Miles Davis at the Showcase!

Trumpeter Victor Garcia found out only last Thursday that he would be stepping in for internationally known Brazilian trumpeter Claudio Roditi the next night to lead an all-Miles Davis set at the Jazz Showcase. (Roditi was unable to get to Chicago due to the weather, and his gig has been rescheduled for June.) Garcia, whose own Chicago Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble has been very well-received, said he was thrilled to get an opportunity to “perform this music which I’ve studied forever”.

The show was part of the Miles Davis Festival, a four month celebration of his 85th birthday year, featuring a unique collaboration between the Auditorium Theater and jazz clubs throughout the city. If this date was any indication, the city has much to celebrate.

Garcia’s quartet included Jim Trompeter on piano, Larry Gray on bass and Greg Artry on drums. The beautiful “Someday My Prince Will Come” featured Gray, aptly dubbed the “Poet Laureate of the double bass” by New Orleans musician Donald Harrison. Never predictable, Gray may pick, pluck, strum or bow his way through a solo. He effectively uses even the spaces between the notes to take the tune where he wants it to go, and deposits his listeners right back in the groove he found them.

For his part, Artry delivered several blistering solos, notably on Sonny Rollins' "Airegin" which Garcia rightly described as “a burner”. At one point, he was playing so hard a drumstick went flying over his head but there was another in his hand in milliseconds and he never, as they say, missed a beat.

Garcia himself has a great tone, mellow and smooth, which he used to terrific effect in “Blue in Green”. The tune featured Trompeter on piano, and as he and Garcia traded solos, they created a mood that was so delightful the audience ignored the usual knee-jerk response of applauding as soon as one musician stops playing and instead let the music build uninterrupted to the end. But Garcia can also blow those high, staccato sharp ones as he did in "Stella by Starlight" and "ESP."

The festival is several great ideas rolled into one; allowing musicians to pay tribute to Miles Davis by exploring his tunes while bringing their own contributions; creating synergy between the clubs and the Auditorium by offering discounts to the Auditorium concerts for attendance at the club venues; and, finally, by devoting four months to Davis’ legacy.

Mean Jazz

I moved to the corner of Michigan and Roosevelt so I could walk to the Jazz Showcase. I've been delighted to become a regular there - saving the monthly calendars Joe puts on the tables each month and highlighting every performance I've seen.

It's fabulous.

New Year's night, I went to see Roy Hargrove. I caught him at the JS last year, and was blown away. Besides enjoying the music, it was one of the tightest sets I'd ever seen. To me this speaks of a group that cares about professionalism and performance values - and I loved it.

You may have read Howard Reich's review of the first night of this year's set. If not, it was a rare rave from a man whose tastes don't always match mine and you can read it here:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-12-30/entertainment/ct-live-0101-roy-hargrove-20101230_1_trumpeter-roy-hargrove-hargrove-and-alto-saxophonist-montez-coleman/2

I just KNEW I was in for a great evening of music. And the first set was extraordinary - everything I'd hoped and more. I wasn't thinking I'd write about it, so I didn't keep a set list, but they did several of Hargrove's own tunes. It was terrific.

There were so many people who had reserved for the 2nd set that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stay, and when I got a seat I was thrilled.

I knew something was odd when Roy came up with a brownie in his hand and spent a few minutes talking about it. But you know, whatever. On the first tune the drummer, Montez Coleman , seemed, well, shall we say EXTRA PUMPED? And I noticed that the pianist, Sullivan Fortner, and the drummer were having their own private joke - trying to catch each other's eyes and making faces and laughing. Ok, still, the music was good and whatever.

During the 2nd tune, Roy left the stage. He came back up to take a solo and then introduced the terrific young Chicago trumpeter, Marquis Hill. Here is a guy that is probably thrilled to be sitting in w/the group. As he starts playing, the drummer decides to abandon the drums and begin to clap in rythym instead. When Fortner joins him, of course, so does the audience. It was odd, but Marquis acquitted himself well. Towards the end of the solo, Coleman jumps back on drums - again with a volume and intensity uncalled for by the tune, but insuring that Hill would leave the stage to great applause.

He was followed by a Justin Robinson sax solo. Coleman is obviously not finished with his joke and begins clapping again. This time Fortner starts to add off beat claps which of course distract from the solo, but not absurdly so. Until they mess up. Now it is just a couple of guys cracking themselves up, and Robinson stops dead in the middle of a phrase. He turns to Coleman and gestures his anger by grabbing his crotch.

Not sure how, but the bass player, Ameen Saleem, was the only one to keep playing, to hold the whole thing together. Of course Coleman and Fortner are able to jump back in at will, and do. Hargrove and Robinson finish out the tune.

At this point I see that Hargrove is having a really hard time opening his eyes. No problem, he plays a ballad - flugelhorn at the ready. I can't recall what the tune was, but its a standard we all know from the American Songbook. It is gorgeous, and as he finishes Saleem starts a bass solo. Hargrove, as is his custom, goes upstage to sit behind the drummer. Suddenly I hear someone talking. It is disturbing and takes a minute for me to see that Coleman is laughing and that Hargrove is shouting out chords to Saleem, who has a frozen smile on his face as he tries to finish while not losing concentration.

So, I leave. I'm reminded of Neal Tesser's comments a couple of weeks ago about Ravi Coltrane's set - that Coltrane seemed to be working out his ideas on a live audience. Tesser felt that when an audience pays for a show, they should get a fully realized show - not a woodshed experience. I think I am stating his thoughts correctly, but you can read them here:

http://www.examiner.com/jazz-music-in-chicago/ravi-coltrane-s-disapppointing-chicago-sojourn

At least with Ravi, there were ideas, though not fully developed. Hargrove's disrespect for his audience, for the Showcase, and for his fellow musicians were totally offensive. Perhaps this is part of the reason that he is not playing concert venues - perhaps he and his bandmates while musically mature are too personally undisciplined to pull off the excellence of which they are obviously capable night after night.

And it left the impression that Hargrove thinks his audiences are not savvy enough to recognize junk when they see it. I'm with Robinson.

Dad is 80

First day of kindergarten, you walked me to school and I got on a bus to come home. Afterwards in the kitchen you and mom, asking over and over again, WHY would you get on a bus? I walked you there, I told you I would pick you up - and you were both upset and I didn't know why I thought I should get on a bus. Finally you told me to go play. But, I thought I saw you smiling.

I thought I saw you smiling but when I turned around you were just looking at me and you said go on now, go play.

I got in trouble in 1st grade and knew I’d be in trouble with you and so I stopped at the candy store and bought you root beer penny candy and you said what is this for and I said nothing and you said what is this for and I said I love you and you said what is this for and I said I got in trouble today and you said we will talk about this later and I went to my room. But, I thought I saw you smiling.

You told me not to go down the Parkside stairs one at a time cuz they were cement stairs and I could go down them one at a time when I was big and I figured I was already big and I went down them one at a time and after you picked me up and after you put spoons on my head and after you bandaged my eye you told me that I should have listened to you. But, I thought I saw you smiling.

We were playing tent, or dress designer, and you flew upstairs and yelled at us WHY was the sheet off the bed and Get to sleep NOW and don’t let me hear another peep and Deb said peep and you came back and yelled again. But, I thought I saw you smiling.

It had been a day and we hadn’t been listening and we had been bickering and nothing seemed to slow us down and mom said wait till your father comes home and you came home and you called us all down from our rooms and made us stand in line and you made me get the phone book and you told us you were looking up orphanages because this kind of thing could not go on in your house and you sent us back upstairs while you thought about it and told us to think about it. And I’m sure I saw you smiling.

I was really mad that we moved from the city, really mad and really unhappy and I cried and whined and moaned and you promised to take me to the library in “town” wherever that was and finally one day you did and I saw that the whole bookmobile that used to come by our house could fit in the lobby of this new library and when we drove home you asked me if I liked it I said I guess so. Oh, yeah, you were smiling.

Plenty of times when I was a teenager we would fight for hours, or I would fight and you would read your newspaper until you couldn’t stand it anymore and neither one of us was laughing then. But there were some times where we would disagree and it felt like playing volleyball and we passed the ball back and forth for awhile until you got tired and getting in a good pass was exhilarating even tho you would slam it back twice as hard. And I think I saw you smiling.

That smile I’m talking about is the one that says you’re getting a kick out of something. It isn’t meant for anyone else to see and it comes with a slight shake of the head. It is equal parts amusement and amazement and it is really, really good and most of us have seen it when you are talking to one of us about another one of us.

I can make people laugh, and when it is just right, when I have put the timing and the words and the tone and the look together just right and everybody roars and I can hear people saying afterwards when they think I’m not listening, she is so funny, I look back. And …I know I see you smiling.

My Sister Was Going to Ireland

My sister was going to Ireland. So, naturally, my father gave her an address. Years ago, his mother had written to someone at this address in Ireland and we were somehow related. That’s all we knew. Others had taken the same address on their trips to Ireland with little success. But, my father said, she should take it again. Try to make a connection with family in Ireland.

My great grandmother, Margaret Coleman, left Ireland alone in her early 20’s. She came to Chicago to meet her brothers, James and John, who worked on the railroad, but she never found them. So, like millions of other Irish immigrants who came to America, she built a life.

I often wonder if her family held a funeral for Margaret the night before her departure. They often did that back then for those who were leaving for America. Everyone knew that their lives were over as they had known them. The idea of the funerals makes me think how sad and scared she must have been to leave all she knew. We hardly think of it today as we can take a plane across the world in a matter of hours. Even if we can’t get home we can hear each other’s voices over the phone and even see one another with a webcam or a video. Those who left back then knew they were leaving for good.

And when they came here as my great grandmother did, they didn’t have time to look backwards. Surviving in Chicago in those days took all you had. So the sadness had to be pressed down and the energy used to make a successful life. Maybe that is why an Irish tenor in those days could make everyone cry – he reminded them of the enormity of their loss.

There was one sister who stayed in Ireland. Margaret wrote to her, and to her daughter, Alice. And when Margaret was gone, my grandmother kept up the communication. We have one letter from Alice. That was the letter my sister Deb was taking back. Alice would be gone, but maybe the address would lead them to someone else.

When Deb and her husband got to the small town of Enniscorthy, they stopped at a pub. Deb asked the bartender if he knew of anyone related to an Alice Murphy who had lived at the address. “Sure, Sean Murphy, he lives right across the road.” “Would he welcome a knock at the door?” she asked. “Mmmm well, now, I don’t know…”

Deb was abit taken aback. But she did cross the road and knock at the door. A man answered the door. “Yes?”

And yes, it was himself and yes that was his mother’s handwriting. Would she come in? Yes, she would, yes.

Tea was made, as were telephone calls. “You’ll never guess who is standing in this room but your American cousin” said Sean when he called his sister, Bridie. She thought he was putting her on…she didn’t even know they had an American cousin. “Here” he said, “I’ll let you talk to her.” “Not till I heard your voice,” Bridie said later, “did I even begin to think he wasn’t joking.”

The next two days were filled with meetings and meals and visits to an old graveyard. Deb met three of Alice’s children on her trip. They were all delighted with each other, and with the connection.

The day that Deb and her husband were to leave they stopped by Sean Murphy’s house one more time. She wanted to give him a copy of the letter his mother had written 30 years ago. He invited her in and she resisted as they had to get on the road but Sean wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I have to show you something,” he said.

He pulled out a photo album. There were pictures of his mother and his brother and sisters. Then he turned the page. “I don’t know who these people are…but I thought you might know.”

“Yes, I do know.” Deb looked at the pictures. “That’s my mother and father, my grandmother and grandfather. Those are some of my sisters and brothers.”

And there we were. It seems my grandmother was sending pictures with the letters she wrote, to keep the family alive even though she had never met her Irish cousins. To keep us connected to that world that Margaret Coleman had left. And to welcome us, when finally, we went home.

Nanie

My mother says I get along with my dead relatives better than the ones who are living. I don’t disagree. It’s not even close.

I began doing serious research into my family tree about two years ago – though I’d been interested for a lot longer than that. I was lucky to start with John A. Rogers, my great, great uncle who was a Chicago alderman back at the turn of the twentieth century. My research unearthed lots of great information – gambling, money and murder. Just what every genealogist hopes for, notoriety. There were Chicago City Council records, newspaper articles, obits – he was a character, and John A. Rogers got me hooked.

My favorite is a Chicago Tribune article, titled:

John Rogers Says, “I’m Cold”

He was sick with a fever and the doctor ordered him packed in ice. Of course he was the envy of the non-air conditioned city on that blistering July 4th. His personality came through as he joked: “First time I ever had cold feet.” Or when they quoted his response to allegations of running illegal gambling in his saloon.

“Yes, I’ve run a gambling house.” he admitted when the charge was made against him in his campaign for alderman. “But I’ve always run a square game.”

The Chicago Tribune was a gold mine for info on Johnnie Rogers, but I found many of the less notorious members of my family in the census lists on Ancestry.com. I discovered to my surprise that 80 years ago, my maternal grandmother and great grandmother lived three blocks from where I live now. I walked by the building and wondered what their life was like then.

I started to go back 10 years at a time in the national census to trace my great grandmother’s life. I got back as far as 1920, but couldn’t find her in 1910. I knew she was there somewhere. I became obsessed and started looking block by block in the south side neighborhood I thought she might have lived in.

Finally, there was her name. I was surprised to find her living with her married sister in April of 1910. She should have been living with her husband because she was pregnant with my grandmother. Oh! It finally dawned on me that she was pregnant and unmarried that day when the census taker came to call. Now I had a picture of the young woman I had known so well when she was old. Had she been nauseous with morning sickness that day? Did anyone else know? Her sister? Did my great grandfather know yet? I pictured her scared and excited, listening to her sister give the census information and trying not to panic at what the next year would bring.

My eyes drifted up one line on the census sheet. The next-door neighbors. Wait, that was another sister and her family. I’d given them up for lost because I couldn’t find them, and I’d spelled their name everyway I could think of. But here they were – a huge family living just next door. I felt like they had all just looked up and started waving at me – “You found us! Hello!”

So, I look at my great grandmother, 20 in 1910, single and pregnant, living with her sister, parents long dead, soon to be married to my great grandfather. They would divorce after just a few years. She would live to be old and tell me wonderful stories, watch my sister get married and hold her first great great grandchild. She would watch the world change from horse and buggy to man on the moon.

But on that day she only knew that the census taker had come and taken her name. And that she was pregnant. I know how her story ended – it ended with me, my brothers, sisters, cousins and our children. Now I could see how it began.

I swear for a moment she sees me. I’m a daydream she has that day about her future and for a moment we catch sight of each other – she looking forward, me looking back. Then the census taker gets up to leave, they close the door and she’s gone.

The Horse Race

I am looking back a hundred years at my great-great uncle. There is a picture of him in the Chicago Daily News Archives from 1907. The caption is “John A. Rogers, Gambler.” He is standing outside with his bowler hat, three-piece suit and bow tie. He looks confident and prosperous in the photo, his shoulders back and his chin raised. It isn’t a posed photo – you can’t be sure that he even knew it was being taken. He looks as if he is about to say something, maybe respond to a reporter’s questions.

I have another picture of him that is in pretty bad shape, but I love to look at it. This one comes from my Grandmother’s album, and it shows John A. sitting on a bench in his three-piece suit. I can see his shoes in this one, they are the tall ones that lace up and again he wears a bow tie.

He is not alone; there are four other men with him. I know one of them is his brother, my great grandfather. I wonder if the other men were also brothers and brothers-in-law. They are sitting on a fake log cabin set of some kind, two of the men standing inside the cabin and poking their heads out of the window and three of them sitting on this log bench. A white paper tag hangs from a string on each suit coat – maybe an admission ticket. They are smiling easily, not a care in the world have these guys.

Another picture brings me back to the real world of today. This one is of all of my nieces and nephews at the family gathering on Christmas at my brother’s house. There are six boys in our family of eleven children. We all have a lot of fun when we are together, but I am always struck by how close my brothers are. Every Christmas we open presents for hours and for most of that time my brothers are making us laugh.

Christmas is an intimate gathering of 40 now that most of us are married with children and even two grandchildren, so the gifts go on and on. Until a few years ago, we all still bought each person a gift. We would gather at my Mom and Dad’s, and the presents would run from one end of our 20’ family room to the other, waist high. Opening the gifts took so long that we had to take breaks. Friends think I am joking when I tell them that for years, as we took a break to grab a plate of cookies or pour a Kahlua and Cream, my Mom would raffle off afghans she’d made that year.

By the time we finally decided to pick names so the number of gifts would be reduced, we had waited too long. What with marriages and children being born, the number of people had increased, so somehow we were still basically stuck with the four-hour ordeal.

The thing that keeps this bearable is that we all sincerely enjoy being together. And as the afternoon fades into evening, we are silly with laughter. My brothers are dangerously funny one on one, but when they get together it is an experience. My son Tim still talks about one wedding dinner when he was seated with five of the brothers. He laughed so hard, for so long, that his stomach muscles hurt for days.

It is a joy to watch them crack each other up. They know each other so well that they move seamlessly from straight man to funny man to unwitting victim to slapstick expert. Their competitiveness feeds the fire, each trying to outdo the other. And while they don’t mind that others are there to watch, they are doing it for their own pleasure. They are playing now, as they did when they were small, and having as much fun. I watch them as someone makes a comment, there is a sudden glint in their eyes and there they go - like horses running a race, except these horses are running together and daring each other to keep up.

I am looking once more at the picture of John A. and his brother, my great grandfather. I notice a familiar look in their smiling eyes.

The man behind the camera better watch out. I have a feeling his stomach will hurt tomorrow.

Walking Her Home

Remember walking someone home?

It is a sweet old concept that you don’t hear much anymore. Now we drive, drop off on our way, or catch a lift.

Walking someone home was a softer, gentler activity. First of all, you walked, so the pace of the leave-taking was slower. When you got to their home, you left your companion and make the return trip alone, giving you time to reflect. There weren’t cell phones, so the walk back wasn’t disturbed. You thought about your friend, of things you’d both said, and things you wanted to say when you met again.

When I was young, I walked people home frequently. Many times it was my brothers and sisters and I was picking them up from a ball game or swimming lesson, or a friend’s house. Picking up isn’t the same as walking home. I had to pick up my siblings to keep them safe and make sure they didn’t get distracted and end up at a friend’s house or stop to play in the park. Walking someone home is a choice, and in a way, a silly one. Because, after dropping off your friend, you had to walk home alone.

The walks I remember best were with my friends. They would come to my house after school, and when it got close to supper time I would walk them home.

Because these walks were the end of our visit, we dragged our feet. We didn’t want the afternoon to end and be forced to go on to our homework and chores and the like.

I remember walking my friend Mary home. She used to live a few blocks away from me but had moved across town. I would usually walk her half way home. Looking back on it now I think we argued a lot on our walks. I think we didn’t want the day to end, and the arguing gave us an excuse to stand on a streetcorner half way between where we’d been and where we were going and postpone the goodbyes.

I thought of this recently when my sister-in-law’s mother passed. Leane’s mom wasn’t an easy person and theirs wasn’t an easy relationship. But I watched Leane care for her mother during her long last illness. Sometimes she would be understandably frustrated and angry at her mother. It seemed like whatever she did wasn’t enough for her mother and they argued, or they sat in silence.

And, at the end, she never left her mother’s side. That’s when I had the image.

Leane had walked her mother home. Their time together was over, and they knew it. They’d fought on the streetcorner, not wanting it to end. And finally, they had to part.

Now, and for awhile, Leane will be walking alone and reflecting on her mom, on their relationship, and remembering things she wanted to say.

But always she will be able to remember that in the end, she gave her mother that sweet, loving gift. She walked her home.