When the Hyde Park Jazz Festival’s executive and artistic director, Kate Dumbleton, spoke to the Reader in August about the fest’s efforts to adapt to COVID-19, she sounded hopeful that some version of the event would take place during its traditional time slot on the last weekend of September. Given that Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events had already replaced an entire season of live outdoor programming with prerecorded video broadcasts—and that no one knew if, when, and how hard a second wave of COVID infections would hit the city—that hope seemed wildly optimistic. But the virus held off, and the festival did hold events both its usual days.
In recent years the HPJF’s programming has struck a careful balance: on one hand, user-friendly music suited to an end-of-summer picnic with the neighbors, and on the other, new work that reflects jazz’s contemporary musical, social, and political advances. Cost and travel restrictions limited the 2020 festival to mainly local bookings, but it could still present a cross section of comforting and challenging fare.
Saturday’s closing set, by the Silent Hour, was far more cohesive. The group comprises drummer Mike Reed, cellist Tomeka Reid, and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz (all members of Reed’s Loose Assembly), for this show joined by guests Russ Johnson on trumpet and Jakob Heinemann on bass. They delivered a series of tone poems illuminated by glowing trumpet-cello harmonies and rendered mildly psychedelic by Adasiewicz’s electronic effects.
After Saturday delivered a professionally mounted cross section of jazz to everyone’s favorite screens, Sunday gave people willing to leave the house a chance to enjoy something that’s been in scarce supply these past seven months—musicians playing in front of them. Granted, these musicians had to contend with (or feed upon) all the surprises that an uncontrolled outdoor environment presents, but the late September weather was perfect—in most years (2019 definitely excepted) it’s a reason unto itself for attending the festival. The organizers’ strategy—short sets from small ensembles in unexpected spaces—not only kept most crowds to a size that facilitated social distancing, but also encouraged people to spend time taking in spots they might not have known about and may well want to revisit.
Hyde Park Jazz Festival 2020
Early in the afternoon, reedist Ken Vandermark and Black Monument Ensemble bandleader Damon Locks set up within the arches of the Iowa Building, a pavilion built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Old architecture framed spontaneous new sounds as their duo of tenor saxophone and electronics collaged elongated reed tones, synthetic bird sounds, and beats looped from old records.
