Hear music from Chicago by composer Renée Baker and CMOP, trumpeter Ben LaMar Gay, cellist Shannon Hayden, drummer Makaya McCraven, post-rockers Tortoise, and the quintet Dos Santos.
Hear work from Chicago-based composer, conductor, violinist/violist, Renée Baker, who is the founding music director and conductor of the internationally acclaimed Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP). CMOP might look to be structured like a big band, but is an ensemble fluent in classical, jazz, and improvised music and aims to “break barriers regarding the marriage of classical and other creative forms.” Listen to Renée Baker and the disruptive new music ensemble CMOP in Baker’s composition, “Warm Broth.”
Then there’s music from Trumpeter and cornet player Ben LaMar Gay, born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. He’s worked with Jaimie Branch, Makaya McCraven and Joshua Abrams, as well as Renée Baker in CMOP. Hear buoyant, dynamic, and melodic music for quartet from his just-unearthed music and storytelling record 500 Chains, 1 of 7 previously-unreleased back-catalogue albums.
Listen also to music by drummer, composer, and producer Makaya McCraven from his Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape). Recorded with tuba player Theon Cross, and sax player Nubya Garcia, along with other collaborators in London, McCraven then recomposed these live sessions for the record; we’ll hear “Halls” perhaps two parts groove, one part dance, and a little bit systems music.
Hear Latinx- and jazz-rooted psychedelic groove from the quintet Dos Santos, aided and abetted by the Antibalas horns, from their record, Logos. Then, listen to an “energy symphony” by Mason Bates for orchestra and laptop, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and premiered under the baton of CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti. Listen to the second movement of “Alternative Energy,” which features actual recordings of the FermiLab particle collider, “jazzy brass interjections and joyous voltage surges.”
There’s also “guerilla classical”, in a rather ambient electronic music kind of way from cellist Shannon Hayden along with music from the Chicago-based post-rock folk-jazz quartet, Darts & Arrows, led by guitarist Bill MacKay and featuring Renée Baker on viola. Plus, music from post-rock progenitors, Tortoise. - Caryn Havlik
#4166: New Music from Chicago (First aired 10/26/2018)
ARTIST: Renée Baker's Chicago Modern Orchestra Project
WORK: Renée Baker: Warm Broth [1:00]
RECORDING: Empty Vessel
SOURCE/INFO: reneebakerschicagomodernorchestraproject.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Dos Santos and the ANTIBALAS horn section
WORK: Logos [3:50]
RECORDING: Logos
SOURCE: International Anthem
INFO: intlanthem.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Ben LaMar Gay
WORK: Lamps [11:18]
RECORDING: 500 Chains
SOURCE: International Anthem
INFO: intlanthem.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Makaya McCraven, ft. Soweto Kinch - saxophone, voice; Theon Cross - tuba; Joe Armon-Jones - Rhodes piano; Nubya Garcia - saxophone; Kamaal Williams - keys.
WORK: Halls [3:49]
RECORDING: Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape)
SOURCE: International Anthem
INFO: intlanthem.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Renée Baker's Chicago Modern Orchestra Project
WORK: Renée Baker: Warm Broth [7:42]
RECORDING: Empty Vessel
SOURCE/INFO: reneebakerschicagomodernorchestraproject.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Darts & Arrows
WORK: Evergreen [5:13]
RECORDING: Altamira
SOURCE: Ears & eyes Records ee:15-033
INFO: billmackay.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Riccardo Muti
WORK: Mason Bates: Alternative Energy 2. Chicago [5:38]
RECORDING: Riccardo Muti Conducts Mason Bates and Anna Clyne
SOURCE: CSO Resound
INFO: csosoundsandstories.org | Available at iTunes or Amazon.com
ARTIST: Tortoise
WORK: Restless Waters [3:42]
RECORDING: A Lazarus Taxon
SOURCE: Thrill Jockey Thrill 152
INFO: thrilljockey.com
ARTIST: Shannon Hayden
WORK: Accelerator [5:43]
RECORDING: You See the World
SOURCE/INFO: shannonhayden.bandcamp.com