Jazz Showcase's Upcoming Shows

Bethany Pickens is an award winning pianist and composer. Born in Chicago, she began her musical training under the watchful tutelage of her father Willie Pickens, world-class Jazz pianist. She also was impacted deeply by the 9 years she spent as a member of the Chicago Children's Choir during her formative years. Since graduating from the American Conservatory of Music, Bethany has had the opportunity to perform, record, and conduct clinics with such artist as Clark Terry, Louis Bellson, Bobby Watson, Von Freeman, Steve Turre, Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen, Willie Pickens, Susan Anton, Lizz Wright and Grammy award winners Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roy Hargrove and Branford Marsalis, Rascal Flats, Josh Groban, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle and Usher.Ms. Pickens is an Illinois State Board Certified Instrumental Music Teacher. She has taught PreK-12 for the Chicago Public School System for over 20 years. She currently is the Piano Instructor at Kenwood Academy High School, her Alma Mater!Additionally, Bethany has worked as an Artist-in-Residence with the Jazz Institute of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools All-City Elementary Jazz Ensemble, and an Instructor with the Ravinia Jazz Scholars Program. She has also served as an Adjudicator for The CPS City-Wide Jazz Festival.Bethany and her Father have Performed Duo Concerts at Chicago Symphony Center, Ravinia, The Steinway Society, and the International Jazz Educators Convention and most recently NPR's Jazz Piano Christmas Series at John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts in Washington DC, 2016."Steeped in tradition, committed to creativity" is how Bethany describes her Performances, "a musical menu—something for everyone."

Guitar great Bobby Broom knows exactly when he first fell in love with the jazz organ. The magic moment came at age 10 when he put on one of the albums his father had brought home, Charles Earland’s Black Talk! Young Bobby didn’t know or care much about jazz yet. “I was just into music,” he says. But after playing the “Mighty Burner’s” now-classic 1969 album, he was sold. “Something about that record captivated me from the start, the feeling, it was just like that”, says Broom. “It had ‘The Age of Aquarius’ and ‘More Today Than Yesterday,’ songs I knew from the radio. It made me happy. It made me want to dance. And it made me want to listen. I played that album every day, multiple times a day. It completely enthralled me.”When Earland moved to Chicago in the late ’80s for a successful comeback, there was no doubt in Broom’s mind who his guitarist had to be. “I thought, this is my gig, obviously, this is my gig,” says the guitarist, laughing. “There’s no way he moves to Chicago and I’m here and I’m not going to play with him! It was the thing doing its thing!” As documented on Earland albums including Front Burner and Third Degree Burn, the dream gig became a reality, and Broom went on to play and/or record with other Hammond B-3 masters including Jimmy McGriff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Melvin Rhyne and, once, the king of them all, Jimmy Smith. But he has made his strongest mark in this vein with his own organ groups—first the Deep Blue Organ Trio, a Chicago collective featuring Chris Foreman that lasted 25 years, and its ongoing successor, the Bobby Broom Organi-Sation, featuring B-3 whiz Ben Paterson. On the Organi-Sation’s terrific new live album, Jamalot, Broom flashes back as ever to Earland’s treatment of pop hits to reach a wider audience. Half of the album, recorded during his trio’s 2014 tour with Steely Dan, consists of tunes that the legendary pop band’s followers would be familiar with, including Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road,” and Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla”—all of which he had previously recorded. The other songs on Jamalot, recorded in 2019 at Joe and Wayne Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago, address earlier eras of the popular song movement via “Tennessee Waltz,” Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz,” Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low,” and Tadd Dameron’s “Tadd’s Delight.” Different audiences with different expectations but connected by a love of classic melodies. Broom, who had previously opened for Steely Dan with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, initially turned down the invitation to tour with them again. Following the dissolution of the DBOT, he was between organ groups and was uncomfortable with “wrangling” a Hammond player he didn’t know musically or personally. Told of his decision, one of his regular drummers, Makaya McCraven, now a mega-force incontemporary music, got in his ear. “He said, ‘What?What? What are you doing? You can’t not do this, man, ”Broom says with a laugh. Who turns down an opportunity to go on the road withlegends? With McCraven’s help, Broom spun through their lists looking for a worthy candidate. When Paterson’s name came up, it stuck. Broom had never worked with the Philadelphia native,but he had heard him a few times (Paterson was a longtime regular in Chicago tenor great VonFreeman’s band) and liked what he heard. As he had done in drafting key boardist Justin Dillard for his2022 album, Keyed Up, the guitarist went with his hunch. The timing was perfect. Paterson, who had moved to New York, was returning to the Windy City for a gig and would be able to rehearse with the new trio. McCraven and Kobie Watkins, a long time musical partner of Broom’s, would alternate on drums (depending on the needs of their pregnant wives). “Ben was a perfect fit for me, exactly what I was looking for in a new organ trio, which was freedom, ”says Broom. “He has a background in jazz organ tradition, but his sensibility also leans toward pop music, popular song, from past eras, the Great American Songbook as well as rhythm and blues and soul music. His melodic sense is really personal. As much as I love the blues, I don’t want to just hear someone play bluesand that’s it. Ben plays melodies.” “Performing with Bobby is always an exciting proposition, ”says Paterson.“He always puts his whole self fully behind every tune and every note. He never dials it in or simply plays something. Sitting between Bobby’s lead and Kobie or Makaya’s incredible groove, at the heart of the band, is one of my absolute favorite places to be.” Bobby Broom was born in Harlem, New York, on January 18, 1961, and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He had what he calls “intimate relationships” with the tunes that came on his radio. “When my favorite songs came on, they were like friends knocking on my door,” he says. He aspired to one day play some of those great songs, but not until he was ready. He began studying the guitar at age 12,concentrating on jazz under the aegis of Harlem-based guitar instructor Jimmy Carter. A 16-year-old prodigy at the High School of Music and Art(now known as the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts),Broom played in the jazz ensemble and was awarded for Outstanding Jazz Improvisation during his senior year. Chaperoned by Weldon Irvine (an early mentor of his, composer for Freddie Hubbard and Horace Silver, bandleader for Nina Simone, and lyricist of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”),the 16-year-old Broom found himself in an East Side NYC jazz club for the purpose of being taught to sit in. That lesson became a reality for Broom when Al Haig, pianist for Charlie Parker, invited him to join in for a couple of tunes. Impressed by the youngster’s playing, Haig offered him the chance to play with him at Gregory’s on the Upper East Side whenever he wanted. Broom ended up playing two or three times a week there, and also got to play, with great awe, with another notable Bird keyboardist, Walter Bishop, Jr. His albums with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, featuring organist Chris Foreman, included the Stevie Wonder salute, Wonderful! The Organi-Sation made its recorded debut in 2018 with Soul Fingers, which included Curtis Mayfield’s “Get Ready” and the Beatles’ “Come Together.” Of all his achievements, Broom is prouder of none more than his appointment as a tenured Associate Professor of Jazz Guitar and Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University. Awarded a B.A. in music from Columbia College and an M.A. in jazz pedagogy from Northwestern University, he has long been involved in music education, previously teaching at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, DePaul University, Roosevelt University, and the American Conservatory of Music. He also has instructed music students in public high schools throughout Chicago as part of a jazz mentoring program sponsored by the Ravinia Festival Organization and has been an instructor and mentor with the Herbie Hancock Institute.   “I had to let the dust settle on these Steely Dan tour recordings but after ten years, the power and excitement of them, and the connectedness of this group, is something that I want to share with my audience,” says Broom. “I’m eager for them to compare and contrast the concert and club stage performances for similarities and differences, feel the depth of the grooves, dance, hum along, and essentially come on the road with us for the hour of this music.”•

Guitar great Bobby Broom knows exactly when he first fell in love with the jazz organ. The magic moment came at age 10 when he put on one of the albums his father had brought home, Charles Earland’s Black Talk! Young Bobby didn’t know or care much about jazz yet. “I was just into music,” he says. But after playing the “Mighty Burner’s” now-classic 1969 album, he was sold. “Something about that record captivated me from the start, the feeling, it was just like that”, says Broom. “It had ‘The Age of Aquarius’ and ‘More Today Than Yesterday,’ songs I knew from the radio. It made me happy. It made me want to dance. And it made me want to listen. I played that album every day, multiple times a day. It completely enthralled me.”When Earland moved to Chicago in the late ’80s for a successful comeback, there was no doubt in Broom’s mind who his guitarist had to be. “I thought, this is my gig, obviously, this is my gig,” says the guitarist, laughing. “There’s no way he moves to Chicago and I’m here and I’m not going to play with him! It was the thing doing its thing!” As documented on Earland albums including Front Burner and Third Degree Burn, the dream gig became a reality, and Broom went on to play and/or record with other Hammond B-3 masters including Jimmy McGriff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Melvin Rhyne and, once, the king of them all, Jimmy Smith. But he has made his strongest mark in this vein with his own organ groups—first the Deep Blue Organ Trio, a Chicago collective featuring Chris Foreman that lasted 25 years, and its ongoing successor, the Bobby Broom Organi-Sation, featuring B-3 whiz Ben Paterson. On the Organi-Sation’s terrific new live album, Jamalot, Broom flashes back as ever to Earland’s treatment of pop hits to reach a wider audience. Half of the album, recorded during his trio’s 2014 tour with Steely Dan, consists of tunes that the legendary pop band’s followers would be familiar with, including Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road,” and Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla”—all of which he had previously recorded. The other songs on Jamalot, recorded in 2019 at Joe and Wayne Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago, address earlier eras of the popular song movement via “Tennessee Waltz,” Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz,” Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low,” and Tadd Dameron’s “Tadd’s Delight.” Different audiences with different expectations but connected by a love of classic melodies. Broom, who had previously opened for Steely Dan with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, initially turned down the invitation to tour with them again. Following the dissolution of the DBOT, he was between organ groups and was uncomfortable with “wrangling” a Hammond player he didn’t know musically or personally. Told of his decision, one of his regular drummers, Makaya McCraven, now a mega-force incontemporary music, got in his ear. “He said, ‘What?What? What are you doing? You can’t not do this, man, ”Broom says with a laugh. Who turns down an opportunity to go on the road withlegends? With McCraven’s help, Broom spun through their lists looking for a worthy candidate. When Paterson’s name came up, it stuck. Broom had never worked with the Philadelphia native,but he had heard him a few times (Paterson was a longtime regular in Chicago tenor great VonFreeman’s band) and liked what he heard. As he had done in drafting key boardist Justin Dillard for his2022 album, Keyed Up, the guitarist went with his hunch. The timing was perfect. Paterson, who had moved to New York, was returning to the Windy City for a gig and would be able to rehearse with the new trio. McCraven and Kobie Watkins, a long time musical partner of Broom’s, would alternate on drums (depending on the needs of their pregnant wives). “Ben was a perfect fit for me, exactly what I was looking for in a new organ trio, which was freedom, ”says Broom. “He has a background in jazz organ tradition, but his sensibility also leans toward pop music, popular song, from past eras, the Great American Songbook as well as rhythm and blues and soul music. His melodic sense is really personal. As much as I love the blues, I don’t want to just hear someone play bluesand that’s it. Ben plays melodies.” “Performing with Bobby is always an exciting proposition, ”says Paterson.“He always puts his whole self fully behind every tune and every note. He never dials it in or simply plays something. Sitting between Bobby’s lead and Kobie or Makaya’s incredible groove, at the heart of the band, is one of my absolute favorite places to be.” Bobby Broom was born in Harlem, New York, on January 18, 1961, and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He had what he calls “intimate relationships” with the tunes that came on his radio. “When my favorite songs came on, they were like friends knocking on my door,” he says. He aspired to one day play some of those great songs, but not until he was ready. He began studying the guitar at age 12,concentrating on jazz under the aegis of Harlem-based guitar instructor Jimmy Carter. A 16-year-old prodigy at the High School of Music and Art(now known as the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts),Broom played in the jazz ensemble and was awarded for Outstanding Jazz Improvisation during his senior year. Chaperoned by Weldon Irvine (an early mentor of his, composer for Freddie Hubbard and Horace Silver, bandleader for Nina Simone, and lyricist of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”),the 16-year-old Broom found himself in an East Side NYC jazz club for the purpose of being taught to sit in. That lesson became a reality for Broom when Al Haig, pianist for Charlie Parker, invited him to join in for a couple of tunes. Impressed by the youngster’s playing, Haig offered him the chance to play with him at Gregory’s on the Upper East Side whenever he wanted. Broom ended up playing two or three times a week there, and also got to play, with great awe, with another notable Bird keyboardist, Walter Bishop, Jr. His albums with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, featuring organist Chris Foreman, included the Stevie Wonder salute, Wonderful! The Organi-Sation made its recorded debut in 2018 with Soul Fingers, which included Curtis Mayfield’s “Get Ready” and the Beatles’ “Come Together.” Of all his achievements, Broom is prouder of none more than his appointment as a tenured Associate Professor of Jazz Guitar and Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University. Awarded a B.A. in music from Columbia College and an M.A. in jazz pedagogy from Northwestern University, he has long been involved in music education, previously teaching at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, DePaul University, Roosevelt University, and the American Conservatory of Music. He also has instructed music students in public high schools throughout Chicago as part of a jazz mentoring program sponsored by the Ravinia Festival Organization and has been an instructor and mentor with the Herbie Hancock Institute.   “I had to let the dust settle on these Steely Dan tour recordings but after ten years, the power and excitement of them, and the connectedness of this group, is something that I want to share with my audience,” says Broom. “I’m eager for them to compare and contrast the concert and club stage performances for similarities and differences, feel the depth of the grooves, dance, hum along, and essentially come on the road with us for the hour of this music.”•

Guitar great Bobby Broom knows exactly when he first fell in love with the jazz organ. The magic moment came at age 10 when he put on one of the albums his father had brought home, Charles Earland’s Black Talk! Young Bobby didn’t know or care much about jazz yet. “I was just into music,” he says. But after playing the “Mighty Burner’s” now-classic 1969 album, he was sold. “Something about that record captivated me from the start, the feeling, it was just like that”, says Broom. “It had ‘The Age of Aquarius’ and ‘More Today Than Yesterday,’ songs I knew from the radio. It made me happy. It made me want to dance. And it made me want to listen. I played that album every day, multiple times a day. It completely enthralled me.”When Earland moved to Chicago in the late ’80s for a successful comeback, there was no doubt in Broom’s mind who his guitarist had to be. “I thought, this is my gig, obviously, this is my gig,” says the guitarist, laughing. “There’s no way he moves to Chicago and I’m here and I’m not going to play with him! It was the thing doing its thing!” As documented on Earland albums including Front Burner and Third Degree Burn, the dream gig became a reality, and Broom went on to play and/or record with other Hammond B-3 masters including Jimmy McGriff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Melvin Rhyne and, once, the king of them all, Jimmy Smith. But he has made his strongest mark in this vein with his own organ groups—first the Deep Blue Organ Trio, a Chicago collective featuring Chris Foreman that lasted 25 years, and its ongoing successor, the Bobby Broom Organi-Sation, featuring B-3 whiz Ben Paterson. On the Organi-Sation’s terrific new live album, Jamalot, Broom flashes back as ever to Earland’s treatment of pop hits to reach a wider audience. Half of the album, recorded during his trio’s 2014 tour with Steely Dan, consists of tunes that the legendary pop band’s followers would be familiar with, including Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road,” and Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla”—all of which he had previously recorded. The other songs on Jamalot, recorded in 2019 at Joe and Wayne Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago, address earlier eras of the popular song movement via “Tennessee Waltz,” Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz,” Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low,” and Tadd Dameron’s “Tadd’s Delight.” Different audiences with different expectations but connected by a love of classic melodies. Broom, who had previously opened for Steely Dan with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, initially turned down the invitation to tour with them again. Following the dissolution of the DBOT, he was between organ groups and was uncomfortable with “wrangling” a Hammond player he didn’t know musically or personally. Told of his decision, one of his regular drummers, Makaya McCraven, now a mega-force incontemporary music, got in his ear. “He said, ‘What?What? What are you doing? You can’t not do this, man, ”Broom says with a laugh. Who turns down an opportunity to go on the road withlegends? With McCraven’s help, Broom spun through their lists looking for a worthy candidate. When Paterson’s name came up, it stuck. Broom had never worked with the Philadelphia native,but he had heard him a few times (Paterson was a longtime regular in Chicago tenor great VonFreeman’s band) and liked what he heard. As he had done in drafting key boardist Justin Dillard for his2022 album, Keyed Up, the guitarist went with his hunch. The timing was perfect. Paterson, who had moved to New York, was returning to the Windy City for a gig and would be able to rehearse with the new trio. McCraven and Kobie Watkins, a long time musical partner of Broom’s, would alternate on drums (depending on the needs of their pregnant wives). “Ben was a perfect fit for me, exactly what I was looking for in a new organ trio, which was freedom, ”says Broom. “He has a background in jazz organ tradition, but his sensibility also leans toward pop music, popular song, from past eras, the Great American Songbook as well as rhythm and blues and soul music. His melodic sense is really personal. As much as I love the blues, I don’t want to just hear someone play bluesand that’s it. Ben plays melodies.” “Performing with Bobby is always an exciting proposition, ”says Paterson.“He always puts his whole self fully behind every tune and every note. He never dials it in or simply plays something. Sitting between Bobby’s lead and Kobie or Makaya’s incredible groove, at the heart of the band, is one of my absolute favorite places to be.” Bobby Broom was born in Harlem, New York, on January 18, 1961, and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He had what he calls “intimate relationships” with the tunes that came on his radio. “When my favorite songs came on, they were like friends knocking on my door,” he says. He aspired to one day play some of those great songs, but not until he was ready. He began studying the guitar at age 12,concentrating on jazz under the aegis of Harlem-based guitar instructor Jimmy Carter. A 16-year-old prodigy at the High School of Music and Art(now known as the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts),Broom played in the jazz ensemble and was awarded for Outstanding Jazz Improvisation during his senior year. Chaperoned by Weldon Irvine (an early mentor of his, composer for Freddie Hubbard and Horace Silver, bandleader for Nina Simone, and lyricist of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”),the 16-year-old Broom found himself in an East Side NYC jazz club for the purpose of being taught to sit in. That lesson became a reality for Broom when Al Haig, pianist for Charlie Parker, invited him to join in for a couple of tunes. Impressed by the youngster’s playing, Haig offered him the chance to play with him at Gregory’s on the Upper East Side whenever he wanted. Broom ended up playing two or three times a week there, and also got to play, with great awe, with another notable Bird keyboardist, Walter Bishop, Jr. His albums with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, featuring organist Chris Foreman, included the Stevie Wonder salute, Wonderful! The Organi-Sation made its recorded debut in 2018 with Soul Fingers, which included Curtis Mayfield’s “Get Ready” and the Beatles’ “Come Together.” Of all his achievements, Broom is prouder of none more than his appointment as a tenured Associate Professor of Jazz Guitar and Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University. Awarded a B.A. in music from Columbia College and an M.A. in jazz pedagogy from Northwestern University, he has long been involved in music education, previously teaching at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, DePaul University, Roosevelt University, and the American Conservatory of Music. He also has instructed music students in public high schools throughout Chicago as part of a jazz mentoring program sponsored by the Ravinia Festival Organization and has been an instructor and mentor with the Herbie Hancock Institute.   “I had to let the dust settle on these Steely Dan tour recordings but after ten years, the power and excitement of them, and the connectedness of this group, is something that I want to share with my audience,” says Broom. “I’m eager for them to compare and contrast the concert and club stage performances for similarities and differences, feel the depth of the grooves, dance, hum along, and essentially come on the road with us for the hour of this music.”•

Guitar great Bobby Broom knows exactly when he first fell in love with the jazz organ. The magic moment came at age 10 when he put on one of the albums his father had brought home, Charles Earland’s Black Talk! Young Bobby didn’t know or care much about jazz yet. “I was just into music,” he says. But after playing the “Mighty Burner’s” now-classic 1969 album, he was sold. “Something about that record captivated me from the start, the feeling, it was just like that”, says Broom. “It had ‘The Age of Aquarius’ and ‘More Today Than Yesterday,’ songs I knew from the radio. It made me happy. It made me want to dance. And it made me want to listen. I played that album every day, multiple times a day. It completely enthralled me.”When Earland moved to Chicago in the late ’80s for a successful comeback, there was no doubt in Broom’s mind who his guitarist had to be. “I thought, this is my gig, obviously, this is my gig,” says the guitarist, laughing. “There’s no way he moves to Chicago and I’m here and I’m not going to play with him! It was the thing doing its thing!” As documented on Earland albums including Front Burner and Third Degree Burn, the dream gig became a reality, and Broom went on to play and/or record with other Hammond B-3 masters including Jimmy McGriff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Melvin Rhyne and, once, the king of them all, Jimmy Smith. But he has made his strongest mark in this vein with his own organ groups—first the Deep Blue Organ Trio, a Chicago collective featuring Chris Foreman that lasted 25 years, and its ongoing successor, the Bobby Broom Organi-Sation, featuring B-3 whiz Ben Paterson. On the Organi-Sation’s terrific new live album, Jamalot, Broom flashes back as ever to Earland’s treatment of pop hits to reach a wider audience. Half of the album, recorded during his trio’s 2014 tour with Steely Dan, consists of tunes that the legendary pop band’s followers would be familiar with, including Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road,” and Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla”—all of which he had previously recorded. The other songs on Jamalot, recorded in 2019 at Joe and Wayne Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago, address earlier eras of the popular song movement via “Tennessee Waltz,” Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz,” Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low,” and Tadd Dameron’s “Tadd’s Delight.” Different audiences with different expectations but connected by a love of classic melodies. Broom, who had previously opened for Steely Dan with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, initially turned down the invitation to tour with them again. Following the dissolution of the DBOT, he was between organ groups and was uncomfortable with “wrangling” a Hammond player he didn’t know musically or personally. Told of his decision, one of his regular drummers, Makaya McCraven, now a mega-force incontemporary music, got in his ear. “He said, ‘What?What? What are you doing? You can’t not do this, man, ”Broom says with a laugh. Who turns down an opportunity to go on the road withlegends? With McCraven’s help, Broom spun through their lists looking for a worthy candidate. When Paterson’s name came up, it stuck. Broom had never worked with the Philadelphia native,but he had heard him a few times (Paterson was a longtime regular in Chicago tenor great VonFreeman’s band) and liked what he heard. As he had done in drafting key boardist Justin Dillard for his2022 album, Keyed Up, the guitarist went with his hunch. The timing was perfect. Paterson, who had moved to New York, was returning to the Windy City for a gig and would be able to rehearse with the new trio. McCraven and Kobie Watkins, a long time musical partner of Broom’s, would alternate on drums (depending on the needs of their pregnant wives). “Ben was a perfect fit for me, exactly what I was looking for in a new organ trio, which was freedom, ”says Broom. “He has a background in jazz organ tradition, but his sensibility also leans toward pop music, popular song, from past eras, the Great American Songbook as well as rhythm and blues and soul music. His melodic sense is really personal. As much as I love the blues, I don’t want to just hear someone play bluesand that’s it. Ben plays melodies.” “Performing with Bobby is always an exciting proposition, ”says Paterson.“He always puts his whole self fully behind every tune and every note. He never dials it in or simply plays something. Sitting between Bobby’s lead and Kobie or Makaya’s incredible groove, at the heart of the band, is one of my absolute favorite places to be.” Bobby Broom was born in Harlem, New York, on January 18, 1961, and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He had what he calls “intimate relationships” with the tunes that came on his radio. “When my favorite songs came on, they were like friends knocking on my door,” he says. He aspired to one day play some of those great songs, but not until he was ready. He began studying the guitar at age 12,concentrating on jazz under the aegis of Harlem-based guitar instructor Jimmy Carter. A 16-year-old prodigy at the High School of Music and Art(now known as the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts),Broom played in the jazz ensemble and was awarded for Outstanding Jazz Improvisation during his senior year. Chaperoned by Weldon Irvine (an early mentor of his, composer for Freddie Hubbard and Horace Silver, bandleader for Nina Simone, and lyricist of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”),the 16-year-old Broom found himself in an East Side NYC jazz club for the purpose of being taught to sit in. That lesson became a reality for Broom when Al Haig, pianist for Charlie Parker, invited him to join in for a couple of tunes. Impressed by the youngster’s playing, Haig offered him the chance to play with him at Gregory’s on the Upper East Side whenever he wanted. Broom ended up playing two or three times a week there, and also got to play, with great awe, with another notable Bird keyboardist, Walter Bishop, Jr. His albums with the Deep Blue Organ Trio, featuring organist Chris Foreman, included the Stevie Wonder salute, Wonderful! The Organi-Sation made its recorded debut in 2018 with Soul Fingers, which included Curtis Mayfield’s “Get Ready” and the Beatles’ “Come Together.” Of all his achievements, Broom is prouder of none more than his appointment as a tenured Associate Professor of Jazz Guitar and Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University. Awarded a B.A. in music from Columbia College and an M.A. in jazz pedagogy from Northwestern University, he has long been involved in music education, previously teaching at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, DePaul University, Roosevelt University, and the American Conservatory of Music. He also has instructed music students in public high schools throughout Chicago as part of a jazz mentoring program sponsored by the Ravinia Festival Organization and has been an instructor and mentor with the Herbie Hancock Institute.   “I had to let the dust settle on these Steely Dan tour recordings but after ten years, the power and excitement of them, and the connectedness of this group, is something that I want to share with my audience,” says Broom. “I’m eager for them to compare and contrast the concert and club stage performances for similarities and differences, feel the depth of the grooves, dance, hum along, and essentially come on the road with us for the hour of this music.”•

Gabriel Wade - Trumpet Jared Schultz - Alto and Tenor Saxophone Isaiah Jones Jr. - Piano  Nat Lin - Bass Sid Smith IV - Drums Born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Gabriel Wade is a trumpeter, pianist, and educator who has been surrounded by music all his life. He has had the opportunity to play with the Count Basie Orchestra, Cab Calloway Orchestra, Clif Wallace Big Band, Evon J. Sams Quintet/Sextet/Nonet, Reginald Lewis Quintet, and the Marlene Rosenberg Quartet. As a sideman, he has performed at notable venues and festivals such as Andy's Jazz Club, the Elmhurst Jazz Festival, the Chicago Jazz Festival, and the Jazz Showcase.  As a bandleader, he has performed at various locations in the central and southeastern Arkansas area, as well as in the northern Illinois area and at Fulton Street Collective and Angelo's Wine Bar in Chicago, Illinois. Recently, he qualified as a semifinalist in the Jazz Improvisation Division for the International Trumpet Guild's 2024 Ryan Anthony Memorial Trumpet Competition and earned first place in the 2024 Tom Williams Jazz Division of the National Trumpet Competition.

Dawkins has created commissioned works for MacArthur Foundation, Live the Spirit Residency, the Joyce Foundation, Old Town School of Folk Music, the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Sant'Anna Arresi Jazz Festival, Sons d’Hiver Festival, Banliues Bleues Festival, Meet The Composers, the Jazz Institute of Chicago, and the King Arts Complex of Columbus Ohio. Dawkins is an active member of the local arts community and is past Chairman of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He has worked with a myriad of music greats including: Kahil El Zabar, Hamid Drake, Harrison Bankhead, Dee Alexander, Nicole Mitchell. Corey Wilkes, Orbert Davis, Ari Brown, Ramsey Lewis, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Willie Pickens, Malachi Favors, Henry Threadgill, Amina Claudine Myers, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Zim Ngqawana, Feya Faku, Jack McDuff, Don Moye, Jerry Butler, Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, Ben Lamar, Isiah Collier, Alexis Lombre and The Dells. DISCOGRAPHY 2025 Paul Robeson Man of the People. Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing 2023 Fredrick Douglass Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing 2022 Young Masters This Time/ Next Time Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing 2021 Englewood Soweto Exchange Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing 2020 Young Masters In all Directions Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing 2018 Great Black Music Ensemble, Live @ The Currency Exchange Cafe, AACM records 2017 Transient Takes , Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble featuring; Vijay Iyer Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing 2016 The Young Masters Coming of Age, Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing 2014 Ernest Dawkins Live the Spirit Residency Big Band, Memory in The Center An Afro Opera Live the Spirit Residency and Dawk Publishing

Bob Lark is recognized regionally, nationally and internationally as a contemporary jazz educator and performer of integrity. His approach to pedagogy and rehearsal techniques has been noted by participation in professional conferences; publication of articles; compact disc recordings as both a performer and ensemble director; and the direction of numerous student honors ensembles. Down Beat magazine recognized Bob’s work in 2010 with their Jazz Education Achievement Award. In speaking of Lark, jazz icon Clark Terry stated, “He’s a very good trumpet player, a very good musician. He’s paid his dues.” Recordings on the Jazzed Media label include those by The Bob Lark/Phil Woods Quintet, Bob Lark and his Alumni Big Band, and Bob Lark and Friends, with Phil Woods, Rufus Reid, and Jim McNeely. Bob’s playing and writing are also featured on the CD recordings Until You and First Steps on the Hallway label. He is an exclusive Yamaha Performing Artist. Bob is an active clinician, soloist and guest conductor.He has served as host for the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, is the past-president of the Illinois Unit of the International Association for Jazz Education, and has chaired the International Trumpet Guild jazz improvisation competition.For thirty-one years, Dr. Lark served as Professor of Music and Director of Jazz studies at DePaul University, in Chicago. Currently, Bob is the Director of Jazz Studies at Valparaiso University in Indiana.He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in performance from the University of North Texas, having earlier earned a Master’s degree from that school, and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from The Ohio State University.

Joe Farnsworth - drums Sarah Hanahan - saxophone Peter Washington - bass Emmet Cohen - piano (Thursday and Friday) Richard Johnson - piano (Saturday and Sunday) Joe Farnsworth has spent his life on the bandstand with the Kings of music, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton, and George Coleman. He is now sharing what spirit and wisdom the greats gave him with the great young Sarah Hanahan. Sarah is one the greatest young stars on the alto saxophone playing with the spirit of Jackie McLean and Pharaoh Sanders. Nobody sounds like she does. This group lead by the veteran great Joe Farnsworth will play straight from a Pure Heart, with Pure Power! It’s most definitely #timetoswing

Joe Farnsworth - drums Sarah Hanahan - saxophone Peter Washington - bass Emmet Cohen - piano (Thursday and Friday) Richard Johnson - piano (Saturday and Sunday) Joe Farnsworth has spent his life on the bandstand with the Kings of music, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton, and George Coleman. He is now sharing what spirit and wisdom the greats gave him with the great young Sarah Hanahan. Sarah is one the greatest young stars on the alto saxophone playing with the spirit of Jackie McLean and Pharaoh Sanders. Nobody sounds like she does. This group lead by the veteran great Joe Farnsworth will play straight from a Pure Heart, with Pure Power! It’s most definitely #timetoswing

Joe Farnsworth - drums Sarah Hanahan - saxophone Peter Washington - bass Emmet Cohen - piano (Thursday and Friday) Richard Johnson - piano (Saturday and Sunday) Joe Farnsworth has spent his life on the bandstand with the Kings of music, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton, and George Coleman. He is now sharing what spirit and wisdom the greats gave him with the great young Sarah Hanahan. Sarah is one the greatest young stars on the alto saxophone playing with the spirit of Jackie McLean and Pharaoh Sanders. Nobody sounds like she does. This group lead by the veteran great Joe Farnsworth will play straight from a Pure Heart, with Pure Power! It’s most definitely #timetoswing

Joe Farnsworth - drums Sarah Hanahan - saxophone Peter Washington - bass Emmet Cohen - piano (Thursday and Friday) Richard Johnson - piano (Saturday and Sunday) Joe Farnsworth has spent his life on the bandstand with the Kings of music, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton, and George Coleman. He is now sharing what spirit and wisdom the greats gave him with the great young Sarah Hanahan. Sarah is one the greatest young stars on the alto saxophone playing with the spirit of Jackie McLean and Pharaoh Sanders. Nobody sounds like she does. This group lead by the veteran great Joe Farnsworth will play straight from a Pure Heart, with Pure Power! It’s most definitely #timetoswing

Dakarai Barclay is a trumpet player and educator based in Chicago, Illinois. With each performance,  Dakarai seeks to pay homage to the origins of Black American music, in all its forms, and those whose legacies we are indebted to. Outside of leading his own projects, Dakarai has played with musicians such as Willerm Delisfort, Winard Harper, Marlene Rosenberg, Jarrard Harris, Ernest Dawkins, Emma Blau and many more.

Steve Schneck (flugelhorn) Mike Stryker (piano) Scott Mason (bass) Phil Gratteau (drums) Steve Schneck grew up in New York with jazz and classical music in the background and a photo of Louis Armstrong in his bedroom. From the beginning, his mother wanted Steve to be a trumpet player. After learning to play the ukulele (from his Dad) and piano (from his Mom), Steve began studying trumpet at age 9 and he’s been playing the trumpet and flugelhorn for more than 50 years. Steve’s mother taught classical piano, and his father played folk guitar. His extended family, including 4 generations of mandolin players, regularly played music whenever they got together, and they still do. While in high school, Steve studied at the Juilliard, Manhattan and Eastman schools of music, and was a member of the New York State Music Association All-State Jazz Ensemble, McDonald’s Long Island Jazz Ensemble, and Nassau County Jazz Ensemble. He also taught trumpet for two summers at Camp Encore/Coda in Maine. Throughout college, Steve played in the Cornell University Jazz Ensemble, which he also directed during his junior and senior years. While in law school, Steve played in the New York University Jazz Ensemble and in a jazz quintet directed by Joe Lovano. Soon after moving to Chicago, Steve regularly joined jam sessions and gigs with local musicians, and in 1990, Steve started his own group. The Steve Schneck Quartet (www.steveschneckmusic.com) has been playing throughout Chicago for the past 34 years and released 2 CDs: “Together Again” in 1994, and “Dedicated to You,” in 2012. The Steve Schneck Quartet performed at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 2016. Steve was also a member of Marshall Vente’s Project Nine for several years and he has performed throughout Chicago as a side man with other musicians including Pat Mallinger, Jeff Newell, Jim Massoff, Richie Fidoli, Bob Centano, Bob Ojeda, Stuart Rosenberg, John Mose, Frank D’Rone, Don Stiernberg, Dave Baney, Curt Morrison, Neil Soroka, Jimmy Ryan, Don Stilley, Frank Caruso, John Baney, Eric Hochberg, Nick Tountas, Alejo Poveda, Izzy Perez, Mo Jennings, Tim Davis and Barrett Deems. In September 2022, Steve joined New Orleans clarinetist Doreen Ketchens and her quartet at the Sisters Folk Festival in Oregon. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VckPQkgF578) Since 2009, Steve has volunteered as the Director of the Hawthorne Scholastic Academy (a Chicago public elementary school) Jazz Ensemble, for musicians in grades 5 through 8. Steve created the ensemble and arranges all of its music. In 2016 and 2018, the Hawthorne Jazz Ensemble performed at the Chicago Public Schools Jazz Festival. In September 2024, while continuing to lead the Hawthorne Jazz Ensemble, Steve started another elementary school Jazz Ensemble at the Rogers Park Montessori School, where he arranges all of the music and directs an ensemble of musicians in grades 4-8.

Cameron Pfiffner/ Saxophones and Flute Pat Mallinger / Saxophones  Pete Benson / Organ Neil Hemphill/  Drums  Founded around 1990, Sabertooth is led by two saxophonists:  Cameron Pfiffner & Pat Mallinger. The band started out with the unique pairing of its two lead reedmen at an old musicians hang called Jazz Bulls in Lincoln Park West neighborhood of Chicago. From that night’s collaboration the idea of Sabertooth began to take shape with a driving force behind the widely varied stylings best summed up as, “just groove it”. Sabertooth has often ventured beyond soul-jazz and hard bop and moved into post-bop and modal territory with John Coltrane’s modal recordings of the early to mid-’60s influencing the groups sound. Sabertooth is both a post-bop group and a soul-jazz/hard bop group with a highly diverse repertoire that includes many original compositions and jazz classics by Duke Ellington, Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter, Lester Young, John Coltrane, as well as covers by the Beatles, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bob Marley. Special invited guests who have performed with Sabertooth have included Harry Conick Jr., Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis Band, Jack McDuff, Joey DeFrancesco, Umphrey’s Mcgee Band, and many others. Sabertooth has also performed for numerous jazz festivals, concerts and private engagements.

Chicago musician Abigail Riccards has made an international name for herself in the jazz and pop music community for nearly 20 years. After launching her career in New York City in 2002 at storied clubs like Birdland, the Jazz Standard, Smalls, and the Kitano, she garnered praise as a selected semifinalist in the 2004 Thelonius Monk International Jazz Competition. After nearly a decade on the east coast, Riccards broadened her scope to the iconic Chicago jazz scene, where she frequently headlines legendary clubs such as the Green Mill, the Jazz Showcase, and Winter’s Jazz Club. After releasing her 3rd studio album in 2013, she performed on the main stage at the Chicago Jazz Festival with Matt Wilson’s Honey and Salt tour. She has also collaborated with artists such as Jane Monheit, Peter Bernstein, Joel Frahm, and Mulgrew Miller.

Chicago musician Abigail Riccards has made an international name for herself in the jazz and pop music community for nearly 20 years. After launching her career in New York City in 2002 at storied clubs like Birdland, the Jazz Standard, Smalls, and the Kitano, she garnered praise as a selected semifinalist in the 2004 Thelonius Monk International Jazz Competition. After nearly a decade on the east coast, Riccards broadened her scope to the iconic Chicago jazz scene, where she frequently headlines legendary clubs such as the Green Mill, the Jazz Showcase, and Winter’s Jazz Club. After releasing her 3rd studio album in 2013, she performed on the main stage at the Chicago Jazz Festival with Matt Wilson’s Honey and Salt tour. She has also collaborated with artists such as Jane Monheit, Peter Bernstein, Joel Frahm, and Mulgrew Miller.

Chicago musician Abigail Riccards has made an international name for herself in the jazz and pop music community for nearly 20 years. After launching her career in New York City in 2002 at storied clubs like Birdland, the Jazz Standard, Smalls, and the Kitano, she garnered praise as a selected semifinalist in the 2004 Thelonius Monk International Jazz Competition. After nearly a decade on the east coast, Riccards broadened her scope to the iconic Chicago jazz scene, where she frequently headlines legendary clubs such as the Green Mill, the Jazz Showcase, and Winter’s Jazz Club. After releasing her 3rd studio album in 2013, she performed on the main stage at the Chicago Jazz Festival with Matt Wilson’s Honey and Salt tour. She has also collaborated with artists such as Jane Monheit, Peter Bernstein, Joel Frahm, and Mulgrew Miller.

Chicago musician Abigail Riccards has made an international name for herself in the jazz and pop music community for nearly 20 years. After launching her career in New York City in 2002 at storied clubs like Birdland, the Jazz Standard, Smalls, and the Kitano, she garnered praise as a selected semifinalist in the 2004 Thelonius Monk International Jazz Competition. After nearly a decade on the east coast, Riccards broadened her scope to the iconic Chicago jazz scene, where she frequently headlines legendary clubs such as the Green Mill, the Jazz Showcase, and Winter’s Jazz Club. After releasing her 3rd studio album in 2013, she performed on the main stage at the Chicago Jazz Festival with Matt Wilson’s Honey and Salt tour. She has also collaborated with artists such as Jane Monheit, Peter Bernstein, Joel Frahm, and Mulgrew Miller.

In August 1979, the ensemble was the opening band on the first night of the First Annual Chicago Jazz Festival. 46 years later, the CJO stands as not only the oldest professional big band in Chicago, but also the second oldest professional civic jazz orchestra in the United States (second only to the Columbus Jazz Orchestra).

Petra's Recession Seven: Petra van Nuis - vocals Art Davis - trumpet Eric Schneider - reeds Russ Phillips - trombone Andy Brown - guitar Dan DeLorenzo - bass Bob Rummage - drums At the start of the Great Recession in September 2008, Petra's Recession Seven, an authentic Chicago-style jazz band was born at Chicago's legendary Green Mill. The seven piece ensemble is led by Petra van Nuis, a vocalist praised by the Chicago Tribune for her "interpretive savvy...light-and-silvery vocals and, better still, saucy manner of delivery that emphasizes the art of the double entendre." Petra's Recession Seven features a front line of all-star internationally known Chicago veteran horn players. Trombonist Russ Phillips grew up "in the wings" listening to his dad, Russ Phillips Sr. play trombone in Louis Armstrong's All-Stars. Russ Jr. decided to follow in his dad's footsteps, and in addition to Chicago performances is a popular fixture on mainstream jazz festivals and cruises. Reedist Eric Schneider began his early career as a member of the bands of Count Basie and Earl Fatha Hines. Since then, Eric has played with many legends including Benny Goodman, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald and continues to be one of the busiest working musicians in Chicago. Trumpeter Art Davis is charter member of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra and a highly respected jazz educator. Early in his career, Art toured with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney and continues to be the top call trumpeter for musicians touring through Chicago. The swinging rhythm section of bassist Dan Delorenzo and drummer Bob Rummage is led by guitarist Andy Brown, recognized in Downbeat Magazine's annual critics poll as a “rising star.” In their hometown of Chicago, Petra's Recession Seven is a big hit at the Jazz Showcase, the Green Mill, Andy's Jazz Club, Winter's Jazz Club and Fitzgerald's. Festival performances include the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Cedar Basin Jazz Festival, the Juvae Jazz Festival and the American Music Festival. Regionally, the Recession Seven has played jazz societies including the Madison Jazz Society, the Starr-Gennett Foundation, the Illiana Jazz Club, the "Masters of Swing" series at Cincinnati's Xavier University, the Lafayette Jazz Club and the Indianapolis Jazz Club. The American Rag, in a review of the band's 2011 on location recording "Live In Chicago" praises “a killer of a band that grabs your attention and doesn't give it back until they are finished playing." www.petrasings.com

CHRIS FOREMAN Chris Foreman is a masterful musician and heir to the throne occupied by the soulful, bluesy jazz organ legends who were once his influence. Blind at birth, Foreman started playing piano at age five and began formal training at seven. As a teenager he was attracted to the organ sounds of Jack McDuff, Groove Holmes, JimmySmith and Jimmy McGriff. This attraction led Chris to pursue playing jazz on the organ, which he undertook through intensive study of recordings. Unlike many African- American musicians whose musical knowledge begins and is established through the church, Chris didn't start his apprenticeship as a church organist until he was almost twenty years old - well after his jazz roots were established. He has arrived at a most exciting blend of blues-gospel and jazz and has developed a stunning command and range on the instrument. The blend of his sound is evident in his professional experience, which has included work with Hank Crawford, Albert Collins, Bernard Purdie, The Mighty Blue Kings and Deep Blue Organ Trio. GREG ROCKINGHAM Drummer Greg Rockingham began playing when he was just three years old and debuted as a professional musician at age five in his father's jazz ensemble. An alumnus of the famed Interlochen Arts Academy and Northeastern University, he has won numerous musical awards from the Notre Dame Jazz Festival. Greg has performed or recorded with a wide range of famous names, including the orchestras of Glenn Miller and Guy Lombardo, vocalists Freddie Cole, Patty Page and Jerry Vale and instrumentalists Nat Adderley, Kenny Burrell, Charles Earland, Irene Reid, Ellis Marsalis, Nancy Wilson, and Deep Blue Organ Trio. GREG JUNG Greg Jung is a Chicago based alto saxophonist, originally from Albany, NY. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from SUNY Purchase where he studied with Jon Gordon, Ralph Lalama, Gary Smulyan, Mark Vinci, Steve Wilson, Todd Coolman, Jon Faddis, Hal Galper, Charles Blenzig and others. In 2014 Greg won the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition, and traveled to perform that year in Paris, France. He spent three years in NYC before deciding to travel the country, performing in clubs and on the street in many of America’s great cities and small towns. It was in this way that he ended up in Chicago, where he has performed at venues like the Green Mill, Andy’s, Winters, Hungry Brain and the Chicago Jazz Festival. Since emerging onto the scene, he has shared the stage with many of the world class musicians that reside in the city. Greg received the Chicago Luminarts Cultural Foundation Fellowship in 2023.

For as long as she’s been a recording artist, the Chilean-born tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana has wanted to make a ballads record. With archetypes like John Coltrane’s classic 1963 LP Ballads as her North Star, Aldana saw a slow-tempo project as a way to advance her lifelong quest for sound. Not volume, or technical flash, or even advanced harmonic exploration, but sound: the way the overtones of her tenor can caress an aching melody; the way the sonic presence of her saxophone can move throughout a room, filling it from top to bottom with shifting colors. “I transcribe Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Don Byas, among many others. For them the sound itself is a tool to express an emotion,” she explains. “Every single note is a whole world. So there is a technical side to playing, but then there is this mystical side of sound that… I still don’t know exactly what it is.” A ballads record, she believed, would help her burrow deeper into the essence of her sound. But how could she approach the concept in a way that’s true to her unique vision? Over the past 15 years, Aldana has moved from one strikingly personal project to the next, matching her reputation as a brilliant, diligent saxophonist with her ever-growing gift as a storyteller. A rote exercise in jazz standards simply wouldn’t do. To start, she reached out to the revered pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba, one of her “biggest heroes” and an artist she has longed to work with at project-length. His suggestion proved a revelation: Aldana should interpret the filin music of his native Cuba, a gorgeous yet still-unheralded tradition of richly arranged romantic song that thrived between the late 1940s and early 1960s. Filin — the word derives from “feeling” — “created a dialogue between traditional Cuban trova, the bolero and jazz, redefining Cuban musical identity,” Rubalcaba explains. “Filin elevated lyrics to a level of greater poetic and colloquial intimacy, and gave rise to instrumentalists and singers of great virtuosity and creative elegance.” Born in Havana in 1963, Rubalcaba grew up surrounded by professional musicians, and met many of the titans of filin as a child — among them the guitarist and composer Ñico Rojas, the pianist and composer Frank Domínguez, and the singers Omara Portuondo and Elena Burke. The style enjoyed a vital omnipresence throughout his upbringing, and its impact on his own music has been profound. “Filin, its repertoire and nature,” he says, “remains a compositional reference that I constantly return to.” To Aldana, filin songs presented a deeply meaningful new ideal: They reminded her of the lovelorn standards she’d internalized as a jazz saxophonist, but with lyrics sung in her native tongue. “They felt like the ballads that I love from the Great American Songbook,” she says, “but because the lyrics are in Spanish, I was able to connect to these songs in a way that I never thought I could.” With Rubalcaba as her guide, she began exploring the history of filin music and working with him to pare down the songs that spoke to her. A plan coalesced: Rubalcaba would craft the arrangements and play piano, alongside the rhythm tandem of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kush Abadey. Aldana’s dear friend, the best-of-generation vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, would sing on two numbers, and Blue Note Records President Don Was would produce, offering his trademark oversight, at once discerning, empathic and open. Aldana put the repertoire through the same in-depth process she employs on all of her projects, carefully transcribing the melodies from vocal versions while also learning the lyrics and their intent. All the musicians recorded Filin together in the same room, without an overabundance of rehearsal. “There is something about being able to feel the person next to you,” she says. “There’s a magic that doesn’t happen when you just have the headphones.” The end product is, in a word, stunning. It’s also unlike anything else in Aldana’s catalog — or in 21st-century jazz on the whole. Throughout these eight tracks, the ensemble enacts a kind of stirring and emotional minimalism — a quiet intensity that places paramount importance on Aldana’s radiant delivery of the melody. This music moves slowly, simmering forward with great deliberation and restraint, which is all the more impressive once you consider the runaway virtuosity these players are capable of. The arrangements, of course, are deceptively simple rather than truly elementary. “Working with Gonzalo,” Aldana says, “I learned about the importance of details, and of focus. I always think about details, but this kind of next-level musicianship was something I hadn’t experienced.” Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the fact that this incredibly patient program is never less than compelling; like great cinema, it holds its audience rapt without bells and whistles. When Aldana solos, she plays in a way that contrasts the longform harmonic probings she’s best known for. Her improvising here is mellifluous and moves like gossamer, with a newfound focus on accenting the core tunefulness. “I wasn’t trying to play the perfect jazz solo,” she says. “I was just trying to play inside the band — to leave space and be as present as I could, let the songs breathe. I’m older too, so I might be feeling less like I have something to prove.” Filin is the sort of record you live with — the kind of timeless jazz LP you can use to bookend your day. It follows that the album is expertly ordered and paced. Filin opens with the breathtaking melody of “La Sentencia,” by the bolero Salvador Levi co-written with Ela O’Farrill, followed by “Dime Si Eres Tú,” a ballad by Cesar Portillo de la Luz, one of filin’s absolute pioneers. (Listen for the sustained outro, a solo clinic in brushes playing by Abadey. As an arranging decision, it’s an elegantly bold, even provocative, move.) Marta Valdez’s torch song “No Te Empeñes Más,” which features a stunning vocal performance by Salvant, is a song that Aldana recalled her mother playing around the house. The saxophonist was also impacted by the version Rubalcaba recorded with Joe Lovano in 2000, for the Charlie Haden album Nocturne. Frank Domínguez’s “Imágenes,” which Aldana first fell in love with through the recording by guitarist-singer Pablo Milanés, closes out Side A. “Las Rosas No Hablan,” by the Brazilian samba innovator Cartola, was a Rubalcaba selection, though Aldana was familiar with its forlorn beauty from hearing Anat Cohen perform it. Here, Salvant sings the lyrics in Spanish, translated from the original Portuguese. “Little Church” was written by another Brazilian genius, Hermeto Pascoal, and is best known from the electric Miles Davis double LP, Live-Evil. In Aldana’s hands, the composition is pure poignant lyricism, devoid of the eerie surreality that defines the Miles version. (At the core of that atmosphere of unease is Pascoal’s famous whistling.) “This is my favorite track on the album,” says Aldana, “and a song I’ve been playing for a little while with my own band. I just had to record it. I was really thinking hard about how to approach it, and the first person who came to mind was Wayne Shorter.” The two closing numbers, José Antonio Méndez’s “Ocaso” and Frank Domínguez’s “No Pidas Imposibles,” come off especially like ravishing midcentury jazz and pop standards. But, Aldana reiterates, “I felt so much closer to this music. The way that these musicians play the melodies and sing, because of the language, is so different than with American standards. These singers often seem to float above the lyric, with a sense of time that’s freer, flowing.” “I also just felt in my gut that I wanted to do a ballads record,” she adds, “that I have something to say.”

For as long as she’s been a recording artist, the Chilean-born tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana has wanted to make a ballads record. With archetypes like John Coltrane’s classic 1963 LP Ballads as her North Star, Aldana saw a slow-tempo project as a way to advance her lifelong quest for sound. Not volume, or technical flash, or even advanced harmonic exploration, but sound: the way the overtones of her tenor can caress an aching melody; the way the sonic presence of her saxophone can move throughout a room, filling it from top to bottom with shifting colors. “I transcribe Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Don Byas, among many others. For them the sound itself is a tool to express an emotion,” she explains. “Every single note is a whole world. So there is a technical side to playing, but then there is this mystical side of sound that… I still don’t know exactly what it is.” A ballads record, she believed, would help her burrow deeper into the essence of her sound. But how could she approach the concept in a way that’s true to her unique vision? Over the past 15 years, Aldana has moved from one strikingly personal project to the next, matching her reputation as a brilliant, diligent saxophonist with her ever-growing gift as a storyteller. A rote exercise in jazz standards simply wouldn’t do. To start, she reached out to the revered pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba, one of her “biggest heroes” and an artist she has longed to work with at project-length. His suggestion proved a revelation: Aldana should interpret the filin music of his native Cuba, a gorgeous yet still-unheralded tradition of richly arranged romantic song that thrived between the late 1940s and early 1960s. Filin — the word derives from “feeling” — “created a dialogue between traditional Cuban trova, the bolero and jazz, redefining Cuban musical identity,” Rubalcaba explains. “Filin elevated lyrics to a level of greater poetic and colloquial intimacy, and gave rise to instrumentalists and singers of great virtuosity and creative elegance.” Born in Havana in 1963, Rubalcaba grew up surrounded by professional musicians, and met many of the titans of filin as a child — among them the guitarist and composer Ñico Rojas, the pianist and composer Frank Domínguez, and the singers Omara Portuondo and Elena Burke. The style enjoyed a vital omnipresence throughout his upbringing, and its impact on his own music has been profound. “Filin, its repertoire and nature,” he says, “remains a compositional reference that I constantly return to.” To Aldana, filin songs presented a deeply meaningful new ideal: They reminded her of the lovelorn standards she’d internalized as a jazz saxophonist, but with lyrics sung in her native tongue. “They felt like the ballads that I love from the Great American Songbook,” she says, “but because the lyrics are in Spanish, I was able to connect to these songs in a way that I never thought I could.” With Rubalcaba as her guide, she began exploring the history of filin music and working with him to pare down the songs that spoke to her. A plan coalesced: Rubalcaba would craft the arrangements and play piano, alongside the rhythm tandem of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kush Abadey. Aldana’s dear friend, the best-of-generation vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, would sing on two numbers, and Blue Note Records President Don Was would produce, offering his trademark oversight, at once discerning, empathic and open. Aldana put the repertoire through the same in-depth process she employs on all of her projects, carefully transcribing the melodies from vocal versions while also learning the lyrics and their intent. All the musicians recorded Filin together in the same room, without an overabundance of rehearsal. “There is something about being able to feel the person next to you,” she says. “There’s a magic that doesn’t happen when you just have the headphones.” The end product is, in a word, stunning. It’s also unlike anything else in Aldana’s catalog — or in 21st-century jazz on the whole. Throughout these eight tracks, the ensemble enacts a kind of stirring and emotional minimalism — a quiet intensity that places paramount importance on Aldana’s radiant delivery of the melody. This music moves slowly, simmering forward with great deliberation and restraint, which is all the more impressive once you consider the runaway virtuosity these players are capable of. The arrangements, of course, are deceptively simple rather than truly elementary. “Working with Gonzalo,” Aldana says, “I learned about the importance of details, and of focus. I always think about details, but this kind of next-level musicianship was something I hadn’t experienced.” Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the fact that this incredibly patient program is never less than compelling; like great cinema, it holds its audience rapt without bells and whistles. When Aldana solos, she plays in a way that contrasts the longform harmonic probings she’s best known for. Her improvising here is mellifluous and moves like gossamer, with a newfound focus on accenting the core tunefulness. “I wasn’t trying to play the perfect jazz solo,” she says. “I was just trying to play inside the band — to leave space and be as present as I could, let the songs breathe. I’m older too, so I might be feeling less like I have something to prove.” Filin is the sort of record you live with — the kind of timeless jazz LP you can use to bookend your day. It follows that the album is expertly ordered and paced. Filin opens with the breathtaking melody of “La Sentencia,” by the bolero Salvador Levi co-written with Ela O’Farrill, followed by “Dime Si Eres Tú,” a ballad by Cesar Portillo de la Luz, one of filin’s absolute pioneers. (Listen for the sustained outro, a solo clinic in brushes playing by Abadey. As an arranging decision, it’s an elegantly bold, even provocative, move.) Marta Valdez’s torch song “No Te Empeñes Más,” which features a stunning vocal performance by Salvant, is a song that Aldana recalled her mother playing around the house. The saxophonist was also impacted by the version Rubalcaba recorded with Joe Lovano in 2000, for the Charlie Haden album Nocturne. Frank Domínguez’s “Imágenes,” which Aldana first fell in love with through the recording by guitarist-singer Pablo Milanés, closes out Side A. “Las Rosas No Hablan,” by the Brazilian samba innovator Cartola, was a Rubalcaba selection, though Aldana was familiar with its forlorn beauty from hearing Anat Cohen perform it. Here, Salvant sings the lyrics in Spanish, translated from the original Portuguese. “Little Church” was written by another Brazilian genius, Hermeto Pascoal, and is best known from the electric Miles Davis double LP, Live-Evil. In Aldana’s hands, the composition is pure poignant lyricism, devoid of the eerie surreality that defines the Miles version. (At the core of that atmosphere of unease is Pascoal’s famous whistling.) “This is my favorite track on the album,” says Aldana, “and a song I’ve been playing for a little while with my own band. I just had to record it. I was really thinking hard about how to approach it, and the first person who came to mind was Wayne Shorter.” The two closing numbers, José Antonio Méndez’s “Ocaso” and Frank Domínguez’s “No Pidas Imposibles,” come off especially like ravishing midcentury jazz and pop standards. But, Aldana reiterates, “I felt so much closer to this music. The way that these musicians play the melodies and sing, because of the language, is so different than with American standards. These singers often seem to float above the lyric, with a sense of time that’s freer, flowing.” “I also just felt in my gut that I wanted to do a ballads record,” she adds, “that I have something to say.”

For as long as she’s been a recording artist, the Chilean-born tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana has wanted to make a ballads record. With archetypes like John Coltrane’s classic 1963 LP Ballads as her North Star, Aldana saw a slow-tempo project as a way to advance her lifelong quest for sound. Not volume, or technical flash, or even advanced harmonic exploration, but sound: the way the overtones of her tenor can caress an aching melody; the way the sonic presence of her saxophone can move throughout a room, filling it from top to bottom with shifting colors. “I transcribe Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Don Byas, among many others. For them the sound itself is a tool to express an emotion,” she explains. “Every single note is a whole world. So there is a technical side to playing, but then there is this mystical side of sound that… I still don’t know exactly what it is.” A ballads record, she believed, would help her burrow deeper into the essence of her sound. But how could she approach the concept in a way that’s true to her unique vision? Over the past 15 years, Aldana has moved from one strikingly personal project to the next, matching her reputation as a brilliant, diligent saxophonist with her ever-growing gift as a storyteller. A rote exercise in jazz standards simply wouldn’t do. To start, she reached out to the revered pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba, one of her “biggest heroes” and an artist she has longed to work with at project-length. His suggestion proved a revelation: Aldana should interpret the filin music of his native Cuba, a gorgeous yet still-unheralded tradition of richly arranged romantic song that thrived between the late 1940s and early 1960s. Filin — the word derives from “feeling” — “created a dialogue between traditional Cuban trova, the bolero and jazz, redefining Cuban musical identity,” Rubalcaba explains. “Filin elevated lyrics to a level of greater poetic and colloquial intimacy, and gave rise to instrumentalists and singers of great virtuosity and creative elegance.” Born in Havana in 1963, Rubalcaba grew up surrounded by professional musicians, and met many of the titans of filin as a child — among them the guitarist and composer Ñico Rojas, the pianist and composer Frank Domínguez, and the singers Omara Portuondo and Elena Burke. The style enjoyed a vital omnipresence throughout his upbringing, and its impact on his own music has been profound. “Filin, its repertoire and nature,” he says, “remains a compositional reference that I constantly return to.” To Aldana, filin songs presented a deeply meaningful new ideal: They reminded her of the lovelorn standards she’d internalized as a jazz saxophonist, but with lyrics sung in her native tongue. “They felt like the ballads that I love from the Great American Songbook,” she says, “but because the lyrics are in Spanish, I was able to connect to these songs in a way that I never thought I could.” With Rubalcaba as her guide, she began exploring the history of filin music and working with him to pare down the songs that spoke to her. A plan coalesced: Rubalcaba would craft the arrangements and play piano, alongside the rhythm tandem of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kush Abadey. Aldana’s dear friend, the best-of-generation vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, would sing on two numbers, and Blue Note Records President Don Was would produce, offering his trademark oversight, at once discerning, empathic and open. Aldana put the repertoire through the same in-depth process she employs on all of her projects, carefully transcribing the melodies from vocal versions while also learning the lyrics and their intent. All the musicians recorded Filin together in the same room, without an overabundance of rehearsal. “There is something about being able to feel the person next to you,” she says. “There’s a magic that doesn’t happen when you just have the headphones.” The end product is, in a word, stunning. It’s also unlike anything else in Aldana’s catalog — or in 21st-century jazz on the whole. Throughout these eight tracks, the ensemble enacts a kind of stirring and emotional minimalism — a quiet intensity that places paramount importance on Aldana’s radiant delivery of the melody. This music moves slowly, simmering forward with great deliberation and restraint, which is all the more impressive once you consider the runaway virtuosity these players are capable of. The arrangements, of course, are deceptively simple rather than truly elementary. “Working with Gonzalo,” Aldana says, “I learned about the importance of details, and of focus. I always think about details, but this kind of next-level musicianship was something I hadn’t experienced.” Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the fact that this incredibly patient program is never less than compelling; like great cinema, it holds its audience rapt without bells and whistles. When Aldana solos, she plays in a way that contrasts the longform harmonic probings she’s best known for. Her improvising here is mellifluous and moves like gossamer, with a newfound focus on accenting the core tunefulness. “I wasn’t trying to play the perfect jazz solo,” she says. “I was just trying to play inside the band — to leave space and be as present as I could, let the songs breathe. I’m older too, so I might be feeling less like I have something to prove.” Filin is the sort of record you live with — the kind of timeless jazz LP you can use to bookend your day. It follows that the album is expertly ordered and paced. Filin opens with the breathtaking melody of “La Sentencia,” by the bolero Salvador Levi co-written with Ela O’Farrill, followed by “Dime Si Eres Tú,” a ballad by Cesar Portillo de la Luz, one of filin’s absolute pioneers. (Listen for the sustained outro, a solo clinic in brushes playing by Abadey. As an arranging decision, it’s an elegantly bold, even provocative, move.) Marta Valdez’s torch song “No Te Empeñes Más,” which features a stunning vocal performance by Salvant, is a song that Aldana recalled her mother playing around the house. The saxophonist was also impacted by the version Rubalcaba recorded with Joe Lovano in 2000, for the Charlie Haden album Nocturne. Frank Domínguez’s “Imágenes,” which Aldana first fell in love with through the recording by guitarist-singer Pablo Milanés, closes out Side A. “Las Rosas No Hablan,” by the Brazilian samba innovator Cartola, was a Rubalcaba selection, though Aldana was familiar with its forlorn beauty from hearing Anat Cohen perform it. Here, Salvant sings the lyrics in Spanish, translated from the original Portuguese. “Little Church” was written by another Brazilian genius, Hermeto Pascoal, and is best known from the electric Miles Davis double LP, Live-Evil. In Aldana’s hands, the composition is pure poignant lyricism, devoid of the eerie surreality that defines the Miles version. (At the core of that atmosphere of unease is Pascoal’s famous whistling.) “This is my favorite track on the album,” says Aldana, “and a song I’ve been playing for a little while with my own band. I just had to record it. I was really thinking hard about how to approach it, and the first person who came to mind was Wayne Shorter.” The two closing numbers, José Antonio Méndez’s “Ocaso” and Frank Domínguez’s “No Pidas Imposibles,” come off especially like ravishing midcentury jazz and pop standards. But, Aldana reiterates, “I felt so much closer to this music. The way that these musicians play the melodies and sing, because of the language, is so different than with American standards. These singers often seem to float above the lyric, with a sense of time that’s freer, flowing.” “I also just felt in my gut that I wanted to do a ballads record,” she adds, “that I have something to say.”

For as long as she’s been a recording artist, the Chilean-born tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana has wanted to make a ballads record. With archetypes like John Coltrane’s classic 1963 LP Ballads as her North Star, Aldana saw a slow-tempo project as a way to advance her lifelong quest for sound. Not volume, or technical flash, or even advanced harmonic exploration, but sound: the way the overtones of her tenor can caress an aching melody; the way the sonic presence of her saxophone can move throughout a room, filling it from top to bottom with shifting colors. “I transcribe Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Don Byas, among many others. For them the sound itself is a tool to express an emotion,” she explains. “Every single note is a whole world. So there is a technical side to playing, but then there is this mystical side of sound that… I still don’t know exactly what it is.” A ballads record, she believed, would help her burrow deeper into the essence of her sound. But how could she approach the concept in a way that’s true to her unique vision? Over the past 15 years, Aldana has moved from one strikingly personal project to the next, matching her reputation as a brilliant, diligent saxophonist with her ever-growing gift as a storyteller. A rote exercise in jazz standards simply wouldn’t do. To start, she reached out to the revered pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba, one of her “biggest heroes” and an artist she has longed to work with at project-length. His suggestion proved a revelation: Aldana should interpret the filin music of his native Cuba, a gorgeous yet still-unheralded tradition of richly arranged romantic song that thrived between the late 1940s and early 1960s. Filin — the word derives from “feeling” — “created a dialogue between traditional Cuban trova, the bolero and jazz, redefining Cuban musical identity,” Rubalcaba explains. “Filin elevated lyrics to a level of greater poetic and colloquial intimacy, and gave rise to instrumentalists and singers of great virtuosity and creative elegance.” Born in Havana in 1963, Rubalcaba grew up surrounded by professional musicians, and met many of the titans of filin as a child — among them the guitarist and composer Ñico Rojas, the pianist and composer Frank Domínguez, and the singers Omara Portuondo and Elena Burke. The style enjoyed a vital omnipresence throughout his upbringing, and its impact on his own music has been profound. “Filin, its repertoire and nature,” he says, “remains a compositional reference that I constantly return to.” To Aldana, filin songs presented a deeply meaningful new ideal: They reminded her of the lovelorn standards she’d internalized as a jazz saxophonist, but with lyrics sung in her native tongue. “They felt like the ballads that I love from the Great American Songbook,” she says, “but because the lyrics are in Spanish, I was able to connect to these songs in a way that I never thought I could.” With Rubalcaba as her guide, she began exploring the history of filin music and working with him to pare down the songs that spoke to her. A plan coalesced: Rubalcaba would craft the arrangements and play piano, alongside the rhythm tandem of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kush Abadey. Aldana’s dear friend, the best-of-generation vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, would sing on two numbers, and Blue Note Records President Don Was would produce, offering his trademark oversight, at once discerning, empathic and open. Aldana put the repertoire through the same in-depth process she employs on all of her projects, carefully transcribing the melodies from vocal versions while also learning the lyrics and their intent. All the musicians recorded Filin together in the same room, without an overabundance of rehearsal. “There is something about being able to feel the person next to you,” she says. “There’s a magic that doesn’t happen when you just have the headphones.” The end product is, in a word, stunning. It’s also unlike anything else in Aldana’s catalog — or in 21st-century jazz on the whole. Throughout these eight tracks, the ensemble enacts a kind of stirring and emotional minimalism — a quiet intensity that places paramount importance on Aldana’s radiant delivery of the melody. This music moves slowly, simmering forward with great deliberation and restraint, which is all the more impressive once you consider the runaway virtuosity these players are capable of. The arrangements, of course, are deceptively simple rather than truly elementary. “Working with Gonzalo,” Aldana says, “I learned about the importance of details, and of focus. I always think about details, but this kind of next-level musicianship was something I hadn’t experienced.” Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the fact that this incredibly patient program is never less than compelling; like great cinema, it holds its audience rapt without bells and whistles. When Aldana solos, she plays in a way that contrasts the longform harmonic probings she’s best known for. Her improvising here is mellifluous and moves like gossamer, with a newfound focus on accenting the core tunefulness. “I wasn’t trying to play the perfect jazz solo,” she says. “I was just trying to play inside the band — to leave space and be as present as I could, let the songs breathe. I’m older too, so I might be feeling less like I have something to prove.” Filin is the sort of record you live with — the kind of timeless jazz LP you can use to bookend your day. It follows that the album is expertly ordered and paced. Filin opens with the breathtaking melody of “La Sentencia,” by the bolero Salvador Levi co-written with Ela O’Farrill, followed by “Dime Si Eres Tú,” a ballad by Cesar Portillo de la Luz, one of filin’s absolute pioneers. (Listen for the sustained outro, a solo clinic in brushes playing by Abadey. As an arranging decision, it’s an elegantly bold, even provocative, move.) Marta Valdez’s torch song “No Te Empeñes Más,” which features a stunning vocal performance by Salvant, is a song that Aldana recalled her mother playing around the house. The saxophonist was also impacted by the version Rubalcaba recorded with Joe Lovano in 2000, for the Charlie Haden album Nocturne. Frank Domínguez’s “Imágenes,” which Aldana first fell in love with through the recording by guitarist-singer Pablo Milanés, closes out Side A. “Las Rosas No Hablan,” by the Brazilian samba innovator Cartola, was a Rubalcaba selection, though Aldana was familiar with its forlorn beauty from hearing Anat Cohen perform it. Here, Salvant sings the lyrics in Spanish, translated from the original Portuguese. “Little Church” was written by another Brazilian genius, Hermeto Pascoal, and is best known from the electric Miles Davis double LP, Live-Evil. In Aldana’s hands, the composition is pure poignant lyricism, devoid of the eerie surreality that defines the Miles version. (At the core of that atmosphere of unease is Pascoal’s famous whistling.) “This is my favorite track on the album,” says Aldana, “and a song I’ve been playing for a little while with my own band. I just had to record it. I was really thinking hard about how to approach it, and the first person who came to mind was Wayne Shorter.” The two closing numbers, José Antonio Méndez’s “Ocaso” and Frank Domínguez’s “No Pidas Imposibles,” come off especially like ravishing midcentury jazz and pop standards. But, Aldana reiterates, “I felt so much closer to this music. The way that these musicians play the melodies and sing, because of the language, is so different than with American standards. These singers often seem to float above the lyric, with a sense of time that’s freer, flowing.” “I also just felt in my gut that I wanted to do a ballads record,” she adds, “that I have something to say.”

In August 1979, the ensemble was the opening band on the first night of the First Annual Chicago Jazz Festival. 46 years later, the CJO stands as not only the oldest professional big band in Chicago, but also the second oldest professional civic jazz orchestra in the United States (second only to the Columbus Jazz Orchestra).

Charles “Rick” Heath IV is a world renowned drummer, educator, producer who has toured and recorded with Ramsey Lewis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Phillip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire, and many others. Charles is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia College and the University of Illinois (Circle Campus). Charles Heath is constantly breaking barriers as a humanitarian and musicians'; leading with first class professionalism and style.

Charles “Rick” Heath IV is a world renowned drummer, educator, producer who has toured and recorded with Ramsey Lewis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Phillip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire, and many others. Charles is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia College and the University of Illinois (Circle Campus). Charles Heath is constantly breaking barriers as a humanitarian and musicians'; leading with first class professionalism and style.