THURMAN South Side Suite and Program Notes Edlis Neeson BARKER AND Hecky Naw! Angles! Fri, Aug 30 Theater BEN LAMAR GAY SUMMER 2019 MUSEUM OFMUSEUM CHICAGO CONTEMPORARY ART ART CONTEMPORARY FROM THE CURATOR GAY BEN LAMAR AND BARKER THURMAN Celebrate What would it sound like to map the influences, choices, and experiments within an artist’s creative process? In 2017, Thurman Barker wrote his first orchestral piece, an ode to the music black he grew up playing in Chicago, including with AACM founder Muhal Richard Abrams. It’s also an homage to the long history of Chicago’s black communities and jazz music. Tonight, creativity Thurman shares some of the part-scored, part- Hecky Naw! Angles! Side Suite South improvised result—South Side Suite—in quintet form. After his own recent homage to Abrams, “Muhal,” Ben LaMar Gay also embarks on a with music new format; his work-in-progress Hecky Naw! Angles! joins music, video, and choreography to reverently rearticulate the rhythmic structures of the popular music that shaped the Chicago and black social and line dances he grew up with. and Together, these compositions connect across the history and future of music experimentation and across the city itself. Thurman has eagerly dance that awaited this Chicago homecoming, alongside a next-generation AACM artist like Ben. Some 30 Aug Fri, Notes Program “backyard barbecue knowledge,” as Ben calls it, transform will surely be shared tonight. Tonight concludes our series of performances, developed within the MCA’s New Works Initiative, that speak to and about Chicago, expecta– transform familiar forms into something new, and alter our expectations of what black performance can be. Thank you for helping us Theater Neeson Edlis support performance that conscientiously engages tions. with this city’s artists, histories, and ideas. Tara Aisha Willis Cover, clockwise from left: Rennie Harris, LIFTED. Photo: Nikki Carrara; Dahlak Brathwaite, Try/Step/Trip. Associate Curator, Performance & Public Practice Photo: Joan Osato; still from video of Ben LaMar Gay at Trans Musicales de Rennes 2018. Courtesy of the artist. SUPPORT FOR THIS MCA PROJECT Thurman Barker and Ben LaMar Gay ABOUT THE WORK The creation of Ben LaMar Gay’s Hecky South Side Suite and Hecky Naw! Angles! Naw! Angles! and this performance of Thurman Barker’s South Side Suite are supported Running time is 80 minutes with one intermission. “When I came up in the late 1950s and 60s, in part by the MCA’s New Works Initiative. the South Side was a thriving community with Lead support for the ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– MCA New Works a middle class and folks of color were buying Initiative is provided by Thurman Barker, Elizabeth A. Liebman. South Side Suite, 1st and 2nd Movements homes. When I look at the history of it, well, Special thanks to Michael Byrd of the Chicago has always been a very rich musical Illinois Youth Center Chicago, Heidi Composition and drums Thurman Barker Mueller of the Illinois city since the 1920s. South Side Suite [is] my Department of Juvenile Justice, and Frayne way of honoring [that history].” Lewis of the City of Clarinet Paavo Carey Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events. Electric guitar James Emery Double bass Dean Torrey —Thurman Barker Piano Noah Barker “I’m thinking about line dances, with these Management Lucette Ostergren-Barker cats calling out the dance moves. You get lost in This performance of South Side Suite is dedicated to those callings and those words . the Black Muhal Richard Abrams. fiddler used to make those calls for everybody’s dance and these musicians used to travel. It’s INTERMISSION all connected.” ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Ben LaMar Gay, Hecky Naw! Angles! —Ben LaMar Gay Composition, cornet, Ben LaMar Gay vocals, synth, and diddley bow –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Violin and vocals Renée C. Baker For the full conversation with the artists, visit TheTRiiBE.com. Alto flute, bike wheel, Rob Frye and vocals Bass and vocals Katie Ernst Talking drum, gung gong, Carlos Pride and lap steel guitar Choreography and Raquel Monroe movement Video and projection Kim Alpert RELATED PROGRAMS ABOUT THE ARTISTS THURMAN BARKER PAAVO CAREY (Clarinet) is a South Side Suite celebrated saxophonist, flautist, AUDIO-DESCRIBED PERFORMANCE ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– clarinetist, composer, arranger, and educator who has held versatility THURMAN BARKER (Composition/ and diversification at the center of Audio description for this performance is Drums) is a world-renowned his efforts. For the past thirty years provided by Victor Cole. Headsets are available drummer and percussionist as well he has served students of all ages as a composer and professor. from New York to Maine and upon request at the box office. His professional career has spanned currently works in Massachusetts. decades and his talent is so Carey is now re-emerging onto the extensive that it encompasses and scene as an accomplished performer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– crosses over into many musical genres who has been active in the jazz, including, but not limited to, jazz, pop, orchestra, Latin, rock, and POST-SHOW TALK blues, contemporary, and classical. world music styles. As a sideman, His percussion performances are Carey has recently joined the popular forces to be reckoned with that Boston-based Makanda Project Please stay after the performance for a brief cannot, and should not, be pigeon- where he plays alto, tenor, and holed by anything as limiting as a soprano saxophones, as well as flute conversation with Barker, Gay, and their label. He was the house drummer at and clarinet. Carey has performed the Shubert Theatre for ten years and/or recorded with the big bands collaborators, moderated by Tara Aisha Willis, and has played behind the likes of of James Jabbo Ware and the Me, Associate Curator, Performance & Public Bette Midler, Marvin Gaye, Billy We, and Them Orchestra, Tito Puente, Eckstine, Vikki Carr, and blues legend Lionel Hampton, Jaki Byard, and Practice. Mighty Joe Young. He was a many more. Jazz combos Carey has founding member of the Association performed with include Thurman for the Advancement of Creative Barker’s Time Factor, Steve Jordan’s –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Musicians (AACM) and is a member of Spot 5, Ted Curson’s Jazz Septet, the American Society of Composers, Walter Davis Jr. Quartet, Doc TUESDAYS ON THE TERRACE Authors and Publishers. He has five Cheatham, and more. Additionally, recordings under his own label, Carey has been a pit orchestra/ Tue, Aug 20 Uptee Productions, and has recorded production show musician for The as a sideman on fifty albums. Big Apple Circus, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Ray, The Fifth Dimension, and Summer Tuesdays come alive on the MCA’s Anne NOAH BARKER (Piano) hails from many regional and school musicals. Jeffersonville, New York, via New In 2019 Carey is set to release his and John Kern Terrace Garden with free music York City and currently resides in first solo album, Back To The City Life. highlighting artists from Chicago’s internationally Louisville, Kentucky. He is the son of avant-garde jazz drummer Thurman JAMES EMERY (Electric guitar) is a renowned jazz community. In advance of Barker. The younger Barker started virtuoso guitarist and composer and playing piano at age seven and has received international recognition tonight’s premiere, Ben LaMar Gay brought his began studying classical music and for his distinctive and highly original genre-defying sounds to the MCA’s backyard playing in churches at thirteen. approach to improvisation and He began studying jazz at fourteen, composition. Acclaimed as “one of for two sets. pursuing it at the University of the world’s finest guitarists” in All Louisville and finishing the graduate About Jazz, writer Glenn Astarita jazz performance program at State praised his “encyclopedic jazz vocab- University of New York, Purchase ulary as a technician and composer College, in May 2014. In school, [and his] staggering technical Barker found a serious interest in virtuosity [and] remarkable creative composing jazz, experimental, pop, spirit.” Emery has been active on the and electronic music. As an outlet international jazz and contemporary for his composition, Barker started music scene since 1975. He has Never Forever Records in 2013; it recorded twenty-six albums as a has three physical releases and leader or coleader and has performed numerous digital releases to date, his works in over twenty-five including You Are Here (2013), Men countries. His recordings have been Are Particles, Women Are Waves described as “innovative and (2014), Working For the Sun (2015), imaginative” and “utterly distinctive” Upstream Dreams (2015), Condition by the Penguin Guide to Jazz, which (2016), and In the Pouring Sun (2017). selected his orchestral recording Transformations for its edition titled CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Baker was involved in starting more RAQUEL MONROE, PHD Michael O’Grady ABOUT THE ARTISTS than twenty cutting-edge new (Choreography/Movement) has PRITZKER DIRECTOR music ensembles including the Mantra been an avid social dancer most of Madeleine Grynsztejn “The History of Jazz in the 1001 Best and visual arts including George Blue Free Orchestra (Chicago), her life, which led her to the JAMES W. ALSDORF Albums.” He has received inter- Lewis, Itiberê Zwarg, Onye Ozuzu, PEK’ Contemporary Project (Berlin), classroom to study concert dance CHIEF CURATOR and the Bleueblue Walkers/Bass forms. Ironically, this project brings Michael Darling national critical acclaim for his work Qudus Onikeku, Nicole Mitchell, Jeff –––––––––––––––––––– leading various ensemble formations Parker, Catherine Sullivan, Mike Kollektief. She has composed over her full circle back to social dance, PERFORMANCE and the groundbreaking String Trio Reed, Joshua Abrams, Celso Fonseca, two thousand traditionally notated as both an object of study and ASSOCIATE CURATOR of New York, which he cofounded in Tomeka Reid, The Black Monks of contemporary and classical works enjoyment. A Chicago resident for Tara Aisha Willis 1978. A Guggenheim Fellow, Emery Mississippi, Bixiga 70, and AACM.