The Hot Stove Cool Music virtual music festival benefits the Foundation To Be Named Later, which was co-founded by former Cubs president Theo Epstein.

Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder will be among the performers and baseball players at the Hot Stove Cool Music virtual music festival.

The festival benefits the Foundation To Be Named Later, which raises money for the FTBNL/Peter Gammons College Scholarships and their nonprofit partners. The foundation was founded in 2005 by former Cubs president Theo Epstein and his brother Paul. Hot Stove Cool Music begins Tuesday May 18 at 6 p.m. Chicago time.

Vedder, performing at the Hot Stove Cool Music for the fourth time, joins a lineup including Yo-Yo Ma, Julianna Hatfield, Bill Janovitz, Wyc Grousbeck and his band French Lick, Theo Epstein, Peter Gammons, Kay Hanley (Letters to Cleo), Will Dailey, Bronson Arroyo, and Bernie Williams.

Tickets are on sale now at ftbnl.org and start at a $10 donation.

“We look forward to a fun night of music, baseball and giving back,” Paul Epstein said. “Being able to continue the Hot Stove Cool Music tradition virtually, means so much to our beneficiaries as we come together to raise critically needed funds for youth and families from underserved neighborhoods in Boston and Chicago.”

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Trans Latina Frances D’allesio talks survival, mental health, and food.

From the closings of venues to the cancellations of performances, COVID-19 and its variants have wreaked havoc on the lives of entertainers over the past year—and Frances D’alessio (who has been entertaining audiences for three decades) is no exception. D’alessio talked with the Chicago Reader about the unique challenges she had to face following the extended closing of her performance venue, the Little Village LGBTQ+ bar La Cueva—and the surprising direction her life is now taking.…Read More

From Chicago to New Orleans, the performer, playwright, director, producer, and raconteur created deep connections.

When word spread last week that actor, director, and playwright Michael Martin had died unexpectedly on April 26 at age 63, several of the posts on his Facebook wall expressed the same sentiment.  “I’m so very sorry.…Read More

Public health officials say they’ll need to use “innovative strategies” to get more people to roll up their sleeves as vaccine demand falls statewide.

More than 60% of Illinois adults have gotten at least one coronavirus vaccine dose so far, public health officials announced Wednesday.

The state crossed that threshold almost five months after the first shot was injected in mid-December. Almost 9.6 million doses have been doled out across Illinois since then, with 4.2 million people now fully vaccinated — nearly a third of the population.

That puts the state well on pace to reach the 70% mark for at least partially vaccinated adults over the next two months, even though vaccine demand is declining, according to officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

“As President Biden sets the goal of vaccinating 70% of adults by July 4, 2021, Illinois has administered more doses than the national average and will continue to pursue innovative strategies to encourage all eligible residents to get vaccinated,” officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health said in a statement.

Those “innovative strategies” are required because the number of people signing up for shots each day has plummeted over the past three weeks.

The state is averaging 71,219 doses administered per day over the past week, the lowest that rate has fallen since the end of February and a 46% decline since it hit an all-time high of nearly 133,000 on April 12.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file

On Wednesday, the state reported its latest 96,415 vaccinations, but that figure includes about 40,000 doses that went uncounted over the weekend due to a national reporting outage among several major pharmacies.

Factoring in those delayed doses, an average of just 49,594 shots have gone into arms dating back to Saturday, though “additional doses could also be added,” officials said.

Graph not displaying properly? Click here.

About 80% of Illinois seniors have gotten at least one shot, which is close to the national average. That rate is only about 67% for Chicagoans who are 65 or older, according to Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady. The city also slightly trails the statewide rate with about 56% of Chicago adults having received at least one dose.

“Our age 65-plus category is still lagging,” Arwady said Tuesday. “If you know anybody over 65 especially, please, please, please, help them get vaccinated.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file

Coronavirus infections rates are declining in Illinois, too.

The state reported 2,410 new cases were diagnosed among 77,670 tests, keeping the average statewide positivity rate at a five-week low of 3.3%.

But the virus killed 30 more residents, including a Lake County woman in her 40s.

More than 1.3 million Illinoisans have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past 14 months, and 22,096 of them have died.

For help finding a vaccination appointment in Chicago, visit zocdoc.com or call (312) 746-4835.

For suburban Cook County sites, visit vaccine.cookcountyil.gov or call (833) 308-1988.

To find providers elsewhere, visit coronavirus.illinois.gov or call (833) 621-1284.

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The lifting of all capacity restrictions has long been considered by the industry as crucial to any reopening plan since Broadway economics demand full venue capacity. Some off-Broadway shows have already reopened with limited capacity.

NEW YORK — Many Broadway productions are scrambling to resume ticket sales in the coming days to welcome theater-goers this fall after city and state leaders have green-lit a reopening of the Great White Way at full capacity by mid-September.

“We remain cautiously optimistic about Broadway’s ability to resume performances this fall and are happy that fans can start buying tickets again,” Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League, said in a statement Wednesday.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Broadway theaters can reopen Sept. 14 and will be allowed to decide their own entry requirements, like whether people must prove they’ve been vaccinated to attend a show. Selling tickets will allow theaters to gauge interest before stages open, said Robert Mujica, Cuomo’s budget director.

Actors’ Equity Association, the national labor union representing more than 51,000 actors and stage managers in live theater, said the news meant the theater community is “one step closer to the safe reopening” of Broadway.

“We look forward to continuing our conversations with the Broadway League about a safe reopening and know that soon the time will come when members can go back to doing what they do best, creating world-class theater,” said Mary McColl, executive director of Actors’ Equity.

The Broadway that reopens will look different. In May, the big budget Disney musical “Frozen” decided not to reopen when Broadway theaters restart, marking the first time an established show had been felled by the coronavirus pandemic. Producers of “Mean Girls” also decided not to restart.

But there will be new shows, including Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over” that is slated to reopen the August Wilson Theatre, the same venue “Mean Girls” has vacated. And a Shubert theater has been promised for playwright Keenan Scott II’s play “Thoughts of a Colored Man.”

The lifting of all capacity restrictions has long been considered by the industry as crucial to any reopening plan since Broadway economics demand full venue capacity. Some off-Broadway shows have already reopened with limited capacity.

All city theaters abruptly closed on March 12, 2020, knocking out all shows, including 16 that were still scheduled to open.

Some scheduled spring 2020 shows — like a musical about Michael Jackson and a revival of Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker — pushed their productions to 2021. But others abandoned their plans, including “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

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Music from all genres — rock, pop, folk, country, rap, hip hop — have paid homage to the Hall of Famer.

Willie Mays is turning 90, and no mistaking that number. It strikes with the clarity of a line drive. Mays played in a sport measured by milestones — 3,000 hits, 500 homers, signposts he passed and then some — and now here’s one more.

On Thursday, when baseball’s oldest living Hall of Famer is serenaded with renditions of “Happy Birthday to You,” it might be time to expand the playlist. A player of such infinite variety deserves as much.

There’s plenty to choose from. References to the Giants center fielder cut across the years and the genres — rock, pop, folk, country, rap, hip hop.

The two most frequent mentions come in what have become ballpark anthems: John Fogerty’s ”Centerfield” and Terry Cashman’s “Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke).”

Fogerty grew up in San Francisco, his father a Joe DiMaggio fan. His song, released in 1985, is one of hope on a day when all seems possible: “We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field/A-roundin’ third, I’m headed for home/It’s a brown-eyed handsome man.” The “brown-eyed handsome man” streaking to the plate is a tribute to the 1956 song of the same name by Chuck Berry but may well be the Say Hey Kid himself.

Fogerty goes on to sing of a player riding the bench and dying to get into the game. He summons a pantheon of outfielders: “So say, ‘Hey Willie, tell Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio/Don’t say it ain’t so you know the time is now.” Finally, there is the plea and the heart of the song: “So put me in coach, I’m ready to play today/Look at me, I can be centerfield.” Mays, no doubt, would understand.

Eric Miller/AP

“Talkin’ Baseball” came out during the major league strike of 1981. It’s anchored around talk — fierce arguments across boroughs and barstools — about whether Mays, Mantle or Snider was the better center fielder in New York during the 1950s. Cashman’s vote is clear: “And me, I always loved Willie Mays/Those were the days!” Mays also gets top billing in the title and when the names of the trio are sung in the refrain. And the song ends this way: “… (Say hey, say hey, say hey).”

Even Snider wasn’t about to argue. In 1979, Mays was only player elected to the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers, with Snider finishing second. Snider said at the time, “Willie more or less really deserves to be in by himself.” The Duke joined Mays in Cooperstown the next year.

Just about everyone saw something in Mays. Maybe it was the dash around the bases, his cap flying. Or the slashing hits to all fields. Or those stickball games with kids in Harlem not far from the old Polo Grounds. Or the gentle tap of his glove before a basket catch and his run back to the infield after an inning, carrying the ball as if it were a wounded bird. Or maybe the sheer joyful lyricism of the name “Willie Mays.”

Those running the playlist on Mays’ birthday have options apart from Fogerty and Cashman.

Certainly, Chuck Prophet’s “Willie Mays is Up at Bat” deserves a listen. The song is from the 2012 “Temple Beautiful” album honoring San Francisco, the city Prophet calls home. It begins as a kind of hymn: “I hear the church bells ring, Willie Mays is up at bat/I hear the crowd go wild, all he did was touch his hat.”

A litany of references to Prophet’s city follows, and not all the lyrics passed the smell test of fact-checkers. Even Prophet acknowledges he didn’t get everything right. Like this line: “And the only thing we know for sure is Willie always did swing for the fence.”

So many ways to brush back that assertion. But Game 7 of the 1962 World Series will do. Giants at bat and trailing the Yankees 1-0 in the ninth. Matty Alou is on first with two out. Mays, hardly swinging for the fence, laces a double into the right field corner. Alou, wary of Roger Maris’ arm in right, screeches to a stop at third. That sets up a wrenching finish for the Giants when Willie McCovey lines out to second baseman Bobby Richardson.

Bob Dylan, raised in the Minnesota town where Maris was born, had a soft spot for baseball. He wrote about pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter in the song “Catfish.” Years earlier, in 1963, his “Freewheelin’” album features “I Shall Be Free.” In it, President Kennedy asks a drunk “what we need to make the country grow.” Dylan jumps from one cultural touchstone to another. And right along with bagels, pizza, Sophia Loren and Charles de Gaulle is this line: “What do you do about Willie Mays.”

For Joe Henry, it was tantamount to asking about the soul of the country — “this frightful and this angry land.” Released in 2007, “Our Song” is a meditation on a lost America that opens in his imagination with Willie Mays and his wife looking to buy garage door springs at a Home Depot in Scottsdale, Arizona. Henry is close enough in the aisle to hear Mays say: “This was my country/This was my song.” Mays, in Henry’s telling, is a mythic figure, “Stooped by the burden of endless dreams/His and yours and mine.”

But let’s raise the volume for this birthday shout-out. Run-DMC will do the job, with its 1993 song ”What’s Next.” A couple of bored guys are walking down Broadway in New York with “lots of lovely ladies like a-lookin’ our way.” How to respond? How to summon just the right amount of cool? Easy: “Play like Willie Mays all-star and ‘Say Hey.’”

Wu-Tang Clan did likewise in “For Heaven’s Sake” in 1997. This is someone whose “solar razor burn through shades” and who glides like “hovercrafts on the Everglades.” But when it comes to the arbiter of all that’s hip, Wu-Tang Clan is clear: “Yo, hey yo my rap style swing like Willie Mays.”

But if the birthday honoree wants to recognize a familiar voice there’s ”Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)” by The Treniers. Mays himself was part of the 1955 song, which was included on the soundtrack for the 1994 documentary “Baseball” by Ken Burns:

“He runs the bases like a choo-choo train

Swings around second like an aeroplane

His cap flies off when he passes third

And he heads home like an eagle bird.”

The group The Baseball Project takes listeners on a reverie through the mist of seasons in “Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays”: a father and son at a Dodgers-Giants game at Candlestick Park to watch Mays face Sandy Koufax; a jump to 1973, with Mays now on the New York Mets and letting a ball go through his legs; and then a return to the Polo Grounds and black-and-white footage of Mays’ overhead catch and spinning throw in the 1954 World Series. “Sometimes I dream of Willie Mays,” the lyric goes, “And the sun comes out, and the fog lifts, and he’s there.”

Yes, he is. So happy birthday, Willie Mays. Blow out the candles and, like an eagle bird, fly home.

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Jennifer Coleman “traditionally” would have reviewed any high-profile proffer read in court but she didn’t go over the one prosecutor James Murphy read in court detailing the allegations against 21-year-old Ruben Roman, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said.

First Assistant State’s Attorney Jennifer Coleman was forced to resign after an internal investigation revealed she did not review an in-court statement a fellow Cook County prosecutor made about 13-year-old Adam Toledo holding a gun before he was shot and killed by Chicago police in Little Village.

Adam was holding a gun on March 29 but within less than a second, he threw it on the ground, turned around and put his hands up in the air when an officer fired, Civilian Office of Police Accountability footage shows.

Coleman “traditionally” would have reviewed any high-profile proffer read in court by her underlings but she didn’t go over the one prosecutor James Murphy read in court on April 10 when detailing the allegations against 21-year-old Ruben Roman, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday.

Roman was arrested at the scene of Adam’s shooting, which Murphy described at Roman’s bond hearing for reckless discharge of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon, child endangerment and violating probation.

“The officer tells [Adam] to drop it as [Adam] turns towards the officer. [Adam] has a gun in his right hand,” Murphy had told Judge Susana Ortiz last month.

“The officer fires one shot at [Adam], striking him in the chest. The gun that [Adam] was holding landed against the fence a few feet away.”

The proffer did not mention Adam throwing his weapon or him not having it in his hand when he was shot.

A source told the Sun-Times, the child endangerment charge wasn’t approved by Coleman until hours before Roman’s bond hearing, leaving Murphy little time to adjust his statement, which required detailing Adam’s shooting to make a case for that charge.

Five days after Roman’s bond hearing — and hours before COPA released footage of Adam’s shooting — Foxx approved a statement, saying Murphy “failed to fully inform himself before speaking in court,” and described the omission about the weapon as an error.

On Wednesday, the state’s attorney’s office said Murphy “did not intend to give the impression that Adam Toledo was holding a gun when shot” and the “investigation revealed that the language the attorney used in court was inartful, leaving an unintended impression.”

Without mentioning Coleman’s firing, the state’s attorney’s office in its statement also said its investigation “revealed a breakdown of communication in how information was shared, which ultimately did not get elevated to State’s Attorney Foxx before, nor in a timely manner following, the bond court hearing.”

Coleman, who was appointed first assistant in December, was asked to resign for failing to read the proffer and not showing the proper urgency required to correct the record after, the source said.

“She was essentially fired,” the source said.

Foxx, who told staff about Coleman’s firing in an internal email, said “had that proffer been vetted by superiors … I don’t think we would have been in this position.”

The top prosecutor did not say when she was informed about the discrepancy.

Foxx said she was informed by email about the proffer read at Roman’s bond hearing that Saturday, but she said that no one flagged it for her to read that weekend when she may not be as responsive on email compared to a weekday.

“I wasn’t given the opportunity to read [the proffer] beforehand because those who would have been in the position to give it to me hadn’t notified me, hadn’t called me, hadn’t said … you need to read this,” Foxx said. “The ability [for me] to weigh in didn’t happen on this day.”

Murphy, who had been placed on paid leave while the internal investigation took place, will be resuming his duties in the office.

Murphy had not been given all the materials the state’s attorney’s office obtained from COPA, the city oversight agency that investigates officer-involved shootings, Foxx said.

The office’s Law Enforcement Accountability Division had the information from COPA but it wasn’t shared with the Felony Review Unit, which only had information from police. LEAD is “walled off” from other other units and from Foxx until its investigation is complete.

Still Coleman, who reports directly to Foxx and oversees both units, should have reviewed Murphy’s proffer with her knowledge of the materials available to both units, Foxx said.

“I am not directly involved in the investigation of LEAD until they complete their initial work,” Foxx said. “It is by my own design. I think what has been evident in cases involving office-involved shootings, is they’ve become very emotionally and politically charged.

“Politics should not impact how we review these cases. That was the intent of the design. … I have the final say on whether charges are filed or not.”

While Foxx said she was informed “very early on” about the content in the videos showing Adam’s shooting, she did not watch them until April 12.

All assistant state’s attorneys will now have to undergo new training, and new policies and procedures will be put in place as a result of investigation.

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A rare Michael Jordan Upper Deck patch auto card is setting records at an auction already.

The post Rare Michael Jordan basketball card sets new record at auction first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

City officials hope the Protect Chicago Music Series will encourage vaccinations.

Fully vaccinated? Like live concerts?

You’ve now got some options. The city on Wednesday announced the Protect Chicago Music Series, which will bring monthly musical events to both indoor and outdoor venues across the city.

“We will never mandate that Chicagoans get a vaccine but this is a creative way to incentivize people to step up and get it, especially younger people,” Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady said in a statement. “If we’re to get out of this pandemic, we need people to get vaccinated. It’s safe, it’s effective, it’s free and it’s the best way to protect yourself, your family and your community.”

The first event is scheduled for Saturday, May 22, in Hyde Park, with DJ Ron Trent and Duane Powell. Tickets for that event and others in the series will be available via Eventbrite, at designated vaccination sites and will call.

Tickets for the Hyde Park event will be released at noon on Monday. For tickets, go to https://thesilverroom.com

Additional dates and artists are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Those planning to attend concerts must bring their CDC vaccination record card and a matching photo ID.

Arwady had hinted just last week that the city was considering a sort of “vaccine pass” program, using the chance to attend certain concerts as an incentive to get young people vaccinated.

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The Pivot Arts Festival, Printers Row Lit Fest and the Old Town Art Fair are among some of the in-person, outdoor and indoor events scheduled for this summer and fall.

Summer in the city — there’s much to do and see — in person.

That was the message from Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday announcing “Open Culture,” the next phase in the Open Chicago initiative that will safely and ultimately fully reopen the city to in-person outdoor events and indoor venues.

The announcement of the in-person events was made in conjunction with the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and Choose Chicago, the official tourism website for Chicago. The cultural affairs department is reviewing applications for outdoor festivals, street and art/craft fairs, and athletic events.

“Despite the unimaginable challenges that were thrown our way last year, we were still able to persist and come together to slow and stop the spread of this virus and put our city on the right path toward a safe reopening,” Mayor Lightfoot said in a statement. “Open Chicago — including Open Parks, Open Streets and now, Open Culture — is not only the direct result of these efforts, but it also serves as the latest step in our mission to fully restore a sense of normalcy within our city by bringing back and reimagining some of our favorite summer and fall-time activities.”

The Open Culture initiative highlighted many events, including some that had been announced previously:

• Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts at Symphony Center, beginning May 27

• “Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden: Shrouds by Faheem Majeed,” through July 24, Hyde Park Art Center

• Melvin Taylor & the Slack Band, May 7, Rosa’s Lounge

• Pivot Arts Festival: Reimagining Utopia – A Performance Tour: Live,” a multi-arts experience featuring world premieres in theatre, dance, video, music and puppetry, running May 21 – June 5

• The South Side Jazz Coalition – Jazzin’ On The Steps, May 23

• “Tuesdays on the Terrace,” Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, kicking off June 1

• Old Town Art Fair, June 12-13

• “The Obama Portraits, “ Art Institute of Chicago, June 18 – Aug. 15

• Pride in the Park, June 26- 27

• Grant Park Music Festival, Millennium Park, July 2-Aug. 21

• The Auditorium Theatre presents “ABT Across America” featuring American Ballet Theatre, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, July 8

• Southport Art Fair, July 10-11

• “Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40,” Smart Museum of Art July 15 – Dec. 19

• Chinatown Summer Fair, July 17-18

• Chicago Latin Jazz Festival, Jazz Institute of Chicago, July 23-24

• Printers Row Lit Fest, Sept. 11 – 12

• Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Sept. 25-26

• Lyric Opera of Chicago 2021/22 season, opening night featuring an all-new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, Sept. 25

• “Six,” Broadway In Chicago, at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, Oct. 5, 2021 – Jan. 30, 2022

• Court Theatre – “Othello,” Court Theatre, opening Oct. 21

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