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John Coltrane plays saxophone in front of a mic with a black background in 1965

Revisiting a Superstar-Packed Predecessor to Chicago's Jazz Festival

Daniel Hautzinger

The Chicago Jazz Festival has been bringing outstanding musicians to the lakefront for over forty years, but before it, in 1965, DownBeat magazine hosted a festival at Soldier Field with the likes of John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Muddy Waters.
DJ Steve "Silk" Hurley sits behind a keyboard and in front of a mixing board in a studio in 1996

A Look Back at an Important House Music DJ as the Chicago House Music Festival Hits

Daniel Hautzinger

Chicago native Steve "Silk" Hurley helped bring the Chicago-born genre of dance music known as house to the UK. House music's history is increasingly being recognized, with a landmark and the Chicago House Music Festival.
Mavis Staples sings into a microphone with her hand up in a black and white 1962 photograph

Watch a Tireless 83 Year-Old Mavis Staples Perform in a Concert Recorded in Chicago

Daniel Hautzinger

Mavis Staples began performing with her family band, The Staple Singers, when she was eleven. She's still singing at 83, as in a concert recorded earlier this year at Chicago's Symphony Center that WTTW is broadcasting. 
J'Nai Bridges performing in "A Knee on the Neck" with the National Philharmonic

'American Masters' Features an Opera Singer with Ties to Chicago

Daniel Hautzinger

J'Nai Bridges, the subject of a new American Masters documentary, was a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Ryan Opera Center for three years, and is currently singing Carmen at the Lyric. She has also worked with the Chicago area composer Shawn E. Okpebholo.
Chuck D

Hip-Hop at 50: A Q&A with a History Professor in a New Four-Part Documentary on the Art Form

Daniel Hautzinger

Hip-hop turns fifty this year. A history professor and advisor to the new documentary series Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World discusses the music's context and impact. "Hip-hop is still here because it has had this transformative impact on the way youth engage with the world around them," he says.
Mahalia Jackson. Photo: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

A Q&A with the Producer of 'Chicago Stories: The Birth of Gospel'

Daniel Hautzinger

"The story of gospel music is actually a more universal story of American music and our country’s history," says the producer of a new Chicago Stories documentary about the genre's origins in Chicago.
Sergio Assad with daughter Clarice Assad and musicians with Scott Yoo. Photo: Arcos Film and Music

Exploring the Diversity of American Music Through Its Influences—and Food

Daniel Hautzinger

In the third season of Now Hear This, Scott Yoo explores the idea of American classical music through several composers and their influences, which range from samba to spirituals to Hindustani music—with explanatory pit-stops for food along the way. 
Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Easter Sunday, 1939. Photo: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

A Q&A with the Director of a New Marian Anderson Documentary

Daniel Hautzinger

Marian Anderson, who was the first Black soloist at the Metropolitan Opera and gave an unforgettable concert at the Lincoln Memorial after being denied the use of a concert hall, is the subject of a new American Masters profile. We spoke to the director.
Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate

How the "Chickasaw Classical Composer" Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate Draws on North American Indian Culture

Daniel Hautzinger

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, who scored two recent WTTW documentaries, uses Chickasaw and other North American Indian music and stories as source material for his classical compositions. "I have a mission in my music," he says.
Norman Malone at the piano

'For the Left Hand' Tells the Story of an Indomitable, Late-Blooming Pianist

Daniel Hautzinger

Norman Malone can play piano only with his left hand due to a traumatic childhood injury, but in a new documentary he prepares to make his orchestral debut at the age of 79. “The beating heart of this film is who Norman is," says Howard Reich, the writer and co-producer.
The Chosen Few Picnic and Festival

Chicago's Long-Running, Family Reunion-style House Music Picnic and Festival

Daniel Hautzinger

The Chosen Few Picnic and Festival has been bringing house music and a family reunion atmosphere to a South Side park for three decades, thanks to a set of DJs who helped popularize house music in the first place. The event, virtual this year, takes place July 3.
Ernest Hemingway on the fishing boat Anita circa 1929. Photo: Courtesy of Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

How the Soundtrack of 'Hemingway' Evokes the Romantic Locales of the Writer's Life

Daniel Hautzinger

Havana, Paris, Spain: the soundtrack of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's new Hemingway documentary helps set the places and moods of the writer's life, via the creative music produced by Johnny Gandelsman of Brooklyn Rider and the Silk Road Ensemble.
DJ Ayana Contreras at the AESOP DJ Booth at the 95th St. Red Line Station

Soundtrack Your Commute With These Playlists from the 95th Station DJ Booth

Daniel Hautzinger

Commuters at the 95th Red Line Station pay their fares to an unusual soundtrack: music from a DJ booth. Called AESOP, the booth is a public art installation by Theaster Gates meant to enliven commutes. Two of the booth's DJs share some of their favorite tracks to spin. 
Scott Yoo in Seville, Spain, in Now Hear This

A New Series Exploring the Cultural Connections That Make Music

Daniel Hautzinger

A new Great Performances series explores the broader culture classical music fits into, from the architecture it was played in to the dance, fashion, landscape, and food that help explain it. Learn more about the globetrotting Now Hear This
Early twentieth century, openly gay pianist Tony Jackson. Photo: From the William Russell Jazz Collection, courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection

The Openly Gay Pianist Who Dazzled Chicago in the Early Twentieth Century

Daniel Hautzinger

Jelly Roll Morton, the self-proclaimed "inventor of jazz," didn't praise many people besides himself, but he made an exception for Tony Jackson: "Tony was considered among all who knew him the greatest single-handed entertainer in the world.” And Jackson was openly gay at a time when that was incredibly rare.
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