A Love Letter To The Windy City
The migration of over six million African Americans from rural areas to the industrial cities of the North in the early to mid-20th century is known as the Great Migration and is credited by some music historians as the event that made jazz what we know it as today. Among the many cities that became a "haven" for those fleeing Jim Crow laws was Chicago!
And while many always talk about NY as the capital of jazz, for me the "Wind City" is and always will be my jazz capital. From labels like Delmark Records to the International Anthem Recording Company, from afro-futuristic Sun Ra, pianist Amina Claudine Myers, drummer Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, Joshua Abrams, Jeff Parker, young guns like Angel Bat Dawid and Isiah Collier to living legends like The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Kahil El Zabar or Ari Brown:modal, soul, free and avant-garde jazz from the city of wind!
Or to quote the influential vibraphonist Roy Ayers:
"Where you gonna go
How you gonna feel
Who you gonna know
What you gonna say
Each and every day
Chicago, Chicago
Chicago where can I go
Chicago, Chicago".
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