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Bundled up on the Pratt Street Beach under the Sunday moonlight a week before the show, Freddy Maurico, my best friend from college, and I grabbed our sandy red Solo cups filled with Barefoot wine. As we were bitten by sand flies, songs that spanned Kehlani’s discography played from his speaker. The dark bass of “RPG” off her album While We Wait quickly enveloped us both, and Freddy told me about the first time he saw her in concert.

“Oh my god, like, I was so captivated,” he said. It was 2016 and we were freshmen. Our college hosted an undergraduate show and Kehlani was the opening act. They only had two backup dancers and a chair, and he was amazed by her singing, dancing, and rapping. “Like it was all introduced to me like in this one performance. That was like my first interaction with someone that could do all of that.” We both were loyal fans within a year. But Freddy’s obsession peaked much before mine, and it was through him that I fell for the artist myself.

https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FreddyDescribesKehlaniFirstImpression.wavHear Freddy Maurico describe his first time hearing Kehlani.

In high school, mid-20s pop artists like Marina and the Diamonds, Demi Lovato, Ellie Gouding, and Ariana Grande were on the marquee for Freddy. He would also soon discover the slow and sexy sound singers like Kali Uchis and Frank Ocean made. “I think that’s how Kehlani started to fit in,” the 24-year-old said.

Kehlani’s music “[has] that R&B pop sound” that’s euphoric, he said. Freddy likes the rap-singing Kehlani incorporates, which he saw first expressed by Beyoncé in Destiny’s Child. “So it’s like, uhhhh I’m lost in the music. But it’s also hard and sexy at the same time.” 

Freddy explained that while he adores Ariana Grande, her music comes off as a bit manufactured because she has several co-writers and less creative control. Kehlani co-wrote most of the songs on Blue Water Road. Another Kehlani fan told me they felt Ariana Grande is a “pop princess” who “writes for radio,” and that can be limiting.

“But with Kehlani I was like, oh, like she’s all of it,” Freddy said. “That’s all her life, all her coming from her body, her soul, her passion.” 

Kehlani was the first and only openly queer R&B artist he listened too. Their music pushed him to self-discovery. “Kehlani’s music kinda opened my eyes,” he said. “‘Like, I am so sexy but also so vulnerable.” Freddy laughed. “It’s OK to be both.’”

One of Freddy’s favorite tracks is “Everything Is Yours” off of 2017’s SweetSexySavage:

Up at a time when I shouldn’t be / Thinking ‘bout things that I shouldn’t be / Sad about shit I’ve been sad about for the past year / I’ve been low, I’ve been down and out it . . .  I would give it all to make it all work (Oh, oh) / I wish I could say that you knew my worth. 

​​“That’s an example, I think, of depending so much on a person and loving a person so fully,” Freddy said. “And like, hyperfixating on what they think of me and just giving my all and expecting it all from like this one person,” with an urgency, outward preoccupation, and abandonment of self that doesn’t make it into the most recent project. 

On the beach that night, we could hear the waves of Lake Michigan crashing, but we could hardly see them. I turned on “Get Me Started (feat. Syd),” Freddy’s favorite song off of Blue Water Road.

A smooth upward moving bass grooved repetitively under the singer’s soft vocals and a hard beat: “I guess, choose peace over stress (oh) / Can’t clean up your mess / You wanna leave? Be my guest / Pushin’ my buttons, you gon’ get me started / Call me aggressive, I’m just being honest.”

“You know in the lyrical content, they’re not even engaging with this person’s attitude and pettiness,” Freddy said. “That’s why it’s so much more grounded and mature. All the songs are in this mindset throughout the album. I was like, wow, that is growth. And this throwback R&B just makes me dance.”

https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FreddyDescribesGetMeStartedTrack.wavHear Freddy describe Kehlani’s song “Get Me Started” from the album Blue Water Road.

On the Wednesday evening two days before the show, I sat with Toni Akunebu at Foster Beach, as dozens slowly reentered the water after the lifeguard on duty went home for the day. The 25-year-old said they preferred music which they could cook to, smoke to, or fuck to. Kehlani provides all three. 

As we dug our feet into the sand and caught the last hour of daylight as the sun escaped below Lake Michigan, Toni talked to me about Blue Water Road and how Kehlani puts “love and tenderness” into what they do, from music videos to clothing and choreography. “It always feels like something new, and it always feels like something that just hasn’t been done before,” Toni said. Kehlani’s self-direction shines through what Toni describes as an eclectic discography. 

“I feel like there’s a little bit for everyone, like, there’s a lot of R&B, there’s a lot of soul. There’s a lot of mixing . . . freeform poetry; it feels like little love notes just being given to you.” Toni also identifies deep spirituality through the artist’s work, and said embodiment is the best description they can give for the catalog, and that themes like self-awareness and “yearning for connection” appear on albums.

“There’s a lot of the songs where I’m shaking my ass,” Toni said. “There’s other ones where I’m just like, ‘OK, I just have to sit, be here in this moment and just really be present.’ And so I feel like a lot of their music is really about honoring those moments with yourself, those parts of yourselves at different times.” 

Toni appreciates how they’re able to witness how life experiences change an artist, and those changes are reflected in the artist’s music. Toni said they learned about the singer’s queerness even earlier in 2018, after Hayley Kiyoko and Kehlani collbaorated as best friends turned lovers in a music video, kissing in what Toni described as “the kiss heard around the world.” Last year, Kehlani went on Instagram Live and responded to a fan’s request for life updates with, “You wanna know what’s new about me? I finally know I’m a lesbian!” 

Earlier this year the singer released a music video filmed in a cottage in São Paulo, Brazil,  featuring tender, romantic moments with her real-life lover, rapper 070 Shake. 

Kehlani had primarily dated cis men in the public eye, so they received a lot of media scrutiny for renouncing men in 2021, even though they were releasing songs like “Honey” years earlier (“I like my girls just like I like my honey, sweet / A little selfish / I like my women like I like my money, green / A little jealous”). Blue Water Road distinguishes itself by exploring the mature, queer relationship that Kehlani yearns for in earlier projects.

“There really just isn’t a lot of queer folks, especially like, gender-fluid, gender-nonconforming folks, just like in mainstream media at the same caliber,” Toni said.

I had a video call with Imani Wilson six hours before the show. She’ll tell me later that “it was one of the best nights I’ve had in a while. I wish I could go see it again.”

The 24-year-old has “24/7” tattooed above her knee, an ode to Kehlani’s 2016 single in which the rapper describes their struggle with depression. “It’s OK to not be OK / To dive in your pain / And it’s alright to not be alright / To search for your light.”

Wilson said that what makes Kehlani unique, especially as a queer artist, is their insistence on being authentic and honest in their music—which mostly concerns romance and love—even when those relationships might end in the public eye.

In 2020, for example, five days after releasing a joint Valentine’s Day single with their former lover YG, the rapper released a song on streaming called “Valentine’s Day (Shameful)” that croons of sudden heartbreak: “Torn between crying for help / And not letting them see me sweat / I took a risk loving loudly / Defended you proudly.”

A few months later on It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, Kehlani dropped “Belong to the Streets Skit,” where young voice actors are discussing the singer’s romantic life callously, saying, “Always got a different nigga though, bruh, like, we get it (yeah).” Kehlani seemingly explains herself and her tenacity to love out loud in the starting bars of “Everybody Business”: “I ain’t never been a half-ass lover / Rather lay out on the train tracks for ya / Hit the pavement for ya / Make a statement.”

Wilson said she admires how Kehlani can address past ways of being and say, “Yeah, this was who I was at one point,” but also acknowledge that people change. And as an artist, they leave a record of who they’ve been. Kehlani walks through those past iterations of themself with a lot of peace. “People are fluid,” Wilson said. “That’s one of her favorite words to use, ‘fluid.’ And seeing her navigate herself and figuring out who she is, helps [me].”

A few songs into Kehlani’s set, the concoction of blinking red and yellow stage lights and theater smoke created an atmosphere reminiscent of a sex dungeon or planet Mars. “Fuck that, sing it to me!” the rapper demanded, beckoning the audience to join in the transition from verse to chorus in their song “Can I.” The audience complied, and sang half the chorus (“Can I / Stop by / To see you / Tonight?”) while Kehlani and her four dancers—none of them men—reenacted partner intimacy for our enjoyment.

The star dropped to their knees behind one of their dancers, who was already on all fours in front, and grinded on the dancer from the back, while balancing their own weight on their knees. By the second time through that chorus, Kehlani was the one on the ground, ass up while one of the masculine-presenting dancers grabbed the artist from the back and playfully grinded on them.

As the band crescendoed into the second verse, Kehlani continued singing the second verse balanced on the ground. The choreography of queer play and chase continued throughout the night, with dancers pulsing toward and away from the singer in flowing, sensual motion. “Don’t worry about if the strap is thicker thank you!” the rapper yelled, replacing the original line for the gay rendition. The audience screamed. 

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After the comedy revolution during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many performers began speaking out about toxic culture in the sketch and improv world, iO was one of the many theaters that had to close its doors, seemingly for good. Upright Citizens Brigade, which began its life in Chicago, closed its longtime New York venue; they also faced charges that they had fostered institutional racism. While many theaters remained open, mainstays like Second City had to completely rethink their mission towards diversity and inclusion. 

After the iO space was purchased by real estate executives Scott Gendell and Larry Weiner in 2021, it, too, needed such a makeover. Annoyance Theatre’s Jennifer Estlin and Mick Napier stepped in to help guide iO into the comedy future. 

For Estlin and Napier, the most important step was hiring a core management staff. These newest staff members are an integral part of the conversation in filling in the blanks on what is happening with the new iO.

Under Charna Halpern’s management, iO faced allegations of institutional racism, leading to a petition from BIPOC performers that circulated prior to Halpern’s decision in summer of 2020 to close the theater. There had also been earlier allegations that Halpern had not done enough to address a culture of sexual harassment both in Chicago and at the now-shuttered iO West. Halpern and iO weren’t alone in facing such allegations; Second City՚s former owner, CEO, and executive producer Andrew Alexander stepped down in 2020 after Black performers went public with what they experienced there, and SketchFest founder Brian Posen stepped down in 2018 from the festival and as executive director for Stage 773 in the wake of widespread allegations of sexual harassment. (That venue is in the process of reinventing itself as Whim, an “experiential theater” with cocktails.)

The familiar pattern is that theaters caught in these controversies often hire “diversity consultants,” but, for those who have followed the scene for a while, it often feels like a never-ending trail of “woke-washing” in hopes of convincing us that these institutions are actually trying to do better. 

All that being said, much rests on the backs of new iO artistic directors Katie Caussin and Adonis Holmes. Caussin has been around the improv scene for many years as a performer at iO, Second City, and the Annoyance and knows the nuances and history of the community, their performers, and producers. Holmes is newer on the scene but has been highly involved in both the Annoyance and iO. He is currently a Bob Curry fellow at Second City (a program designed to foster diverse talent, named for the first Black member of Second City’s resident company). 

Not every team member is new to iO. Managing director Steven Plock worked at the theater before they closed their doors in 2020. Plock’s institutional knowledge means he is very familiar with how the business was run previously, for better or for worse. During the pandemic, Plock went out west and worked at a “cowboy bar,” so he’s surely ready to wrangle whatever needs wrangling. His food and beverage experience is a plus, since that’s a major area of revenue for the for-profit theater.

Classes are also a major revenue driver, and Rachael Mason, known as one of Chicago’s top improvisers and instructors, will be leading classes as director of education. Mason will be managing the entire class program. Online classes, taught by longtime veterans such as Susan Messing, have been running for around three months already. 

When Estlin met Kim Whitfield, she was doing a show at the Annoyance. Subsequently Estlin hired her to direct a show Annoyance was coproducing with Dispensary 33. Whitfield joins iO as managing producer, along with technical director Kyle Anderson and Jesse Swanson, executive director, special programs/content. Swanson was formerly a production manager at Second City and producing artistic director at Off-Color Comedy in Philadelphia.

“What a great thing if we can actually pull off an iO that has all the good stuff and gets rid of the bad stuff.”

It appears that diversity among staff is a priority and will continue to be for the new iO. Racist trends die hard, and have been known to kill theaters in the past in addition to alienating incredibly talented performers of color. What is also clear is that the new staff assembled with the input of Estlin and Napier all have deep roots in the improv and comedy scene. 

By contrast, the new owners Weiner and Gendell do not, though they excel at the “business” side of running a business. The ownership team now also includes Steve Sacks, who recently sold his family’s truck-parts business and has put his focus and interests into iO. Sacks does have a history with comedy performance himself, having performed stand-up in Chicago and New York. Of the three owners, Sacks will be serving as iO’s CEO. He has become the most involved on a day-to-day basis, maintaining an office in the iO building on Kingsbury. When Sacks got involved, he read the petition that so many people had signed, and this was the driving force to his involvement in the investment process. Sacks says, “What a great thing if we can actually pull off an iO that has all the good stuff and gets rid of the bad stuff.”

In regards to how exactly Sacks and the team will combat years-old discrimination issues, Sacks had this to say: “It’s not enough to set up a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) team and say, ‘Yeah, we checked that box.’ We really do want them to help us with concrete steps necessary to make performers and audience members feel safe. BIPOC performers didn’t feel comfortable, and we want to make sure they do feel at home and that this is a place they can thrive.”

In contrast to the way iO used to be run, Sacks states, “We’re not doing what was done before, which is one person deciding who does or doesn’t go on stage. One person deciding who is and isn’t paid. These decisions are going to be made collaboratively, and ownership is going to stay out of those decisions because we don’t want it to be a colonized management system. I think the DEIA is going to hold our future to the fire. Mistakes will be made, but we’re going to have to figure things out as we go along. We are doing it in the spirit of collaboration and healing, the spirit of equity. That’s our objective.”

When it comes to working with owners who largely aren’t from comedy backgrounds, Estlin has found collaborating with them to be quite refreshing, as they are the first to admit they don’t know anything about theater.

“These are great people, and they have been super nice to work with, very supportive,” says Estlin. “It’s always amazing when someone says they don’t know anything about a topic. They are like sponges, soaking up every bit of knowledge,” adding, “They’ve put a lot of trust in Mick and I. It’s nice when someone asks you for help and actually trusts the help you are offering.”

Building renovations are still underway and started about a month and a half ago under the direction of longtime Chicago scenic designer Bob Knuth, who has been generally working to make the bar area warmer and more conducive to hanging out with lots of people. Audience members should expect to see a refreshed and enlivened space.

Renovations at iO are expected to be finished by the second week of September, at which point they’ll begin hiring support staff for hosting, bartending, and box office. Sacks says, “Ownership believes that we can add value on the renovation of the building in creating a cozy and relaxing vibe and in allowing and facilitating our team to create hilarious shows. These creative decisions will be made in the most collaborative, equitable way possible.” Though construction and permit delays are always part of the equation, iO aims to have a soft open by early fall, with hopes of having an opening celebration closer to winter.

As far as growing postpandemic, Estlin says, “We’re constantly having to remind ourselves that the old is the way things were, and this is what we do moving forward. We want to make sure it’s an equitable space that provides opportunities for as many types of people as possible. That is super important to all of us.”

Sacks and the team are committed to producing high-quality comedy. “The shows have to be funny. The quality has to be very high, and we believe there are enough talented diverse BIPOC and para-ability comics alike. We want it to be funny; we want it to be edgy. We want it to be challenging! We want to be proud of what we’ve done, and we all want to do something good for the community. If it can be a place of momentary joy and belonging, then we’ve done something. It’s an amazing, fun challenge for us. I get to hang out with these talented people, it’s like a blessing. Our goal is to earn the trust of improvisers, work staff, and audience members who may not have felt safe or comfortable at iO. We’ll strive to create a supportive, inclusive atmosphere, and we want people to hold us accountable to that. There was a lot of trauma, and we have to gain the trust of talented improvisers that would like to perform here.”

It’s yet to be determined what iO’s place will be in this new comedy landscape, but, given its long roots in Chicago, it’s a safe bet that expectations will be high. The theater has already started programming shows that will be ready to go up toward the beginning of fall. With the help of Estlin and Napier, and the business savvy of these new owners, iO looks to be on the road to make amends for decades of damage. With so much riding on the necessary changes to its previous exclusive culture, audiences and performers alike are eager to see the future of iO.

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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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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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As most people know by now, the 2022 season has not been great for the Chicago Cubs. They are well under .500 and have been out of the playoff race since May. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t play well to prepare for the 2023 season where things might be looking up.

In addition to that, it is fun to play spoiler for teams across the league. The Cubs did that this week for the New York Mets.

Going into the series, the Mets were doing their best to hang onto the lead in the National League East. It has been a battle lately with the Atlanta Braves who are also one of the best teams in the entire league. The Cubs did the Braves a huge favor by sweeping the New York Mets.

Unfortunately for Atlanta, they lost to the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday so the Cubs only helped them get within 0.5 games of the division lead. Even still, the Cubs shocked the NL East by sweeping those Mets.

The Chicago Cubs did a great job against the New York Mets this week.

Looking at both Atlanta and New York’s schedules, it was obvious that the Chicago Cubs were viewed as a winnable series for the Mets. With Jacob deGrom slated to make the middle game’s start, it felt even better for the Mets but the Cubs found a way to beat him too.

The Mets have to be wondering how they let the Cubs come into their stadium and sweep them out. It hasn’t been as pretty lately for the Mets as it was in the first half of the season but this might be a new low for this first-place squad.

This is amazing news for the Chicago Cubs because it shows that the team is ready to play well against good teams right now. Things have been horrid this season but they are seeing a lot from some key players right now.

2023 could be positively impacted by the team finishing out this year strong. We have learned a lot about some of the players on this team like Seiya Suzuki, Nico Hoerner, and a lot of the pitchers.

You don’t just sweep an elite team like the Mets by accident. You have to play very well in order to do so and the Cubs did that. It is on them to keep building now.

That is it for the Cubs this year against either the Mets or Braves. They can still make their presence known in the NL East, however, as they have three games against the Philadelphia Phillies later this month. The Phillies will still probably be a third-place Wild Card team no matter what but you never know.

The Cubs play the Miami Marlins next week as well but they aren’t going to the playoffs like New York, Atlanta, or Philly. The most important takeaway for the Cubs, however, is not their impact on this other NL division. It is their ability to play well against these great teams right now.

The Cubs are off on Thursday but they will start a weekend series at Wrigley Field against the Colorado Rockies who are just coming from down the road as they had a two-game series with the Chicago White Sox.

These next few weeks are days when the Cubs want to finish strong. This Mets series was a great start. Finishing strong might attract a free agent or two which could make for a much more interesting 2023 season.

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Flutist Nicole Mitchell and composer Fabio Paolizzo first performed together live in 2018, in a concert at the University of California, Irvine. More accurately, Mitchell played a duo set with VIVO (Video Interaction VST Orchestra), a machine-learning program engineered by Paolizzo, which recorded her flute and voice improvisations and generated real-time accompaniment through loops and synths. A year later, Mitchell and Paolizzo reprised their collaboration at the same venue, then recorded it on the studio album Medusae, which they’re releasing this month on Don Giovanni. 

Deputizing autonomous tech as a musical partner is nothing new. Trombonist and computer-music pioneer George Lewis—like Mitchell, a product of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians—famously employed it on his 1987 work Voyager, as well as in its recently mastered and released predecessor, Rainbow Family. But VIVO has a secret weapon: a camera, which adds the extra layer of optically processing Mitchell’s movements as well as her aural cues. (In case you’re flummoxed, Paolizzo has published scholarly articles which provide a more extensive explanation of VIVO’s functionality.) 

VIVO’s AI is more subtle than the chattier digital interlocutor of Voyager. It mostly buttresses and manipulates Mitchell’s lines, rather than responding with its own knotty improvisations. But the way it does so can be downright frightful: the gusty “Gametes” sounds like being inside a glass bottle as it’s blown, and parts of “Perils to Beauty” get pretty close to the music I imagine the devil’s organist might play in hell. VIVO’s technological sophistication is a marvel, but you don’t have to care about that to find Medusae a deeply satisfying spin. It’s an aural hall of mirrors, delightful in its disorientation.

Nicole Mitchell & Fabio Paolizzo’s Medusae is available through Rough Trade.

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Hard times will bring out anyone’s true colors, and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival certainly showed what it was made of when COVID-19 brought live music to a halt in 2020. Its organizers emulated the music that the festival supports, improvising ways to support local jazz. First, they arranged the Jazz Postcards series, small-scale outdoor concerts that popped up around the city. Then, while most festivals took the year off, they staged the 2020 festival in parks and on sidewalks around Hyde Park and adjacent neighborhoods. This year, the HPJF resumes business as usual, staging concerts inside churches, museums, and performance spaces as well as on two big outdoor stages that face each other on the Midway Plaisance. The programming combines a complement of musicians who have maintained lifelong commitments to the south side—including storyteller Maggie Brown, saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, and singer Dee Alexander—with adventurous artists from the rest of the city and far beyond. Pianist Jim Baker and the drums-and-reeds duo of Mike Reed and Hunter Diamond exemplify the city’s robust avant-garde community; the Chris Greene Quartet represents the mainstream. Darren Johnston, a New York-based Canadian trumpeter, will reunite with the splendid Chicago-based band he enlisted to record his briskly lyrical new album, Life in Time (Delmark). The Chicago-Amsterdam quartet These Things Happen will celebrate the release of their debut mini album, which balances deeply felt originals with swaggering interpretations of material by Herbie Nichols, Dewey Redman, and Thelonious Monk. Electric guitarist and former Chicagoan Jeff Parker will reveal the ways that old soul and new technologies enrich his playing. New York-based pianist David Virelles, whose recent CD Nuna (Pi) reconciles classical rigor and Cuban rhythms, will present a solo recital. And in a first-time encounter, pan-national string trio Hear in Now, which includes local cellist Tomeka Reid, will workshop and perform a set of new material with improvisational Ethiopian-based ensemble Qwanqwa.

Hyde Park Jazz Festival Today the festival takes place at 13 venues around the neighborhood, including two outdoor stages on the Midway Plaisance, the Logan Center for the Arts, Rockefeller Chapel, the Smart Museum, and Little Black Pearl. Sat 9/24, 11 AM-10:30 PM, complete schedule at hydeparkjazzfestival.org, $10 suggested donation, all ages

Hyde Park Jazz Festival The second and final day of the fest takes place at two outdoor stages on the Midway Plaisance. In order of performance, the Wagner Stage (at S. Woodlawn) features the Orbert Davis Sextet, the Chicago Soul Jazz Collective with Dee Alexander, and the Victor Garcia Sextet; the West Stage (at S. Ellis) features Johnny Blas and Clif Wallace + Five. Sun 9/25, 2-7 PM (Wagner Stage) and 3-6 PM (West Stage), complete schedule at hydeparkjazzfestival.org, $10 suggested donation, all ages

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Flutist Nicole Mitchell and composer Fabio Paolizzo first performed together live in 2018, in a concert at the University of California, Irvine. More accurately, Mitchell played a duo set with VIVO (Video Interaction VST Orchestra), a machine-learning program engineered by Paolizzo, which recorded her flute and voice improvisations and generated real-time accompaniment through loops and synths. A year later, Mitchell and Paolizzo reprised their collaboration at the same venue, then recorded it on the studio album Medusae, which they’re releasing this month on Don Giovanni. 

Deputizing autonomous tech as a musical partner is nothing new. Trombonist and computer-music pioneer George Lewis—like Mitchell, a product of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians—famously employed it on his 1987 work Voyager, as well as in its recently mastered and released predecessor, Rainbow Family. But VIVO has a secret weapon: a camera, which adds the extra layer of optically processing Mitchell’s movements as well as her aural cues. (In case you’re flummoxed, Paolizzo has published scholarly articles which provide a more extensive explanation of VIVO’s functionality.) 

VIVO’s AI is more subtle than the chattier digital interlocutor of Voyager. It mostly buttresses and manipulates Mitchell’s lines, rather than responding with its own knotty improvisations. But the way it does so can be downright frightful: the gusty “Gametes” sounds like being inside a glass bottle as it’s blown, and parts of “Perils to Beauty” get pretty close to the music I imagine the devil’s organist might play in hell. VIVO’s technological sophistication is a marvel, but you don’t have to care about that to find Medusae a deeply satisfying spin. It’s an aural hall of mirrors, delightful in its disorientation.

Nicole Mitchell & Fabio Paolizzo’s Medusae is available through Rough Trade.

Read More

Hard times will bring out anyone’s true colors, and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival certainly showed what it was made of when COVID-19 brought live music to a halt in 2020. Its organizers emulated the music that the festival supports, improvising ways to support local jazz. First, they arranged the Jazz Postcards series, small-scale outdoor concerts that popped up around the city. Then, while most festivals took the year off, they staged the 2020 festival in parks and on sidewalks around Hyde Park and adjacent neighborhoods. This year, the HPJF resumes business as usual, staging concerts inside churches, museums, and performance spaces as well as on two big outdoor stages that face each other on the Midway Plaisance. The programming combines a complement of musicians who have maintained lifelong commitments to the south side—including storyteller Maggie Brown, saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, and singer Dee Alexander—with adventurous artists from the rest of the city and far beyond. Pianist Jim Baker and the drums-and-reeds duo of Mike Reed and Hunter Diamond exemplify the city’s robust avant-garde community; the Chris Greene Quartet represents the mainstream. Darren Johnston, a New York-based Canadian trumpeter, will reunite with the splendid Chicago-based band he enlisted to record his briskly lyrical new album, Life in Time (Delmark). The Chicago-Amsterdam quartet These Things Happen will celebrate the release of their debut mini album, which balances deeply felt originals with swaggering interpretations of material by Herbie Nichols, Dewey Redman, and Thelonious Monk. Electric guitarist and former Chicagoan Jeff Parker will reveal the ways that old soul and new technologies enrich his playing. New York-based pianist David Virelles, whose recent CD Nuna (Pi) reconciles classical rigor and Cuban rhythms, will present a solo recital. And in a first-time encounter, pan-national string trio Hear in Now, which includes local cellist Tomeka Reid, will workshop and perform a set of new material with improvisational Ethiopian-based ensemble Qwanqwa.

Hyde Park Jazz Festival Today the festival takes place at 13 venues around the neighborhood, including two outdoor stages on the Midway Plaisance, the Logan Center for the Arts, Rockefeller Chapel, the Smart Museum, and Little Black Pearl. Sat 9/24, 11 AM-10:30 PM, complete schedule at hydeparkjazzfestival.org, $10 suggested donation, all ages

Hyde Park Jazz Festival The second and final day of the fest takes place at two outdoor stages on the Midway Plaisance. In order of performance, the Wagner Stage (at S. Woodlawn) features the Orbert Davis Sextet, the Chicago Soul Jazz Collective with Dee Alexander, and the Victor Garcia Sextet; the West Stage (at S. Ellis) features Johnny Blas and Clif Wallace + Five. Sun 9/25, 2-7 PM (Wagner Stage) and 3-6 PM (West Stage), complete schedule at hydeparkjazzfestival.org, $10 suggested donation, all ages

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