Guitars galore, big-band calypso, and Esperanza (!) highlight weekend jazz

Take Friday, for instance, when the Chicago Jazz Ensemble launches what promises to be an exceptional new season of Harris Theater performances – under its new artistic director, drummer Dana Hall – built on an overall theme of “diaspora.” First up is Musica Panamericano, a collaboration with the refreshing young trumpeter and percussionist Etienne Charles.

 

Winner of the National Trumpet Competition in 2006, the Juilliard-trained Charles emblematizes a new generation of Caribbean musicians combining their native heritage with the jazz tradition. He references his Trinidadian background by making folk mythology the inspiration for many of his compositions, and by showcasing his expertise on the instruments most associated with his native land, the cuatro and the steel drums.

 

“It’s not like Etienne is just grafting jazz on to Trinidadian melodies, or fusing the styles somehow,” Hall told me this summer. “It’s really thinking about improvisation in different ways. And this has been going on a long time. Dizzy Gillespie, Gerald Wilson, Harry Belafonte – there’s a long train of musicians looking to Latin and South American culture and thinking about how that might relate to North America.”  

 

The program will include world-premier large-ensemble arrangements of songs from Charles’s two most recent recordings, Folklore (2009) and this year’s Kaiso, as well as several works by CJE founder William Russo – who, as a member of Stan Kenton’s orchestra in the 1950s, was among the first composers to incorporate authentic Caribbean elements in his writing. The concert starts at 7:30 at the Harris Theater (205 E. Randolph).

 

But jazz audiences will have a tough downtown choice, because just down the street (220 S. Michigan), the first jazz concert of the new season at Symphony Center takes place when superstar bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding appears with her Chamber Music Society project. 

 

I don’t suppose many readers need much introduction to Spalding: her surprise GRAMMY® win for Best New Artist in February generated enough controversy to make even non-jazz fans acutely aware of her radiant presence. (I’m talking to you, Bieberheads.) But Spalding’s appearance at Symphony Center earlier this year, just a week or so after her GRAMMY win, proved almost as controversial to the Chicago audience. 

 

Entering stage left, Spalding began her presentation by leisurely removing her jacket and hanging it on a coat rack that stood behind an easy chair; in front of her, a small table supported a reading lamp and a bottle of wine. Sinking into the chair and slipping off her shoes, she poured herself a glass of red and settled back as if to enjoy a quiet evening at home; her accompanying string quartet, unlit at center stage, offered several minutes of introductory music to set the mood before Spalding rose, trod barefoot to collect her bass upstage, and joined the group.

 

I found it brash, vibrant, and rather ingenious; at intermission I heard many in the audience comment about the “pretentiousness” of this set piece and suggest that Spalding hadn’t yet earned the right to break “the rules” in this manner. Somewhat lost in this ephemera were the facts that she played brilliantly; commanded a varied and well-balanced program of music; and proved herself a far more capable and versatile vocalist than her GRAMMY-spurring 2010 album had indicated. 

 

In short, Spalding performed one of the most illuminating and energizing concerts of 2011, and there’s no reason to expect anything less this time.

 

These downtown options might obscure Friday’s offering at the Chicago Guitar Festival, but some quick logistical thinking would make it possible to attend either concert and still spin up to Martyr’s to hear Charlie Hunter. Hunter is the popular jazz/funk virtuoso who combines swampy, deep-pocketed grooves with a freakish technique that allows him to play separate bass and treble lines on one 7-string guitar – in much the way that jazz organists supply their own bass parts in classic organ trios (an early inspiration for Hunter, not surprisingly). 

 

It’s a remarkable thing to see or hear – let alone to create – but Hunter underplays the sensationalism of this technique, using it instead to serve his jam-band lyricism and textural sophistication. Hunter’s most recent album, the self-produced Public Domain, was a solo guitar disc (although in his case, that’s something of a misnomer); he’ll double the personnel at Martyrs (3855 N. Lincoln) by working with drummer Derrek Phillips.

 

Opening the show at 9 is vocalist and guitarist Carla Bozulich – whose website is as quirky but effective as her singing – in duo with multi-instrumentalist John Eichenseer; I figure Hunter to hit the stage before 10:30.

 

Saturday night, the guitar festival continues with a Europe-based guitar duo called les Frères Méduses (“the Jellyfish Brothers” in English, and don’t ask me why). Randall Avers and Benoît Albert first met when both were at the Paris Conservatory about a dozen years ago; they reunited in 2008 and have concocted a repertoire of modern classical pieces, their own lighthearted compositions, and stretches of unstructured improvisation, with plans to incorporate pieces written by contemporary giants Ralph Towner and Pat Metheny. 

 

This marks their Chicago debut, and could well be something to text home about. They play at 8 PM at Instituto Cervantes (31 W. Ohio).

 

The fret fete finally comes to a close on Sunday night at Mayne Stage in Rogers Park (1328 W. Morse), with three stupendous Chicago guitarists sharing the stage as part of two sets. In the first, vocalist Grazyna Auguscik will work with both John Moulder (of the Paul Wertico and Larry Gray trios) and Chris Siebold (best known for his peppy fusion band Kick The Cat). For the finale, the protean Fareed Haque trots out his Moog Guitar – a fairly new instrument that is not a guitar synthesizer – as he fronts the challenging high-energy trio he calls Math Games.

 

After all that, you can officially admit to being strung out.