CIVIC COLLABORATIONS

An 11-year free commission-based concert series in Chicago’s Millennium Park, co-curated by the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Jazz Institute of Chicago. The series invited Chicago jazz artists to conceive and execute large-scale projects that often led to opportunities to perform nationally and internationally as well as to record.

As a member of the programming committee for over 30 years I helped develop the Jazz and Heritage Stage that featured local community-based artists representing a diversity of the City’s cultural groups. Each year that stage featured the winner of the All City Jazz Band Competition and eventually evolved into the 2-day Young Jazz Lions stage that highlights high school and middle school bands from the Chicagoland area. Jazz Band directors from those schools cite the Jazz Festival performance as a major driver for the schools’ Jazz programs.

At the request of the Director of Navy Pier a summer jazz series was created and curated featuring a generationally and ethnically diverse cross section of Chicago Jazz and its influences.

This mid-winter festival began in 1979 as a way to bring together members of Chicago’s jazz ecosystem, including jazz organizations, school programs, radio stations, record labels and visual artists and to showcase Chicago’s jazz musicians. In 2003, due to cost considerations we were forced to consider canceling the event. Citing its long history and cultural importance to the city, the City of Chicago offered to partner with the Jazz Institute to present the annual showcase as a free public event, which it remained until its final year in 2008.