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Philadelphia-born composer and vocalist Joan La Barbara was formally trained as a classical singer, but by the late 1960s, she’d decided she wanted to push her artistry into unfamiliar territories. She found her inspiration in New York, especially from scat singers, free improvisers, and the jazz avant-garde. In her early experiments, she taught herself to imitate the timbres of different instruments—and during this period she fortuitously landed a gig singing in a radio ad for a Japanese perfume, for which she emulated a koto with her voice. This work proved crucial in the early 1970s, when she worked with minimalist pioneer Steve Reich on his landmark composition Drumming, improvising rhythmic parts that he fed into the piece and using her vocal flutters to approximate percussion patterns. While La Barbara would continue to collaborate with important artists throughout the decade, including composer Philip Glass, she would also begin composing and performing her own works. Her 1976 debut LP, Voice Is the Original Instrument, consists of three striking pieces that showcase the breadth of her extended vocal techniques. “Circular Song” uses circular breathing and vacillating glissandi whose simplicity provides their drama. Even more affecting is “Voice Piece: One-Note Internal Resonance Investigation,” where she employs overtones to showcase the wide expressive spectrum of a single pitch. Because the recording isolates La Barbara’s singing, it forces listeners to recognize the depth and power that a single human voice can wield. La Barbara’s versatility comes through even more strikingly when she’s accompanied by other instruments—on “Thunder,” from 1977’s Tapesongs, she collides with timpani to evoke the titular rumbling. Her foundational early works established a vocabulary of vocal sounds and techniques novel to Western avant-garde music, and her career has remained exciting in the years since. “Twelvesong,” from 1983’s As Lightning Comes, in Flashes, blends throat clicks and layers of circular singing into what sounds like a jungle soundscape; the haunting wall of coos on “Shadowsong,” from 1991’s Sound Paintings, comes across as endearingly campy; and “Calligraphy II/Shadows,” from 1998’s Shamansong, combines La Barbara’s voice with traditional Chinese instruments in a stately and stirring tapestry. After decades of honing her craft, she’s rightfully considered one of the most important experimental vocalists of the past century. Her performance at Constellation should be a master class.

Joan La Barbara Wed 10/26, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15, 18+

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Philadelphia-born composer and vocalist Joan La Barbara was formally trained as a classical singer, but by the late 1960s, she’d decided she wanted to push her artistry into unfamiliar territories. She found her inspiration in New York, especially from scat singers, free improvisers, and the jazz avant-garde. In her early experiments, she taught herself to imitate the timbres of different instruments—and during this period she fortuitously landed a gig singing in a radio ad for a Japanese perfume, for which she emulated a koto with her voice. This work proved crucial in the early 1970s, when she worked with minimalist pioneer Steve Reich on his landmark composition Drumming, improvising rhythmic parts that he fed into the piece and using her vocal flutters to approximate percussion patterns. While La Barbara would continue to collaborate with important artists throughout the decade, including composer Philip Glass, she would also begin composing and performing her own works. Her 1976 debut LP, Voice Is the Original Instrument, consists of three striking pieces that showcase the breadth of her extended vocal techniques. “Circular Song” uses circular breathing and vacillating glissandi whose simplicity provides their drama. Even more affecting is “Voice Piece: One-Note Internal Resonance Investigation,” where she employs overtones to showcase the wide expressive spectrum of a single pitch. Because the recording isolates La Barbara’s singing, it forces listeners to recognize the depth and power that a single human voice can wield. La Barbara’s versatility comes through even more strikingly when she’s accompanied by other instruments—on “Thunder,” from 1977’s Tapesongs, she collides with timpani to evoke the titular rumbling. Her foundational early works established a vocabulary of vocal sounds and techniques novel to Western avant-garde music, and her career has remained exciting in the years since. “Twelvesong,” from 1983’s As Lightning Comes, in Flashes, blends throat clicks and layers of circular singing into what sounds like a jungle soundscape; the haunting wall of coos on “Shadowsong,” from 1991’s Sound Paintings, comes across as endearingly campy; and “Calligraphy II/Shadows,” from 1998’s Shamansong, combines La Barbara’s voice with traditional Chinese instruments in a stately and stirring tapestry. After decades of honing her craft, she’s rightfully considered one of the most important experimental vocalists of the past century. Her performance at Constellation should be a master class.

Joan La Barbara Wed 10/26, 8:30 PM, Constellation, 3111 N. Western, $15, 18+

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Monday Night Foodball at Kedzie Inn (4100 N. Kedzie) tonight highlights the skills of chef Jake Schneider as he provides a menu from Schneider Provisions, his pop-up “old-world delicatessen, with a modern purpose.” Schneider will be putting together hot sandwich favorites—turkey on rye, corned beef and mustard, and more—using bread from North Shore Kosher Bakery, and adding his own family flair with dishes like his grandmother Eunice’s brisket dunked in Italian beef jus. Check out Reader senior writer Mike Sula’s preview for more information about preordering; walk-in service will be available starting at 5 PM.

If you’re looking to start the week with some music, here’s three free or low-cost options for tonight. At 8 PM, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago presents Portraits in Harmony, a program featuring work by Jamaican-born British composer Eleanor Alberga alongside compositions by Strauss and Brahms. Principal conductor Ken-David Masur leads the orchestra at Symphony Center (220 S. Michigan); the event is free to attend (but a $5 fee applies for ticketing services). The free jazz ensemble Extraordinary Popular Delusions continues their free Monday night residency at Beat Kitchen (2100 W. Belmont), entry is reserved for those 21 and older. And “psychedelic-tinged rock” band 8-Bit Creeps visits the Empty Bottle tonight (1035 N. Western) for the venue’s Free Monday series; Bridgeport band Killer Drones joins them at 8:30 PM (21+, masks are highly recommended for attendees).

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Music Fest took over three Milwaukee Avenue venues: Cole’s Bar, Cafe Mustache, and Easy Does It. These signs welcomed fans from the doors of Cole’s and Cafe Mustache. Credit: Jinnie Smalls

By the time SolDial ascended onto the tiny corner stage at Cafe Mustache for their Saturday-night set, the audience was warmed up—the Chicago band had been preceded by seven hours of live music. Twinkling red drapes adorned the walls behind them, and the bar’s signature old cathode-ray tube TV sets were stacked behind the drum kit. The five players—a singer, saxophonist, guitarist, drummer, and bassist—fell into the chorus of one of their soulful songs, and the crowd, which filled the cozy venue from the stage to the bar, fell under the spell of the vocals and echoed the lyrics back. The saxophone crooned beneath the melody.

https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SolDialMusicFest.wavSolDial at Cafe Mustache on Saturday night (audience recording by Debbie-Marie Brown)

Saturday was the second day of the inaugural Music Fest, and Darien Sea, one of the two producers of the search-engine-proof event, stood outside the Logan Square venue with me and explained the geography of the three venues participating. “So we’re on Milwaukee Avenue, which is like a diagonal street,” he said. “Chicago’s got a bunch of diagonal streets that kind of like cut through the city.” He turned and gestured toward Fullerton behind him. “We’re in between the streets of Fullerton and California. On this strip, there’s three active venues right now.” 

He was referring to Cafe Mustache, Easy Does It, and Cole’s Bar, which are spread out on a short stretch of Milwaukee among several other bars that don’t book music. The other producer of Music Fest, Dani Eaton, books at Cole’s. She came up with the idea for Music Fest with a friend and roped Sea into it after she’d begun brainstorming.

For the past two years, Sea was the booker at Cafe Mustache, but he just switched to a similar gig at the California Clipper. He also plays music—he’s been in Unmanned Ship and Mines, among others—and his contributions to Music Fest were inspired in part by touring with one of his bands to Austin and New Orleans. He said that in those cities there’s music happening everywhere, all the time. “We could walk by any establishment and hear dope-ass music,” Sea explained. “And this is the only block, really, in Chicago where this could happen.”

When I mentioned to Sea that I’d noticed more Black people in Logan Square than normal, he admitted that, for the past ten years at least, the neighborhood hasn’t been extremely accommodating to Black people. It’s yet another gentrified patch of an extremely segregated city, but you wouldn’t have known it during Music Fest. By 10 PM, all three bars were packed with people from all over the city, on- and offstage.

Eaton introduced herself to me as a single parent and Logan Square resident. In addition to working in-house as a booker for Cole’s, she’s an external talent buyer for places such as Golden Dagger, the Hideout, and Beat Kitchen. Like Sea, she learned the ropes in the DIY ecosystem, putting together backyard shows and parties, touring with bands, and helping out artists as a kind of informal assistant. The first concert-slash-marketplace she remembers booking at an aboveground venue was seven years ago at Crown Liquors, a bar with a venue inside and a liquor store attached. 

“I never played Cole’s before,” they said, “so I’m pretty excited to finally be up here doing this.” They’d seen F.A.B.L.E. perform a bit earlier in the night and called him an “excellent rapper.”

https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/FABLEmusicfest.wavF.A.B.L.E. at Cafe Mustache on Saturday evening (audience recording by Debbie-Marie Brown)

Atlanta-born rapper 7000 (aka 7k), real name Brandon Johnson, was one of the last to take the stage at Cafe Mustache on the fest’s second day, about an hour past midnight. His two DJs wore Power Rangers helmets—one pink, one green—as they vibed behind him. Johnson bounced around onstage, exuding the intense energy of Tyler, the Creator or a young Kanye West, for the entirety of his set. It was his first gig in Chicago, and he was hyped afterward. As 7k described the first time he met Dani, earlier this year, he got emotional.

Supa Bwe’s “ACAB” features 7k, Redveil, and Chance the Rapper.

“I was in a coffee shop with my girl,” he said. “I am a nobody, y’all. I got a song with Chance the Rapper that dropped in February. No one knows, but they’ve heard it. And I worked so fucking hard. And Dani walked in that room and was like, ‘Holy shit. Are you 7000?’ . . . And I’m just like, ‘Somebody knows who I am.’ She told me [she wanted] to throw a fucking festival through bars. And this is the literal best performance, rap, any of that shit I’ve ever had in my life. It is a dream come true. . . . I got people yelling my name. . . . I’ve been rapping forever. Music Fest was a success. Mark that, put that shit down.”

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Monday Night Foodball at Kedzie Inn (4100 N. Kedzie) tonight highlights the skills of chef Jake Schneider as he provides a menu from Schneider Provisions, his pop-up “old-world delicatessen, with a modern purpose.” Schneider will be putting together hot sandwich favorites—turkey on rye, corned beef and mustard, and more—using bread from North Shore Kosher Bakery, and adding his own family flair with dishes like his grandmother Eunice’s brisket dunked in Italian beef jus. Check out Reader senior writer Mike Sula’s preview for more information about preordering; walk-in service will be available starting at 5 PM.

If you’re looking to start the week with some music, here’s three free or low-cost options for tonight. At 8 PM, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago presents Portraits in Harmony, a program featuring work by Jamaican-born British composer Eleanor Alberga alongside compositions by Strauss and Brahms. Principal conductor Ken-David Masur leads the orchestra at Symphony Center (220 S. Michigan); the event is free to attend (but a $5 fee applies for ticketing services). The free jazz ensemble Extraordinary Popular Delusions continues their free Monday night residency at Beat Kitchen (2100 W. Belmont), entry is reserved for those 21 and older. And “psychedelic-tinged rock” band 8-Bit Creeps visits the Empty Bottle tonight (1035 N. Western) for the venue’s Free Monday series; Bridgeport band Killer Drones joins them at 8:30 PM (21+, masks are highly recommended for attendees).

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Music Fest took over three Milwaukee Avenue venues: Cole’s Bar, Cafe Mustache, and Easy Does It. These signs welcomed fans from the doors of Cole’s and Cafe Mustache. Credit: Jinnie Smalls

By the time SolDial ascended onto the tiny corner stage at Cafe Mustache for their Saturday-night set, the audience was warmed up—the Chicago band had been preceded by seven hours of live music. Twinkling red drapes adorned the walls behind them, and the bar’s signature old cathode-ray tube TV sets were stacked behind the drum kit. The five players—a singer, saxophonist, guitarist, drummer, and bassist—fell into the chorus of one of their soulful songs, and the crowd, which filled the cozy venue from the stage to the bar, fell under the spell of the vocals and echoed the lyrics back. The saxophone crooned beneath the melody.

https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SolDialMusicFest.wavSolDial at Cafe Mustache on Saturday night (audience recording by Debbie-Marie Brown)

Saturday was the second day of the inaugural Music Fest, and Darien Sea, one of the two producers of the search-engine-proof event, stood outside the Logan Square venue with me and explained the geography of the three venues participating. “So we’re on Milwaukee Avenue, which is like a diagonal street,” he said. “Chicago’s got a bunch of diagonal streets that kind of like cut through the city.” He turned and gestured toward Fullerton behind him. “We’re in between the streets of Fullerton and California. On this strip, there’s three active venues right now.” 

He was referring to Cafe Mustache, Easy Does It, and Cole’s Bar, which are spread out on a short stretch of Milwaukee among several other bars that don’t book music. The other producer of Music Fest, Dani Eaton, books at Cole’s. She came up with the idea for Music Fest with a friend and roped Sea into it after she’d begun brainstorming.

For the past two years, Sea was the booker at Cafe Mustache, but he just switched to a similar gig at the California Clipper. He also plays music—he’s been in Unmanned Ship and Mines, among others—and his contributions to Music Fest were inspired in part by touring with one of his bands to Austin and New Orleans. He said that in those cities there’s music happening everywhere, all the time. “We could walk by any establishment and hear dope-ass music,” Sea explained. “And this is the only block, really, in Chicago where this could happen.”

When I mentioned to Sea that I’d noticed more Black people in Logan Square than normal, he admitted that, for the past ten years at least, the neighborhood hasn’t been extremely accommodating to Black people. It’s yet another gentrified patch of an extremely segregated city, but you wouldn’t have known it during Music Fest. By 10 PM, all three bars were packed with people from all over the city, on- and offstage.

Eaton introduced herself to me as a single parent and Logan Square resident. In addition to working in-house as a booker for Cole’s, she’s an external talent buyer for places such as Golden Dagger, the Hideout, and Beat Kitchen. Like Sea, she learned the ropes in the DIY ecosystem, putting together backyard shows and parties, touring with bands, and helping out artists as a kind of informal assistant. The first concert-slash-marketplace she remembers booking at an aboveground venue was seven years ago at Crown Liquors, a bar with a venue inside and a liquor store attached. 

“I never played Cole’s before,” they said, “so I’m pretty excited to finally be up here doing this.” They’d seen F.A.B.L.E. perform a bit earlier in the night and called him an “excellent rapper.”

https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/FABLEmusicfest.wavF.A.B.L.E. at Cafe Mustache on Saturday evening (audience recording by Debbie-Marie Brown)

Atlanta-born rapper 7000 (aka 7k), real name Brandon Johnson, was one of the last to take the stage at Cafe Mustache on the fest’s second day, about an hour past midnight. His two DJs wore Power Rangers helmets—one pink, one green—as they vibed behind him. Johnson bounced around onstage, exuding the intense energy of Tyler, the Creator or a young Kanye West, for the entirety of his set. It was his first gig in Chicago, and he was hyped afterward. As 7k described the first time he met Dani, earlier this year, he got emotional.

Supa Bwe’s “ACAB” features 7k, Redveil, and Chance the Rapper.

“I was in a coffee shop with my girl,” he said. “I am a nobody, y’all. I got a song with Chance the Rapper that dropped in February. No one knows, but they’ve heard it. And I worked so fucking hard. And Dani walked in that room and was like, ‘Holy shit. Are you 7000?’ . . . And I’m just like, ‘Somebody knows who I am.’ She told me [she wanted] to throw a fucking festival through bars. And this is the literal best performance, rap, any of that shit I’ve ever had in my life. It is a dream come true. . . . I got people yelling my name. . . . I’ve been rapping forever. Music Fest was a success. Mark that, put that shit down.”

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