Howard Reich

Trombonist Jeb Bishop has been a key player on Chicago's avant-garde jazz scene for the past two decades, working prolifically with such similarly indispensable figures as reedists Ken Vandermark and Dave Rempis, guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Kent...

Jazz in Chicago encompasses many overlapping scenes, and one of the most distinctive of them will launch its yearly celebration this weekend. The city's Asian-American community has contributed immeasurably to the richness and range of music in Chicago,...

You usually don't hear jazz singers taking on James Brown's "Sex Machine" or Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." But one brave Chicago vocalist will be plunging headlong into this music Friday night, when the apparently fearless Dee Alexander takes the...

Several of Chicago's most admired jazz musicians won't be spending Thanksgiving at home – they'll be converging in Poland, instead. For the seventh year straight, the city of Poznan – a vibrant cultural hub – will present its Made in...

Chicago singer-songwriter Terry Callier never received a fraction of the acclaim he deserved, but no one who heard him ever forgot him. The imploring, incantatory quality of his vocals distinguished him from peers, as did his knack for mixing elements...

 My father told me little about his agonies in the Holocaust. He never mentioned the beatings he suffered in various concentration camps starting in 1942, nor the death march he survived in January 1945, en route to Buchenwald.   For nearly the...

Jazz took root in Poland long ago – even before World War II – and the country has prized it ever since. If the music lived underground in the 1950s, when the Soviet Union considered it "decadent," Polish listeners – and their...

When the Chicago Bears and the Houston Texans step off the grass at Soldier Field for halftime on Sunday evening, 60,000-plus fans — and possibly a national TV audience — will see and hear something they've never encountered before. For...

The literary events at the Chicago Humanities Festival are illustrative of the festival's sprawling theme, “America.” A diverse array of voices, perspectives and characters will illuminate the American experience. And for those whose passion...

Last May, during a conference on "Race, Gender & the Blues" at Dominican University, the master harmonica player Sugar Blue addressed the theme in an impassioned, unforgettable soliloquy. Lamenting that blues increasingly has been expropriated by white...

No other orchestra in America looks, sounds or acts quite like Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. For though various bands play Third Stream repertoire — a term that loosely refers to jazz-meets-classical fare — the CJP immerses...

Long before flood waters spilled into New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, an even greater deluge engulfed the region (and beyond). The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 stretched from New Orleans to Cairo, Ill., killing hundreds, leaving...