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Q: What is a Kneebody?
A: It’s the name of a band whose amalgam of jazz, funk, electronica, beats, progressive rock and unheard sounds is so unclassifiable that no known word could adequately describe it.
On paper, the band, which returns to BOP STOP for a Sunday performance, has the canonical jazz formation of trumpet, tenor saxophone, keyboards, bass and drums. On stage Kneebody explodes genre categories.
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In the band photo on the tray card of Force Majeure, (Delmark Records, 2014) a CD by Paul Giallorenzo‘s GitGo band, the leader stands front and center wearing a t-shirt bearing the image of the Great Lakes. After 30 years in Chicago, does the Long Island native consider himself a Midwest musician?
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Drop the needle on Jenny Scheinman ’s latest album, All Species Parade, and a verdant landscape of greens, browns and ocean blues unfolds. This is music that feels alive, vibrating with the hum of a vast, interconnected ecosystem. It’s so evocative of California’s Lost Coast that when she plays this music at The Treelawn Sunday, you might just smell the petrichor and taste the salt air of the Pacific.
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When you’re Orrin Evans, Grammy-nominated pianist, composer, bandleader, label executive, teacher, husband and dad, there’s only one thing that can slow you down, as I found out when I asked him how much time he had for our phone interview: tires. “I’m literally sitting here waiting for my tires,” he told me as air wrenches shuddered in the background. “So I got at least 30 to 40 minutes.” It wasn’t enough, such is the man’s skill as a raconteur.
Evans will turn 50 on Friday, and new tires notwithstanding, he’s not coasting into middle age. He’s doing what he loves most: making music, on a tour he calls “50 Shades of O” that motors into BOP STOP Wednesday night.
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How many times have you heard this—or said it yourself—when leaving a great concert by a touring musician: Why can’t we get more shows like this here?
Kyle Knoke, a graphic designer and concert promoter found himself asking that question and decided to answer it by creating the Midwest Jazz Collective, a consortium of 13 clubs and presenting organizations that will bring Emmy-nominated trumpeter and vocalist Benny Benack III to BOP STOP March 25 and BLU Jazz+ the following night.
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