Chicago Reader

By Michael Jackson

Photo By Michael Jackson

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival, one of the most astutely curated and organized arts events on the Chicago cultural calendar, reached its 18th year the last weekend in September. Except for one brief shower, the rain in the forecast stayed away, and though the Hyde Park Herald had just published a story on the financial headwinds faced by the festival—even suggesting that this could be its final year—neither that news nor the thick gray clouds could dampen the mood. The fest’s usual broadly diverse audience—one of the best features of this south-side jewel—showed up and remained attentive and engaged for all the music on the program, no matter where it landed on the Venn diagram of “challenging,” “educational,” and “fun.”

Chicago Tribune

By Hannah Edgar

Photo By Chris Sweda

Every great music festival has a few of those moments.

If you’re a music lover, you know them well. You desperately want to catch two — maybe even three or four — spectacular billings at the same time, on different stages. But since humans haven’t yet cracked on-the-spot mitosis, one has to make tough decisions about whom to catch, when, and for how long.

Chicago Reader

By Bill Meyer

Photo By Michael Wilson

The programming for this year’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival once again defies the implicit parochialism of the festival’s name: this is a weekend of music that any major city on Earth would be proud to call its own. The two-day fest balances accessible local acts that go well with picnicking on the Midway Plaisance with representatives of Chicago’s cutting-edge improvised-music community, then tops off the bill with excellent out-of-town performers.

Hyde Park Herald

By Marc C. Monaghan

Photo By Marc C. Monaghan

As DJ Duane Powell spun his mix of house, bossa nova, and afro beats on Saturday evening, spectators rose out of their chairs and danced onto the lawn of Kenwood Gardens. He was closing out the latest Artist Corps show, a free summer concert series by the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (HPJF). 

Chicago Sun-Times

By Lloyd Sachs

It takes more than a gathering of great musicians to make a great jazz festival. For Kate Dumbleton, the much-admired executive and artistic director of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, it takes a vision.

Hyde Park Herald

By Zoe Pharo, staff writer

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival, a nonprofit working to support the development of jazz in Chicago, has programmed more than a dozen free performances through its Artist Corps Fellowship and Back Alley Jazz music series, as well as a fall festival to cap off the season.

Chicago Tribune

By Hannah Edgar

Transplant Richard Wright’s “Native Son” to today and one will find much more to retain than to update.

Hyde Park Herald

By Aaron Gettinger, staff writer

A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts grant will enable the Hyde Park Jazz Festival to put paid workers behind three initiatives beyond the borders of the neighborhood.

Chicago Tribune

By Hannah Edgar

The Hyde Park Jazz Fest experienced its pandemic trial by fire last year, when the festival grooved on in the form of pop-up sidewalk performances and streamed indoor sets.

Time Out Chicago

By Zach Long & Emma Krupp

While assembling the Time Out Best of the City Awards, our Chicago editors looked back on the past 12 months of food, festivals, exhibitions, shows and innovations in order to highlight our favorites. Some are places and happenings that are veritable Chicago institutions. Others are wonderful new additions to the city. But every Best of the City Awards winner is something that we feel is memorable and impactful in its own way.

Chicago Reader

By Michael Jackson

The 15th Hyde Park Jazz Festival, which took place last Saturday and Sunday, may have been the best ever. That’s a tall statement, given how many great ones there have been—but it’s less about ranking favorites and more about how good it felt to see such a beloved event getting back to its old self.

Chicago Tribune

By Hannah Edgar

Look, we all know what we’ve been through in the past year, and arts presenters — the good ones, anyway — are doing their damndest not to be part of the problem as COVID-19 mutates its way down the Greek alphabet.

So, if you’re refreshing the calendars of your favorite venues and think they look a little lean, it’s not just you. This Top 10 list’s “I”s were dotted and “T”s crossed on the first week of September, when virus cases in the city hit a half-year high; by the time it publishes, events may have been added, tweaked, postponed, or pulled altogether.