Respiratory-system

Be sure to follow @naturesgraceil on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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As we inch closer to the regular season, the Chicago Bears continue to see the same storylines written about them.

Second-year quarterback Justin Fields does not have enough weapons around him. He doesn’t have the necessary protection in front of him.

General manager Ryan Poles has simply not done enough to put Fields in position to succeed.

Say what you want, but all of those statements can be considered very valid. However, that will not deter Fields from possessing the utmost confidence in himself and his teammates.

ESPN’s Courtney Cronin sat down with the quarterback in an interview that’s airing on Sportscenter this week, but she shared a few snippets ahead of time, and Fields’ mentality seems as locked-in as you can possibly get.

Don’t tell Justin Fields that the Chicago Bears don’t have enough talent, because he’ll tell you otherwise.

Cronin asked Fields if there ever seems to be a shadow of doubt that enters his mind during times like last season, when things don’t go the right way.

“I think there’s doubt if you listen to other people’s opinions. I’ve been through stuff like this before, so it really doesn’t phase me.”

Cronin also talked about the labels put on the Bears this season, with the narrative being that the team hasn’t put enough talent around him going into the year. Fields responded by saying this:

“I think we have a lot of hidden pieces in our offense that a lot of people underestimate, so that’s fine with us being underestimated.”

We have seen instances of this before in sports, where teams are put together with guys who may have been cast-offs or labeled “busts,” and many times it doesn’t come together for them.

But, there is something about the way Matt Eberflus leads these men. There is something about the culture, attitude and overall mentality of this team which may lead to Fields being proven correct.

Sure, the initial roster features guys like Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis and Tajae Sharpe — all of whom can be considered “not good enough” to stick around and be an integral part of an NFL offense.

St. Brown never caught on in Green Bay. Pettis had a lot of hype coming into the league but quickly fell out of favor in San Francisco. Sharpe, meanwhile, has never been more than a third or fourth option.

Yet, over the course of the preseason and training camp, we’ve seen Fields really gel with these guys. St. Brown developed a quick bond with Fields during camp. Pettis seemed to be a favorite target during the preseason. And, Sharpe came up with a couple of nice grabs during the preseason as well. All three of them could definitely contribute this year if given the opportunity, if Fields has his way.

The Bears have already been written off for 2022, and maybe they won’t end up with a dynamic, winning record. However, Fields’ leadership under Eberflus should lead to a much more competitive ball club this season. You can count on that.

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TIM FULLER WAS one of dozens of scouts filling a Louisville gym in late April 2021 to assess some basketball talent.

Among the players on the former Power 5 assistant coach’s list: Amen and Ausar Thompson, from unsponsored AAU team Florida Pro HSA, who initially hadn’t been on his radar but came recommended by a friend.

“Amen picks the ball up full court and he’s dogging this kid,” Fuller recalls of the game against the higher-ranked Meanstreets EYBL team from Chicago. “Dogging him, dogging him, dogging him to the point where the kid has now got his back turned to Amen and doesn’t even want to dribble.

“So I watch Amen timing his dribble. As the ball leaves the kid’s hand, Amen dives at the ball with his left hand. … He knocks the ball loose, and, as he’s falling to the ground, wraps it around his body with his left hand and just throws it behind his head.”

The unusual level of defensive intensity at the opening tip of an AAU game immediately caught Fuller’s attention.

“From the baseline, Ausar comes darting up the lane,” Fuller says. “I have no idea how he knew Amen was getting this steal, but he comes darting up the lane, picks the ball off in midair with one hand, drops it down with that hand, takes one more dribble and two steps and he’s flying at the basket with a tomahawk dunk. The whole place erupted.”

Before the buzz could subside, Meanstreets inbounded the basketball.

But then, another steal. Another dunk. This time with Ausar pressing and Amen finishing.

“I’m like, ‘Hold on a second,'” Fuller says. “Did I just experience a “Matrix”-like deal here? What’s happening? It’s like a glitch.”

A few more minutes and Fuller had seen enough. He stepped away, not to ring his buddy and thank him for the nudge, but to call his employer and gush about the twins, insisting they would be a critical addition to the program he’d been hired to help launch.

His employer? Overtime Elite, a new alternative path set to launch in the fall for basketball prospects entering their senior year of high school to reach their professional goals. Amen and Ausar Thompson shouldn’t just be on his organization’s radar, Fuller thought. They were the kind of talents who would provide immediate legitimacy to an organization still quite literally in its building phase.

The Thompson twins would sign with Fuller and the Atlanta-based OTE in May, bypassing their senior year of high school to become two of the program’s first four commitments. The pair had managed relative anonymity in basketball circles until then. This choice would temporarily maintain that pattern, keeping them away from the high-profile world of college basketball.

It would create an entirely different type of pressure, however. Amen and Ausar would effectively become the first real test case for OTE’s ambitions.

If the Thompsons succeed in their dream — to become NBA stars — future prospects can look to an alternative, novel path to professional preparedness on the domestic side. If they fail, OTE could be criticized for pulling young, promising talent away from the more established, traditional college hoops path.

For a couple of teenagers who’ve never sought the spotlight, it feels like a heavy ask.

But Amen and Ausar are identical twins, with identical 6-foot-7 frames and wingspans a touch under 7 feet (for now). They commit just as much on defense as on offense, displaying defensive instincts beyond their years. They glide like the best wings, handle and pass like guards and play aggressively at the rim.

Both are projected lottery picks in the 2023 NBA draft. By the time June comes around, they’ll have played their second full schedule against fellow OTE talent and taken advantage of the freedom the program allows by playing professionals in different settings — including open runs with NBA pros, and a brief European tour that begins Wednesday.

The buzz around them has grown since the Louisville AAU tournament. Fuller believes it still doesn’t match their actual ability.

“I don’t think people are going to really know who these kids are and what they are capable of until they probably hit NBA summer league next year and take the world by storm,” he says. “I truly believe they’re going to come into the NBA, the first set of twins to be that generational talent where people are clamoring to come watch their games.”

The Thompsons are a basketball family: besides the twins, dad, Troy (far right), older brother Troy Jr. (far left) and two uncles have hooped. Courtesy Thompson family

What the twins are clamoring for at this moment is a hearty lunch.

After briefly trying to decide which combination of plates at this Fort Lauderdale waterfront restaurant would offer the most bang for the buck, the 19-year-olds order the salmon.

Seated at a round table with their father, Troy, and high school coach Ike Smith, Amen is wearing a UCLA T-shirt. Ausar has done a very thankful few the favor of wearing earrings, the small diamond studs distinguishing him from his brother.

Rudy Gobert has just been traded to Minnesota, sending the twins to their phones for real-time reactions, while Troy tries to figure out how the move would affect Kevin Durant’s then-trade request out of Brooklyn.

Basketball dominates the conversation, including how the twins studied Dwyane Wade’s Euro step, particularly a nasty one-two against Kevin Garnett as a Celtic, as well as the best inside-out dribble, which belongs to Jordan Poole, according to Ausar — “he kind of just throws it.”

Style of play sparks a small disagreement. Dad wanted them to play like Russell Westbrook, the twins say. “I did not want them to play like Westbrook,” Troy clarifies. “I wanted them to hustle like Westbrook.”

This is normal. Basketball is written in the family code.

Troy is one of four brothers, three of them hoopers. The fourth, Mark Thompson, was an Olympic 400-meter hurdler for Jamaica in 1992. The twins’ older brother, Troy Jr., was a guard at Prairie View A&M before making a few professional stops.

The elder Troy, 52, is by far the most energetic body at this lunch. He recalls stories of raising his boys with wife, Maya, in San Leandro, California, a permanent smile on his face and his left leg regularly sticking out from under the table and tapping at a quick pace.

Mom ruled out football for the boys, so by the time Amen and Ausar were 7, they were running basketball drills Dad developed with Troy Jr. years before.

“I would drop them off [at their elementary school’s court] like an hour early,” Troy said. “When they were little, they’d always want to play one-on-one. But the one-on-one would result in fights and arguing and all that nonsense.

“I was like, ‘OK guys, you can do your one-on-one. But you got to do these drills first. And then I’d drive away, like I was going away. But I’d watch. And they did it. They did the drills every day before one-on-one.”

By the time they were 9, despite not being especially tall for their age, the twins started speaking their NBA dreams into the universe.

Sometimes, they even wrote them down.

“We made this dream board,” Troy said.

It was called “Amen and Ausar’s Basketball Dream,” and it was exactly what you’d expect.

Amen and Ausar wrote down what they had to do to be like LeBron James when they were 9 years old. Now, elements of their game are being compared to that of their idol. Courtesy Thompson Family

“Become the greatest basketball player of all time,” it read, along with drawings of money and a Nike foamposite, and 10 daily must-dos in order to reach that dream.

“Their 6-foot-9 NBA dream,” Troy specified, referring to height of the twins’ basketball idol, LeBron James.

The family would support those dreams, including homeschooling the twins for a couple of years to build in as much training time as possible. Then, as they were entering eighth grade, they received an opportunity to play at a private school in Fort Lauderdale.

Pine Crest had a basketball program most recently known for producing former Kentucky Wildcat and NBA guard Brandon Knight, but it was hardly a powerhouse. It was, however, a highly regarded academic school. Add in the opportunity to compete against more physical South Florida athletes, and Troy was convinced the family should move across the country.

Maya wasn’t. She worked for the city of Berkeley and had family in Oakland. Ball isn’t actually life, after all.

It left the twins having to choose between time with their mother and a cross-country trek based largely on their father’s instincts.

Ausar was willing to go, but Amen didn’t have the same vision.

“Amen could see my stress, and he actually said, ‘Mom, I will stay with you if it makes you feel better,'” Maya says. “That was my tipping point. There is no way I could possibly separate these kids from their dream because of how I’m feeling.

“When Amen was willing to walk away from his brother, I said, ‘No, thank you.'”

She couldn’t possibly have known Amen was (mostly) bluffing.

“I’ve never been willing to just, like, leave Ausar, for real,” Amen says. Off they went.

By their junior year, the twins had grown to near their current 6-7 frames. Their stifling, relentless defense and ever-expanding offensive game even carried Pine Crest to a state title.

Yet, until this point, the twins had largely played on teams that weren’t stacked with talent and relied far too much on them. Bad News Bears-type teams, their mom would call them, Pine Crest included. Eventually it didn’t feel like a very productive path for the pair set on reaching the NBA.

Troy and the twins began looking for another location to complete high school and prepare for the college basketball experience. It is, after all, the primary path to the pros.

“We are a very college-educated and focused family, on both sides. So that was the natural progression,” Maya says. “So to miss out on that was a big gamble.”

It wasn’t until the twins began their AAU season, after winning the state championship, that the Thompsons realized they’d be asked to take the gamble.

The Thompson twins are regularly praised for their defensive instincts. But they can dunk and pull off highlight reel-level stuff too — something NBA scouts like too. Adam Hagy/Overtime Elite

Fuller had seen just one portion of one half of one game of Amen and Ausar’s. If the background research provided no red flags, the director of recruitment at OTE figured they were an ideal pair for the program.

“They’re at a high academic school, and not one of these academies that just pops up,” Fuller says. “They have a different type of makeup. They have been in a consistent environment for consecutive years. So they probably have strong work ethic on and off the court. That’s what I started to gather.”

As the family considered moving to Hillcrest Prep in Phoenix for the twins’ final year of high school, Fuller finally tracked down Troy, after weeks of attempts, and persuaded the family to hear his risky pitch over lunch.

His selling point: around-the-clock access to a gym, trainers, videos, high-tech training systems, professional players and coaches, along with a personalized academic regimen and media training. OTE players are also paid a minimum of $100,000 — which can now also be withheld, as a “scholarship” option, to help maintain college eligibility.

Skipping college has been an option for decades for NBA hopefuls. There’s the G League Ignite, which produced the 2021 No. 2 overall pick Jalen Green, and also playing overseas, the way LaMelo Ball did before being drafted third overall in 2020.

Even one-and-done college players often treat their single undergraduate year as a period of professional training. OTE — which is a part of Overtime, a social media content company that reportedly generates 2 billion video views a month to its more than 75 million-plus followers — launched on the similar idea of cutting out unnecessary restrictions and enhancing career training.

Amen and Ausar, however, weren’t being asked to sign with a proven organization that would definitively give them their best shot at NBA stardom right away.

They were being asked to join a program that could maybe do that.

2 Related

It was unproven. Heck, the state-of-the-art gym wasn’t even complete. The gamble came with no visible safety net.

And the Thompsons would be the biggest names signing on.

Just as with the Pine Crest decision, Ausar was on board. He’d never really considered college basketball as anything more than a necessary step, despite the appeal of the NCAA tournament.

Amen, again, didn’t share his brother’s opinion.

“I didn’t want to go [with OTE],” he says. “I didn’t want to be, like, the first to do it. My mom and dad wanted me to go, and Ausar was kind of considering it. He was 50-50. I was … stern on my ‘no.'”

It was the appeal of the nonstop training and future high-tech facility that finally swayed him. “Our goal was always to be, like, the best NBA players ever. So, college or not, it really didn’t affect that,” he says.

A huge get for OTE, but only truly terrific if the Thompsons actually fulfilled the destiny they so clearly drew out for themselves on their vision board.

When the gym doors eventually opened, Amen knew he’d made the right decision.

“I just saw the improvement my game had made in short spans — in like a month up there,” Amen says. “I felt like I was one of the best players coming in. But a month in, I started really going into a different category.”

Fast-forward a few months, and the OTE experience was in full force. But there were still questions about the level of competition the program’s players faced. With rosters that only went so deep, and a schedule that didn’t include college teams, critics suggested the twins would not be properly tested. Despite the raw talent in the facility, and playing against elite talent in what would have been their senior year of high school, Ausar and Amen were essentially facing the same set of 18- and 19-year-olds, not a variety of more experienced NCAA players and systems.

In “Year Zero,” as OTE called its first year, the twins were put on separate teams, and only faced each other in a three-game championship series. Ausar’s Team Elite won. Kyle Hess/Overtime Elite

This is where the freedom of OTE comes in handy.

In March 2022, The Basketball Tournament — the annual, nationally televised open tournament for former players with a $1 million prize for the winner — announced it would allow draft-eligible players to participate for the first time since its inception in 2014.

OTE registered a team of its players and professionals, including the Thompsons. All of a sudden, the twins who had skipped college were on a college campus, about to play in a packed arena in a win-or-go-home scenario.

In addition to them being easily the most intriguing players ever to play in this tournament, their game against the Omaha Blue Crew, on the Creighton campus, in a filled-to-capacity 2,500-seat gym, would also be televised.

The game started off almost as expected: a bit sloppy on both ends. An alley-oop from Amen to Ausar was broken up on OTE’s first possession, while Blue Crew started with an and-1 layup to get the crowd in an early frenzy.

The opponents were clearly amped to take on a pair of hyped-up NBA prospects, particularly Ronnie Harrell — a 26-year-old former Creighton Blue Jay who now plays in the Bundesliga, and primarily pressured either twin.

He wasn’t shy about it.

“‘You’re f—ing weak,'” Amen says, recalling the intimidation attempts. “‘Y’all little boys,’ stuff like that.

“I think they were really just trying to check us to see how we would react. They were only saying this in the first quarter, though.”

Because the twins eventually settled in. It wasn’t as if they’d explode with a ton of scoring. TBT is not the NBA, and neither are its officials. The play, with $1 million at stake, can get quite physical — and didn’t play into the hands of the twins, who each check in at about 200 pounds.

But if you were watching the Thompsons just for their scoring, you’d be missing most of what makes them special.

After Amen blessed the gym with a monster half-court drive-and-dunk, the pair were more in their element.

On the following possession, Ausar missed a pair of free throws but immediately forced a turnover. He had a putback slam in traffic a few moments later. A two-handed block off the backboard soon after. None of it with flair or celebration.

While the OTE offense was effectively a series of isolations at the top of the circle, not great for the twins given how the Blue Crew packed the paint defensively, the Thompsons were absolutely terrorizing defensively and making strong impressions.

Former NBA Rookie of the Year, two-time champion and now sports agent Mike Miller had just watched the twins somewhat struggle offensively for one half of a basketball game. He still had nothing but glowing reviews.

“The word is elite,” says Miller, who got to know the twins during a workout in Memphis with Penny Hardaway a month earlier. “They’re elite kids, they’re elite workers, elite competitors, obviously elite athletes. They can have everything they want. They’re hard workers, they’re grinders, and you know me, I love the grinders.

“They’re playing against guys who’ve played basketball their entire lives, and they’ve got them scared to put the ball on the floor.”

Major praise from a friend and former teammate of The King himself.

Yet much of the excitement about the twins from NBA scouts is tempered by their inconsistent jump shots. During their first season at OTE, Amen shot 22% from 3-point range and 55.8% from the foul line, while Ausar, the more fluid shooter, went 23.6% and 65.2%, respectively.

“They’re very, very talented, and they’ve got a lot of upside. But they’ve got a lot of work to do as well,” says one Western Conference scout who has seen the twins multiple times. “They both need skill development in terms of handling the ball, and both of them really need to spend a lot of time on shooting the basketball in terms of catching and shooting, rhythm-dribble pullups. They got to try to add that to their game. The sooner, the better.”

But after totaling 6 assists, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks and 3 steals and generating highlights that impressed even the Omaha fans, the twins’ jump shots were hardly at the forefront.

Amen and Ausar lamented a handful of missed free throws early in what would be a close game (OTE lost 74-70). But mostly they were disappointed they wouldn’t have another shot against what they considered the most physical competition they’d ever played.

“They could just, like, hold you,” Amen says.

Over the next 10 days, the twins will face a different test of physicality: They’ll be a part of an OTE team of draft-eligible players playing a series of exhibition games against professional teams in Serbia and Spain.

“You could tell a European basketball player versus an American basketball player, so I kind of just want to see how they’re taught,” Ausar says. “It’s not the same. Point guards aren’t the same as American point guards. I’m trying to see how those guards dribble like that and can never get ripped.”

“I heard the crowd is ridiculous, and I love playing in front of a crazy crowd,” Amen says. “If I see a flare, first off, do you know how cold the Instagram pic would be with the flare in the background? But I heard it’s hard to breathe when the flares come out.”

Amen and Ausar grew up running drills created by dad Troy for their older brother, Troy Jr. They were so committed they’d complete the drills before playing one-on-one with each other. Courtesy the Thompson family Courtesy Thompson family

They’ll be far from home, but Amen and Ausar will still carry an element that grounds them: a home button. They both still sport iPhone 7s despite plenty of opportunities to upgrade.

“I’m sticking with my guy!” Ausar likes to joke.

The twins didn’t go down this particular career path just to bury their heads in their smartphones. They’d rather watch videos that will help them improve their game.

Kevin Ollie, a 13-year NBA veteran and former college coach at UConn, is now the head coach and director of player development at OTE. He has experienced the twins’ work ethic firsthand.

Their respective jump shots have been the focus of countless hours of work, he says, whether it’s working on form or using the Noah Shooting System in the OTE gym, which gives real time feedback for a shot’s arc, depth and left-and-right movement.

“Their shots have gone from night to day from the first time we saw them to now,” Ollie says.

Still, it’s the skills they showed up with on day one that still awe Ollie — “I’ve never seen anybody at this age able to do this,” he says — and is already drawing more eyes to OTE.

In July, Overtime Elite announced its latest round of signings, including top guards Tremayne Parker and Kanaan Carlyle from the Class of 2023. A couple of months earlier, the No. 1-ranked player from the 2024 class, Naasir Cunningham, signed.

Amen and Ausar did their part in recruitment by simply existing in the OTE arena and catching the attention of one of Cunningham’s trusted advisers.

“He came to our first two practices and he was like, ‘I need Naas playing against them every single day next year.’ And that’s what started the ball rolling,” Fuller, who also recruited Cunningham, says. “He said if Naas can play against them every single day in practice, he’s going to be one of the best players in the NBA.”

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Being a selling point for a year-old alternative like OTE only adds to the early legacy of the Thompsons.

Yet it’s nowhere near the most intriguing part about these identical twins.

“He’s my best friend,” Ausar says of Amen, who is older by a minute. “Sometimes I feel happier for him than I feel for myself. When I’m watching the game, I’m always cheering for him… His shot has gotten so much better. Growing up, I remember there was a point my older brother tried to make him left-handed. He used to get super frustrated.”

These days, Amen is only a little frustrated that he tends to flick his shooting hand to the right after his release (“I have no idea why I do that”). But he’s seen so much improvement in his jumper, so he’s only thinking positively about it.

He’s become the more vocal of the two when it comes to media — something he attributes to Ausar.

“It makes it so much easier to move into something knowing somebody, especially someone you’ve known your whole life,” he says. “[Ausar] also is one of my biggest motivators. If I’m tired, I got to get up. There’s no question he’s going to make me get up to work out. And I’m going to be the same way toward him.”

Ausar recently participated in an open run with Anthony Edwards, OG Anunoby and Collin Sexton without Amen, who tested positive for COVID-19 days earlier. Still, Ausar did everything possible to keep Amen sharp during the brief stretch he was unable to be on the court.

“Anything I learn, I try to teach him. We take videos of each other just to show each other,” Amen says.

Inevitably, the twins are compared to each other. They don’t particularly mind. They agree Ausar has the better jumper currently, while Amen bested Ausar by 1 inch in the vertical leap. Ausar insists his brother merely has “perfected the art of jumping,” and isn’t necessarily a better athlete.

“I didn’t dunk until I was in 10th grade because I was afraid to hang on the rim,” he says.

They have slightly different handles but prefer the other’s.

“His is more twitchy,” Ausar says. “More powerful, like he pounds it a lot harder. Mine is more like finesse, trying to size you up type and stuff.”

By the time they actually enter the draft, some of those minor details could change. They aren’t finished products, after all.

Perhaps there’ll be more of a distinction between the two and the way their careers project in the NBA. It’s happened to just about every pair of twins who’ve played in the NBA, from Dick and Tom Van Arsdale in the 1970s to Brook and Robin Lopez currently.

What won’t change about Amen and Ausar is their immense desire to make it in the NBA. Given their uncommon path and the extra weight they’re carrying for Overtime Elite, the sense of satisfaction might be just as great.

“They stay in their lane and they’re just locked in,” Ollie says. “I don’t think they’re going to let anything get in their pathway.”

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