Jazz Record Art Collective at Fulton Street Collective
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March: A Month of Herbie Hancock

2/20/2017

 
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Wednesday, March 1st at 9pm:
The first night of our month-long tribute to Herbie Hancock will be FLOOD (released in 1975) performed by the Paul Mutzabaugh Sextet. Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters take to the road in the live double album Flood, recorded and released only in Japan. In all, this was a great funk band, not all that danceable because of the rapid complexities of Mike Clark's drumming, and quite often, full of harmonic depth and adventure. Except for "Maiden Voyage," the tunes come from the Head Hunters, Thrust, and Man-Child albums (another reason why this was not released in the U.S.).

Performances by:
Paul Mutzabaugh - Keyboard
Aaron McEvers - Saxophone, Flute
Matt Gold - Guitar
Chris Clemente - Bass
Frank Alongi - Drums
Rich Stitzel - Percussion

Visual Artist - Dmitry Samarov

​https://www.facebook.com/events/1128694800570456/


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Thursday, March 9th at 9pm
Night two we'll be featuring Herbie Hancock's debut as a leader with Takin' Off, released in 1962. This album revealed Herbie as a composer and pianist able to balance sophistication and accessibility, somewhat in the vein of Blue Note's prototype hard bopper Horace Silver. Takin' Off is among Hancock's most conventional albums, it shows a young stylist already strikingly mature for his age, and one who can interpret established forms with spirit and imagination. His bluesy single "Watermelon Man" made it to the Top 100 of the pop charts and went on to become a jazz standard.

Performances by:
Marques Carroll – Trumpet
Rajiv Halim - Tenor
Marcin Fahmy – Piano
Andrew Vogt – Bass
Isaiah Spencer - Drums

​Featured Visual Artist - Chris Walker

https://www.facebook.com/events/577119215829279/

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Wednesday, March 15th at 9pm
Night three we'll be featuring Maiden Voyage, an oceanic concept album recorded in 1965. In the mid-'60s, a distinctive postbop style evolved among the younger musicians associated with Blue Note, a new synthesis that managed to blend the cool spaciousness of Miles Davis's modal period, some of the fire of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and touches of the avant-garde's group interaction. Maiden Voyage is a masterpiece of the school, with Hancock's enduring compositions like "Maiden Voyage" and "Dolphin Dance" mingling creative tension and calm repose with strong melodies and airy, suspended harmonies that give form to his evocative sea imagery.

Performances by:
Chad McCullough - Trumpet
Cory Weeds - Tenor
Rob Clearfield - Piano
Clark Sommers - Bass
Dana Hall - Drums

Featured visual artist - Arthur Wright

https://www.facebook.com/events/744134015763146/

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Wednesday, March 22nd at 9pm
Night four we've got Herbie's fourth album, Empyrean Isles from 1964. Hancock pushes at the borders of hard bop, finding a brilliantly evocative balance between traditional bop, soul-injected grooves, and experimental, post-modal jazz. Each song finds the quartet vigorously searching for new sonic territory with convincing fire. "Cantaloupe Island," well-known for its funky piano riff, takes chances and doesn't just ride the groove. "The Egg," is the riskiest number on the record, but it works because each musician spins inventive, challenging solos that defy convention.

Performances by:
Rob Clearfield - Keyboards
Russ Johnson - Trumpet
Curt Bley - Bass
Marcus Evans - Drums

Featured visual artist - Mark Nelson

​https://www.facebook.com/events/671170666387684/

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Wednesday, March 29th at 9pm
​We will wrap up our Herbie Hancock series with The Prisoner, Herbie's 7th album and final Blue Note release from 1969. The album is a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, evoking his spirit and dreams through spacious, exploratory post-bop. The additional winds add delicacy and texture to an already powerful band, and the expanded palette allows Hancock to show untapped strengths as an orchestrator, enlarging the harmonic inference of strongly felt themes that are by turns majestic, assertive, and pensive.
​

Performances by:
Geof Bradfield - Tenor Sax, Flute
John Wojciechowski - Tenor Sax, Flute, Alto Flute
Jason Stein - Bass Clarinet
Russ Johnson - Trumpet, Flugelhorn
Joel Adams - Trombone
Scott Bentall - Bass Trombone
Ben Waltzer - Piano
Clark Sommers - Bass
Dana Hall - Drums​

​https://www.facebook.com/events/1685175805116720/

ADMISSION & LOCATION:
Doors open at 8pm, show starts at 9pm.
Suggested $10 donation or $5 w/ valid student ID*
CASH ONLY. Smaller bills appreciated.
All ages. 21+ for alcoholic beverages.
Beverages generously sponsored by Candid Wines.

All JRAC events take place at The Fulton Street Collective:
Located in the Hubbart Street Lofts
1821 W. Hubbard St. (3rd Floor)
Chicago, IL 60612
(773) 852 2481

Up Next: Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions"

2/2/2017

 
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Wednesday, February 22nd at 9pm
The Bonzo Squad is performing Stevie Wonder's Innervisions from 1973.

BACKGROUND:

Innervisions is the 16th studio album by American musician Stevie Wonder, released August 3, 1973, on the Tamla label for Motown Records, a landmark recording of his "classic period". The nine tracks of Innervisions encompass a wide range of themes and issues: from drug abuse in "Too High", through inequality and systemic racism in "Living for the City", to love in the ballads "All in Love Is Fair" and "Golden Lady". The album's closer, "He's Misstra Know-It-All", is a scathing attack on then-US President Richard Nixon, similar to Wonder's song a year later, "You Haven't Done Nothin'".

"This recording represents the pinnacle of a very important artist's career, and of his physically blind, but nonetheless extraordinary humane vision. For all intents and purposes, and for all of its richness and variety of texture, it is essentially 
all Stevie Wonder. He personally created and arranged every sound heard. His canvas stretches from the tough realities of ghetto streets to the transcendent joy of spiritual acceptance, each rendered with an original, unique musical palette. The feel is a little more jazz than funk, the result is simply glorious pop music – uplifting sound and message." - Bill Shapiro

"... Stevie Wonder may be blind, but he reads the national landscape, particularly regarding black America, with penetrating insight on 
Innervisions, the peak of his 1972-73 run of albums–including Music of My Mind and Talking Book. Fusing social realism with spiritual idealism, Wonder brings expressive color and irresistible funk to his synth-based keyboards on "Too High" (a cautionary anti-drug song) and "Higher Ground" (which echoes Martin Luther King Jr.'s message of transcendence). The album's centerpiece is "Living for the City", a cinematic depiction of exploitation and injustice." -Rolling Stone


PERFORMANCES BY:
Corbin Andrick - saxophone
Andrew Vogt - bass
Zack Marks - drums


Special Guests:
Dee Wilson - Vocals
Cole DeGenova - Piano/Vocals
Alec Lehrman - Guitar/Vocals



ADMISSION & LOCATION:
Doors open at 8:30, show starts at 9pm.
Suggested $10 donation or $5 w/ valid student ID*
Cash only, Smaller bills appreciated.
All ages. 21+ for alcoholic beverages.
Beverages generously provided by Candid Wines.

All JRAC events take place at The Fulton Street Collective:
Located in the Hubbart Street Lofts
1821 W. Hubbard St. (3rd Floor)
Chicago, IL 60612
(773) 852 2481
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