Howard Reich

Let's raise a glass to Bob Koester, the single-minded Chicagoan who this weekend celebrates a remarkable anniversary: 60 years of producing jazz and blues recordings. Koester's Delmark Records may not be the biggest indie in the country – or...

Though its population hovers at just 8 million, Israel has become a powerhouse in nurturing high-caliber jazz talent. Chicago concertgoers are well acquainted with Anat Cohen, the uncommonly versatile Israeli clarinetist who's based in New York and...

Chicago jazz musician Miguel de la Cerna likes to refer to himself as "your basic piano player, commercial musician," but that modest self-assessment greatly understates the case. De la Cerna proved the point dramatically last year, when he partnered...

Bluesman James Cotton has lived the kind of life they make movies about. He toiled on a Mississippi plantation from earliest childhood, found himself orphaned at age 9, practically was raised by blues master Sonny Boy Williamson II and flourished as a...

Drummer Jack DeJohnette, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, pianists Jason Moran and Robert Glasper and saxophonists Donald Harrison, Charles Lloyd, Jimmy Heath and Rudresh Mahanthappa will headline the 35th annual Chicago Jazz Festival, running Aug. 29...

Imagine what might happen if some of Chicago's most inventive jazz musicians embarked on a multi-year collaboration with their counterparts in France. Just think of the music that might result, the insights that could be shared, the audiences that would...

For more than three decades, the Palestinian oud virtuoso Simon Shaheen has relentlessly championed his soft-spoken instrument across America and beyond. He has penned solo works, pieces for oud with wind quintet and string quartet and compositions...

For 511 days, they hid underground in Ukrainian caves while fellow Jews were being executed by machine gun up above. The odds that they would survive the Holocaust were slight, for they were dependent entirely upon themselves for finding scarce food...

In 1994, Orchestra Hall — home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra — took a gamble. The grand old institution for the first time launched a jazz subscription series, betting that Chicagoans would commit to a season of such events, albeit a short...

If Chicagoan James Falzone isn't the hardest working clarinet player in jazz, he's pretty close to it. In addition to touring with his widely admired jazz quartet KLANG and exploring Arabic music through his Allos Musica Trio, Falzone composes choral...

Van Cliburn, the immensely talented American piano virtuoso with the down-home charm and big romantic style, whose gold-medal win at the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 at the height of the Cold War made him a cultural icon...

We're about to begin a remarkably lively jazz weekend, even by Chicago standards. Among the highlights: The Engines: This enterprising ensemble has been offering a stylistically free-ranging music for nearly a decade, but this weekend's engagement...