Chicago Jazz Orchestra Celebrates 40 Years of Powerful, Bold Sounds | Chicago News

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A group from Chicago started returning when Jimmy Carter was at the White House and Michael Bilandic at City Hall. If you like big band brass music, you may know – or should know – the Chicago Jazz Orchestra.

We chat with one of the founders and founding member about 40 years of bringing a new approach to timeless music.

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Brandis Friedman: A dozen of the region’s top horn players and an acclaimed rhythm section join Chicago’s oldest professional jazz orchestra.

Chicago Jazz Orchestra in concert. (Photo credit: Charles Osgood)

Under their old name, they performed the opening night of the first annual Chicago Jazz Festival in 1979.

Howard reich, Chicago Tribune: The Chicago Jazz Orchestra is a big institution in Chicago. He is bound by love and talent. But what they do is revive the tradition of Count Basie and Duke Ellington in a very vivid, vital and spontaneous way.

When you listen to CJO, you don’t hear music from the past. You hear music that sounds like the ink is still wet on the page.

The Chicago Jazz Orchestra at the Green Mill.The Chicago Jazz Orchestra at the Green Mill.

Jeff Lindberg, co-founder and conductor: I always had the idea to make it the best big band in Chicago and to compete with other great orchestras across the country and the world.

We play repertory music but we try to keep it fresh and lively, so we like musicians to create their own solos as opposed to recorded solos.

We like players who really know the style. A lot of times you’ll hear bands playing old music and they’re not really familiar with the style of the great masters of the day, and we really try to put real jazz players in this orchestra, so they know how to swing and they know how to formulate and know how to solo.

Art davis, Chicago Jazz Orchestra: I play the jazz trumpet. I am the only founding member of this group at this point.

It’s always a pleasure because the level is really high, and it’s always an inspiration, so I think that’s, collectively, why we all do it, is to challenge ourselves and play at the highest possible level.

And the material is also very difficult. Jeff writes a lot of transcriptions and we do a lot of concerts of all kinds that keep us going with very little rehearsal so it’s very difficult.

Friedman: From big band to bebop through ballads, the CJO has brought a sonic complexity since its formation on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

They are now in the middle of their 40th season.

They often share the limelight with local singers, in this case Paul Marinaro.

Paul Marinaro performs with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra at Green Mill.Paul Marinaro performs with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra at Green Mill.

Reich: They don’t stagnate. There are always new soloists, young and old. It keeps it fresh. I never once heard the sound of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra as if it was revisiting the past. It sounds new every time they knock.

Lindberg: It’s great to have a band where all I have to do is count the tempo and it goes.

I cannot say enough about the great musicians in this orchestra. We’re trying to get the cream of the crop, and we’ve been pretty successful.

Friedman: Various members have performed with Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Tito Puente and Frank Sinatra.

Many of them are leading their own groups, but they usually come back to the CJO.

Lindberg: We’ll kind of model ourselves on what the great civic symphony orchestras would be like, where they play music from the masters and repertoire and maintain that, but they also play music from contemporary composers and living composers.

Reich: Let me tell you, they don’t do it for financial compensation. There aren’t many there. These guys can make money doing a lot of other things, but it’s the sound of the CJO that big, thick, rich, rugged sound that’s thrilling to hear, and in jazz, as far as I’m concerned, there is nothing more exciting than this.


More on this story

The Chicago Jazz Orchestra has just started its summer residency at Green Mill. Every Monday they perform with a different guest singer. See the Green Mill calendar for more details.

Note: This story first appeared on May 15, 2019. It has been updated.


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Henry R. Wright