Mark Madsen and Chicago's Jazz Soul - Ubi Sunt

Chicago used to be a great town for jazz. Politics and policy in Chicago chased great music out to the suburbs and odd enforcements and ordinances all but closed jazz venues for the sake of revenues and cash cows.

Great talents at the top of their game saw the departure of people like Jim "Skinny" Sheahan from the Mayor's Office of Special Events, and replaced by a cultural czarina who turned Chicago's stages from likes of Judy Roberts, Rich Daniels, Victor Parra and Mark Madsen to whirling Turkish Dance troupes wearing what looked like giant chefs hats and Ethiopian thumb pianists accompanied by gourd beaters. Jazz Venues closed quicker than a politician lies and hotels became the sole harbors for what passes for jazz.

Chicago Jazz musicians now scratch out some dollars in a town that once provided a living.

Last night at the Chambers in Niles, one such suburban jazz haven, featured not only the fabulous jazz guitarist/vocalist Frank D'Rone, but also a few of Chicago's best jazz artists Bassist John Bany, drummer Charles Braugham.and pianist/accordionist Don Stille. Frank D'Rone shared his show with his fellow artists for the second half of his show he and D'rone and the Chambers trio were joined by a brilliant flute master, a trumpeter and a harmonica rendition of Ruby.

Frank D'Rone is a gracious master of his art.

Vocalist the lovely Miss Terry Sullivan wowed the crowd with Lover Man. In an up-tempo trading of fours with the trio and featuring the great Frank D'Rone on guitar with masterful chops that eased back to Terry Sullivan.



The great Mark Madsen owned the house with a rendition of I'll Remember April. The poignancy of the loss of jazz due to decades of political booster cronyism in Chicago was reflected in Mark Madsen' phrasing and textured baritone that raised the spirit of Joe Williams himself. This one performance in a night of great presentations was like finding a diamond in a pile of gold coins.

Here is Mark Madsen with Rich Daniels and the Chicago City Lights orchestra performing for the McDonald's McVeterans Fund in 2008.



We lost much more than parking meters. Chicago sold our musical souls these last few decades.

This lovely day will lengthen into evening, we'll sigh goodbye to all we ever had.
Alone where we have walked together, I'll remember April and be glad.
I'll be content you loved me once in April.
Your lips were warm and love and spring were new.
I'm not afraid of autumn and her sorrow, for I'll remember April and you.
The fire will dwindle into glowing ashes, for flames live such a little while.
I won't forget but I won't be lonely, I'll remember April and smile.

Chicago Jazz is in the suburbs. Get to the Chambers in Niles.

6881 N. Milwaukee, Niles, IL 60714. 847-647-8282.

Erroll Garner - 'Concert by the Sea' Will Set You Free!

I have six music discs in the console of my Malibu.

The Rascals Greatest Hits
Essential Frank Sinatra
The Best of Sam Cooke
John Roothaan and Terry Sullivan" (Acapulco Stomp)
Kinks - Vol.1 & 2
Errol Garner Concert by the Sea


Long road stretches get the Rascals and the Kinks. Traffic gets the sobering and soothing sounds of vocalists Cooke,Sinatra, Miss Terry Sullivan and especially the piano genius Errol Garner.

Unlike too many trendier jazz icons - e.g. perpetually pissed off black genius Miles Davis - Garner is welcoming, friendly, open and communal. Errol let's us squares in there.

Garner is complex, playful and astounding. From the initial hammering of chords on I'll Remember April Garner has you hooked ( click my post title)
Click my post title for this much too looked over genius. Wes Montgomery on guitar is Garner's parallel spirit.

This is from Paul Conley's great site

http://errollgarner.com/intro.html

Listen to any Erroll Garner recording and you realize, above all else, this man loved to play piano. If you were lucky enough to see him, you also know he loved to share that joy with his audience. As a result, Erroll Garner became one of the most popular pianists of all time. Such was not the case with many of his modem jazz colleagues, however. Consider Bud Powell, perhaps the most influential of all bebop pianists, whose pioneering approach attracted legions of fans within the jazz community but who alienated those casual listeners still struggling with the innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Erroll Garner, on the other hand, was a favorite among jazz musicians, jazz fans and popular audiences alike. His style was far from "bebop," but he was a thoroughly modem player, whose explorations of melody, harmony and rhythm were totally unique. Still, he never lost that personal connection with the audience. He was one of those rare individuals capable of fusing unparalleled artistry with pure and honest emotion. Erroll Gamer's music was the embodiment of both joy and genius.

As the original host of "The Tonight Show" and of his own syndicated program, Steve Allen introduced television audiences to dozens of jazz greats. "There was always a rare kind of excitement when Erroll Garner played," explains Allen. "The audience first of all could be observed to be smiling, which they would not always do if say listening to Oscar Peterson. They might be open-mouthed in awe listening to Oscar, but the smiling thing would be unlikely to happen. But with Erroll there would be this happy look on the audience's faces and then an actual cheer when he finished. And sometimes cheers would happen during the performance, like at an athletic contest when somebody sinks a long basket to win the game. It was almost like that kind of outburst when the man would perform."

Chicago's Relevant Radio - A Catholic Voice in a Secular Desert

Ready for your next test of Faith? Naw, I had plenty this week. The tests are coming anyway.

1,500 City Workers are set to get laid off. Urban violence can set your watches - but who wears one anymore? North Korea and Iran are pushing nuclear confrontation with the World. Mother McAuley tuition is due on July 1st. You snap to attention every time the sump pump kicks on - well, I do anyway. Our UN Analog Television has 800 channels pumping out Celebrity News, re-runs of House/Law and Order: The Apocalypse Squad/Fat Programming/Cable Shout Downs.

Radio is not much better.

Yet, Relevant Radio offers a sea-change. Here in Chicago, Cardinal George has sparked an initiative to offer Catholics a road back to their roots and part of the initiative is Relevant Radio.

Chicago is blessed with some priests who really manage to really get it right - Father Eddie Pelrine, Bishop Joe Gorman, Bishop Joseph Perry, Father Frank Philipps, Father Marty O'Donovan, Father Canary, Father Tony Brankin and especially Cardinal George.

Catholic lay people, especially those who push to the forefront as spokespersons, can be real pains-in-the-ass as well, as the lazier Cupcake brand of Stiff Collar.

Yet, there are lay voices with genuine understanding of the Gospel who try to live Christian lives and are not starchy Pharisees, or PC Nit-wits.

Cardinal George seems to be giving these folks, genuine Catholic working people, a forum. Relevant Radio AM -950.


Relevant comes from the Latin relevare - to raise up. It now means offering evidence of proof to an argument or means of understanding a situation. Stiff Collars and Sky Pilots can too often toss out platitudes or snatches from Holy Writ that have absolutely nothing to do with the loss of a job, confusion, disappointment or fear in lay persons. Some of the gents can not get it right.

Take last night,

Your goofy correspondent here, went to the Institute of Christ the King in order to pick up his lady love, the beautiful and elegant Ms. Terry Sullivan, who attended a concert of Sacred Music, in the still being restored former St. Gelasius Catholic Church at 6414 S. Woodlawn.

I missed the Sacred Music concert, because I had to drop off Clare at yet another in the summer-long string of graduation parties for St. Cajetan's Parish and I had been topped off on Sacred Music at St. John Cantius these last two weeks from the Pentecost through last Sunday.

I am a dutiful; son of the Church, but more like the son with a messy, smelly room and sleeps until 2PM and asks,"What's for Breakfast?" Familiar, Brother Catholics?

Allow me to digress further . . . I get to the Institute at about 7PM, park and wander into the beautiful Church - empty. There is a woman standing out on the steps with a brochure in her hands. " Are you a Chicagoan?," she asks. Yes'm.

I learn that this lady had travelled from Kansas City for this concert and had been informed by some Father I-AM-Vere-Bisee, that she and her friend would not need a car as Chicago is an Olympic Class Urban Village of Delightful Souls AND that she could stay at the Ramada Inn in convenient HAMMOND, Indiana!

Father Cupcake evidently does not ever, need to try and find a Taxi! The woman and her friend got soaked by some cottage-industry moss-back with a car and a chauffer's license, discovered in the Hammond, Indiana phone-book. Try and find a Taxi in Hammond, much less in the neighborhood around 6414 S, Woodlawn - just around the corner from the site of Jeff Fort's Former Fortress of Stone Peace!

Now, I have about 7,836 years in Purgatory to cancel out and those are only ones I managed to build up between 1967 and 1982. The subsequent Years of Triumph I will not even get into; it definitely seemed like Corporal Work of Mercy Time!

After informing the two women that I would offer to drive them back to their rooms at The Ramada Inn on Calumet Ave., along with the gracious and sexy Ms. Sullivan, certainment, and having secured the requisite bona fides, from Chicago Daily Observer Editor and Chicago philanthropist John 'Shorty' Powers, that I do not (nor have I ever had) have a family of four in my basement freezer, I drove the women back to Hammond.

Pointing out the various sights and sites south on Stony Island - the former Greek Orthodox Church and now Nation of Islam Mosque; Moo and Oinks ( must stop shopping for high quality meats - I usually go the one at 85th & Racine); Chicago's Toll Booth and 1st City Asset Sold Off; CVS - Home of Dick Butkus; The Big Bridge; Chicago's Harbor; Pat Carroll's Cro Bar on 106th off Indianapolis & etc.!

All of this Clerical error could have been avoided had an actual 'in-the-game' Catholic person been allowed to give these travellers from Kansas the straight dope.

My favorite priest, Francis Cardinal George, is a Chicagoan. He knows that Taxi Cabs are limited to the nicer neighborhoods and that Hammond is not in Chicago. Cardinal George has promoted an outlet for Catholics, weary travellers in this burgeoning Vale of Tears, to get the Real Dope, the Skinny, and the Real Deal.

That is Radio 950 - Relevant Radio. Listen to the Catholic Voice of Chicago.

Mission Statement
Relevant Radio exists to assist the Church in the New Evangelization by providing relevant programming through a media platform to help people bridge the gap between faith and everyday life.

Assisting the Church
In fidelity to God, Relevant Radio creates, promotes and endorses programming that follows the post-Vatican II teachings of the Roman Catholic Magisterium. Relevant Radio is the first and only radio network to be approved by the USCCB as a national media outlet and through a strategic collaboration with bishops and their dioceses, Relevant Radio is able to serve the Church by providing programming that is adapted to the needs of the listening audience.

The New Evangelization
The late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, encouraged American Catholics to seize the means and methods of modern communication to inspire the faithful with a deeper understanding and commitment to Christ and His Church. This he called the New Evangelization. Pope Benedict XVI agrees that “the possibilities opened up for us by modern means of social communications are indeed marvelous and extraordinary.”

Relevant Programming
Relevant Radio programming plays a crucial role in helping people integrate a Catholic perspective into their daily lives and guides them in asking the fundamental questions about the meaning of life. Through listener-interactive programs that focus on current issues and events, Relevant Radio seeks to incorporate Catholic beliefs into these discussions to contribute to the maturation of faith through evangelization, affirmation, and catechesis.

We believe it is possible to present fundamental elements of the Catholic faith in a manner that can satisfy committed Catholics, nominal Catholics, non-Catholic Christians, and all who sincerely seek the truth that makes life meaningful.

Jazz at Brando's! Terry Sullivan Sings The American S

Prep for New Year with the Terry Sullivan Trio at Chicago's Gallery Cabaret!

Ms. Terry Sullivan is a writer ( Cultural & Arts Editor for Chicago Daily Observer, choral director of St. Cecelia Chorus of St. John Cantius Catholic Church, and a seasoned Jazz singer, who Chicago nightlife pioneer and jazz enthusiast Mr. Nick Novich ( Nick's Place & etc.) likened to ' the sweet voice of Blossom Dearie.'

Terry Sullivan Trio will grace the stage of Gallery Cabaret in Bucktown on December 29th from 8-10PM. Get a start on your New Year with the vocal stylings of Ms. Terry Sullivan and Great American Song Book!

Ms. Sullivan is accompanied by two of Chicago's best Jazz Artists - pianist Tom Hope and Bass Man Brian Sandstrom.


Tom Hope, Jazz pianist, was born and raised in Houston, studied music at North Texas State U., and was a U. S. Army bandsman. He lived and worked in Los Angeles in the 70's and is a Chicagoan since 1976. An

experienced accompanist, he has a repertoire of thousands of tunes in all keys, with an emphasis on the Great American Songbook.

Tom has performed with Barrett Deems, Arnett Cobb, Scott Hamilton, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Ira Sullivan, Ken Peplowski, Ed Polcer, Red Holloway, Lee Castle, Richie Cole, Al Grey, Britt Woodman and Charlie Persip, as well as singers such as Jaye P. Morgan and the Four Freshmen. He is also an accomplished singer and a student of the guitar.

Tom offers jazz vocal coaching in the context of the Great American Songbook. This involves learning the real melodies and rhythms of the songs, choosing tempos on the basis of lyrical sense and swing, then allowing one's natural style to develop. This leads to liberation from copying other performers' personal interpretations.



Brian Sandstrom - "One of the busiest bass players working in the Chicago area." Chicago Tribune.

Brian, sideman on more than 25 CDs, has toured Europe with free jazz pioneer Hal Russell. He has also recorded and played locally & nationally with such notables as Doug Blake, Frank Portolese, Willie Pickens, Ken Vandermark, Kent Kessler, Rusty Jones, Robert Shy, Mars Williams, Ed Pertersen, Von Freeman, Ira Sullivan, and Frank Catalano.


Gallery Caberet:

The Gallery Cabaret has been operating in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood since 1990. According to owner, Ken Strandberg, the Gallery Cabaret harkens back to a time when "you could walk into a joint, buy a drink, and enjoy live entertainment like comedy or music just for being there and being a patron." The Gallery has offered free entertainment 7 nites per week since it opened. Over time, many up and comers have graced the stage, like The Smashing Pumpkins, Urge Overkill, Material Issue and Liz Phair (while they were still up and comers!). The Gallery has also hosted numerous comedy acts and poetry readings and slams. Every month, local artists have their work on display at the Gallery. Currently, we also offer cable TV including your favorite sports, until prior to showtime, and early bird drink specials from 5:00 pm until 9:00 pm. We also have Darts and Golden Tee Golf. Can't wait for music to start? We have TouchTunes internet jukebox with access to 1000's of songs.

Chicago Catholics Voice Welcome to Pope in New York Times

The New York Times On Line has a great feature that captures the attitudes of American Catholics. Some of people ineterviewed are profoundly insightful and from Chicago.

Ms. Terry Sullivan, correspondant for Chicago Daily Observer, is the most thoughtful. Other Chicagoans featured are St. Patrick's Parish Pastor Father Tom Hurley, Jim Healy, Carlos Lourenco, Oralia Mascio, and Kirk Struhart. Click my post title to hear from your neighbors.


Well done ladies and gentlemen. The best gift the Pope can get in America is Honesty.