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Events Archive

Trading Fours:Jazz and its Milieu Conference

Friday 9am - 9pm, May 11, 2001
Judd Hall Auditorium
5835 South Kimbark Avenue Chicago, IL

Saturday, 11am - 3pm, May 12, 2001
The HotHouse
31 East Balbo Avenue
http://www.hothouse.net/
forum

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture is pleased to announce Trading Fours: Jazz and its Milieu. This conference will engender a dialogue amongst improvising musicians, scholars, and music aficionados. We will reflect on the nature of improvisational jazz and the significance of improvisational jazz to the African-American communities (past, present and future) in Chicago and elsewhere, and how associations of creative musicians contribute to a life of a people.

Friday, May 11th in addition to the conference we are having an exhibition of creative musicians' album art and a screening of the Art Ensemble of Chicago's 1981 video taped performance at the Jazz Showcase. That evening Mwata Bowden, Tatsu Aoki, Douglas Ewart, George Lewis and the University of Chicago's Jazz X-Tet will perform works composed by Wadada Leo Smith, Mwata Bowden and Douglas Ewart.

The discussion on the commercial viability of improvisational jazz which will begin on Friday during the conference will continue as a forum at the Hothouse on Saturday, May 12. This will be a day of roundtable discussions with musicians critics and record producers.

This conference is generously supported by the Illinois Humanities Council, The Franke Institute for the Humanities, as well as The Center for Gender Studies and The Department of Music of the University of Chicago. This conference is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

9:00am

Contenential Breakfast
Opening Introductions: Michael C. Dawson
Chairman Department of Political Science and Director of
Center for the Study of
Race, Politics and Culture

Welcome Address: Ken Warren, Professor of
English and Associate of the Center for the Study of Race,
Politics and Culture, of Race, Politics and Culture

9:10am

Opening of Exhibit of AACM Album Art

9:30 - 9:50am

Timuel Black, Professor Emeritus City Colleges
of Chicago. Social and jazz historian.

9:50 - 10:10am

Dick Wang, Professor of Music at the University
of Illinois at Chicago, “Creative Music at a
Southside Junior College in the 1950's and
Early 1960's”

10:15-11:00am

Panel Discussion #1:Educational Programs for a
Better Understanding of Jazz and Creative
Music:

The panel will examine the role of music in
education as a means of bringing jazz to
traditionally underserved communities
throughout Chicago. With major cultural
venues such as symphony halls, arts and
cultural seasonal venues, and public libraries
undertaking educational and outreach
programming, the question arises about how to
maintain creativity of music that has moved
from the avant-garde to the mainstream.

Chair: TBA

11:00-11:45am

Panelists: Debbie Gillaspie, Johann Buis,
Lauren Deutsch, Ann Ward, Curtis Prince

11:45-1:30 pm

Ingrid Monson, Ethnomusicologist, Washington
University in St. Louis, “Conflict and
Community: Improvising through Aesthetics,
Politics and Spirituality in Jazz of the 50s and
60s”:

1:30-2:15pm

Lunch break: also Screening of Chicago Art
Ensemble 1978 Performance. Filmed by Dick
Wang

2:15-3:30pm

Keynote Address George Lewis, Professor of
Music and AACM Member University of
California at San Diego “Ancient to the
Future: Histories and Visions of the AACM”

3:30-4:15pm

Panel Discussion #2: How to Make Improvisation
Live Our other panel How Improvisation
Lives will illustrate the uniqueness of
improvisational music. Musicians will
demonstrate the nature of improvised music.

Chair: to be announced

Panelists: Kristin McGee, Dana Hall and
Marcello Piras.

4:15-4:30pm

Dick Hebdige, Dean, California Institute of the
Arts and Cultural Theorist

4:30-5:30pm

Break

Panel Discussion #3 Creative Music and
Commercial Viability: Focusing on other
issues for creative musicians this panels will
present Chicago perspectives on the
commercial aspect of creative music from
music critics, club owners whose musical
focus is creative music and musicians who
make music as a living.

Chair: Terry Martin

5:30-7:00pm

Panelists: Marguerite Horberg, Penny Tyler,
Howard Reich, Robert Irving, Tatsu Aoki,
Mwata Bowden, Charles Walton

7:00-9:00pm

Evening Concert: Dinner

Preconcert Speaker TBA

Music Composed by Wadada Leo Smith,
Mwata Bowden and Douglas Ewart.Evening
Performance: Mwata Bowden, Tatsu Aoki,
George Lewis, The University of Chicago
Jazz X-Tet


Conference Participants: as of the 11th of April 2001


Tatsu Aoki: Musician, member of the Asian-American Improvisation Group, Instructor at the SAIC
Timuel Black: Professor Emeritus City Colleges; historian of African-American culture and society in Chicago.
Mwata Bowden: Adjunct music instructor in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago; member of AACM.
David Boykin: Musician and AACM Member
Johann Buis Columbia College Chicago, Center for Black Music Research
John Corbett: Freelance Jounalist, The Empty Bottle
Michael C. Dawson Chairman, Department of Political Science and Director CSRPC
Lauren Deutsch: Executive Director of Jazz Institute of Chicago
Douglas Ewart: Musician, member of AACM; Instructor at SAIC
Mike Friedman: Premonition Records
Deborah Gillaspie: Curator, Chicago Jazz Archive, University of Chicago.
Dana Hall: Musician, Ph.D. candidate Department of Music University of Chicago
Dick Hebdige: Dean School of Critical Theory, California Institute of the Arts
Marguerite Horberg: Executive Director of The HotHouse
Robert Irving: Former musician with Miles Davis’ final band, music critic
Lewis Krienberg: Board member Jazz Institute of Chicago. Brown Bag Presenter, May 10th, 2001
Art Lang: Freelance Journalist
George Lewis: Keynote Speaker, Professor of Music, University of California San Diego
Peter Margasak: Critic, Chicago Reader
Terry Martin: Professor of Physic, University of Chicago; Historian of AACM
Susanne McCarthy: Flower Booking
Kristin McGee: Musician, Ph.D. candidate Department of Music University of Chicago
Ingrid Monson: Associate Professor of Music at Washington University in St. Louis
Michael Orlove: Chicago Department of Cultural Affaris
Rose Parisi: Artist Services, The Illinois Arts Council
Damon Phillips: Assistant Professor of Strategy Graduate School of Business University of Chicago
Marcello Piras: Visiting Fellow at the Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College
Curtis Prince: Director, Chicago Public Schools All City Jazz Band.
Howard Reich: Arts Critic, Chicago Tribune Newspaper.
Bettina Richards: Thrill Jockey Records
Alana Rocklin: Delmark Records
Laura Samson: WPWR Channel 50 Foundation
Richard Steele: WBEZ fm radio
Martin Stokes: Associate Professor of the Department of Music, University of Chicago
Peter Taub: Museum of Contemporary Art
Neil Tesser: Freelance Writer and President of NARAS
Malachi Thompson: Musician and AACM Member
Penny TyIer: Coordinator, Jazz at Ravinia, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Jazz Series; Chicago Jazz Festival
Jean Ulrich: Ravinia
Charles Walton: musician, musician’s union official. One of the original founders of Union 208
Dick Wang: Professor of music, UIC; Vice-President of Jazz Institute; AACM historian
Anne Ward: Composer and AACM member
Kenneth Warren: Professor of English, University of Chicago
Kevin Whitehead: Freelance Journalist
University of Chicago, Jazz X-Tet