Chicago’s Empty Bottle has hosted just about every type of music imaginable in its 13-year history, but jazz has always held a special place in the Bottle’s heart. Its weekly jazz series began in January 1996 with the help of reedist Ken Vandermark and writer/musician/producer John Corbett and this year marks the venue’s Ninth Annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, set to take place June 15-18.
This year’s festival is another celebration of the avant-garde jazz that Chicago is known for. In addition to Vandermark and Corbett, the festival will also feature performances by Sam Rivers, Peter Brotzmann (pictured), Ed Wilkerson Jr., Paul Rutherford, Nasheet Waits and Robert Barry.
The full schedule is as follows:
Wednesday, June 15
Chicago Ad Hoc: A first time meeting of ten performers featuring an amalgam of instrumental combinations ranging from brass to reeds to electronics to strings.
Thursday, June 16
Peter Brotzmann and Nasheet Waits
Davey Williams with Jim Baker and Tim Daisy
The Rempis Percussion Ensemble
Surprise Set
Friday, June 17
Ken Vandermark with Torsten Muller, Paul Rutherford and Dylan Van Der Schyff
Peter Brotzmann, Kent Kessler, Paul Rutherford and Nasheet Waits
The Tatsu Oaki, Ed Wilkerson Jr. and Michael Zerang Trio
Surprise Set
Saturday, June 18
Sam Rivers
The Robert Barry, Paul Rutherford Duo
The Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio
Relay Signals featuring Jason Ajemian, Zoe Buck, Tim Daisy, Ernst Karel and Aram Shelton
More information on the Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music can be found on the Empty Bottle’s website.
Related Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time