Every great music festival has a few of those moments. If you’re a music lover, you know them well. You desperately want to catch two — maybe even three or four — spectacular billings at the same time, on different stages.
But since humans haven’t yet cracked on-the-spot mitosis, one has to make tough decisions about whom to catch, when, and for how long. The Hyde Park Jazz Festival is replete with these small agonies, which says a lot about its primo programming. This year’s festival, running Sept.
28-29, welcomes trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire (11 p.m. Sept.
28 at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel), saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins (7:15 p.m. Sept.
28 at Logan Center Performance Hall), pianist Craig Taborn (in a trio with cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Ches Smith , 5:15 p.m. Sept.
28 at Logan Center Performance Hall), a Billy Higgins tribute by drummer Willie Jones III and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt (8 p.m. Sept.
28 at the Wagner Stage on the Midway) and nearly 30 other acts. It all sprawls across a setting overflowing with jazz history. Hyde Park, as well as surrounding Woodlawn, Kenwood, Bronzeville, Washington Park and Englewood, were crucibles for the genre, from big band stages that welcomed Louis Armstrong to the ongoing sonic forays of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and Sun Ra Arkestra.
“The beauty of programming a festival here is that there are so many trajectories embedded in the history of this music that have emanated from the South Side,” says executive and artistic director Kate Dumbleton. “I’m always starting with our geography. What are the ways in which artists, musicians, and DIY cultural organizers have created movements? And what’s happening now?” Kate Dumbleton, here in Chicago in 2011, is the executive and artistic director of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival.
(Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune) Keeping that momentum going has never been harder. Dumbleton was frank in a conversation with the Tribune last week: The festival is straining against the same ills plaguing other arts organizations, and it’s dire. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, charitable giving has plummeted while the cost of producing outdoor events has skyrocketed by about 30 to 40%.
The festival’s core sponsors aren’t immune from the squeeze, either: The University of Chicago’s Office of Civic Engagement, citing budget challenges, cut its usual contribution to the festival by 90% this year. On top of all that, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival is adjusting to a Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) that’s more opaque than ever, a complaint echoed by other city presenters since that department’s leadership turned over earlier this year. DCASE alloted the festival its expected funds this year — a relief — but provided that information just 11 days before the festival’s start.
Meanwhile, Dumbleton has watched with trepidation as other South Side stalwarts, like the nearby African Festival and Silver Room Block Party, have halted programming over lack of funds. “This is an incredibly challenging time for the festival, financially — the hardest ever,” she says. In a sea of uncertainty, one constant: The festival will remain free to concertgoers.
Not only is it “essential to (the festival’s) mission,” per Dumbleton, it turns out it’s pretty expensive to run a paid festival, between the ticketing infrastructure and cost of erecting fencing. “It’s kind of a non-negotiable,” she says. Chicago Poet Laureate avery r.
young performs at the Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago on April 27, 2023. Find him at the Hyde Park Arts Center on Sept. 28.
(Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) So, resourcefulness has taken over where sheer funding muscle left off. One of Dumbleton’s priced-out plans for 2024 involved a James Baldwin centenary celebration.
Luckily, the Hyde Park Arts Center happens to be hosting a retrospective of Robert Paige, the influential local textile artist who knew Baldwin personally. In what’s likely to be a festival highlight, Chicago poet laureate avery r. young interviews Paige in the exhibition space, then performs with his de beacon board band and the D-Composed string quartet (2 p.
m. Sept. 28).
Then, there are acts that are locally steeped but new to the festival — like Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society , which makes a surprising festival debut alongside saxophonist Ari Brown (9:30 p.m. at International House).
Dumbleton traced artist networks to cook up other bookings. Because reedist Anna Webber plays in Geof Bradfield’s Colossal Abundance band (performing 2 p.m.
Sept 28 at Hyde Park Union Church), the festival also invited her duo with pianist Matt Mitchell (4:15 p.m. Sept.
28 at the Logan Center Penthouse). Singer Dee Alexander performs every year as one of the festival’s day-ones; this year, she wanted to bring the Boston-based Makanda Project ensemble, who, fortunately, had a small grant that made their appearance possible. “That’s always something I like to be able to do: help Chicago artists amplify a project that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive,” Dumbleton says.
Bassist Jason Roebke performs at Constellation in Chicago in 2017. He’s on the 2024 festival bill at the Logan Center Penthouse. (Armando L.
Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) If this is the Hyde Park Jazz Fest at its most thinly stretched in recent memory, you wouldn’t know it from all the mitosis moments Dumbleton and her team have still managed. Take the Hyde Park Art Center and Colossal Abundance shows, which compete not only with each other but with bassist Jason Roebke’s quartet (Logan Center Penthouse), a screening of the Exploding Star Orchestra ’s trippy Adler Planetarium show last year (Logan Center Screening Room) and The Wherewithall . The last of those is a brand-new organ trio of Hammond whiz Justin Dillard, guitarist Jeff Parker and drummer Jeremy Clemons, making its maiden voyage thanks to the festival’s support.
And believe Dumbleton when she says, in times like these, scheduling knots are the least of her worries. “If too much of a good thing is the biggest complaint about the festival, then I’m good,” she says. Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.
Hyde Park Jazz Festival runs Sept. 28-29 at multiple venues in Hyde Park; free with suggested $10 donation. More information and an overview of festival headliners at hydeparkjazzfestival.
org Jazz cellist Tomeka Reid performs at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in Chicago in 2018. She plays this next weekend with pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Ches Smith. (John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune).
