The third annual Umbrella Music Festival begins tonight and continues through the weekend with events at different venues around the city. If you're into jazz, you should definitely check it out. Umbrella Music is a group of jazz musicians who wanted to give the creative music scene more exposure, and give improvisers more opportunities to play together. They have been successful in doing just that with weekly concert series held at Elastic, The Hideout, and The Hungry Brain.
The festival kicks off tonight with their second annual European Jazz Meets Chicago event at the Chicago Cultural Center. They've brought in groups from Austria, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland who get the opportunity to improvise with local jazz musicians. The best part? This first night is FREE to the public. Come out and listen to some music you might not otherwise ever be exposed to and see some acclaimed artists of the Chicago area practicing their craft.
Schedule to follow:
Wednesday, November 5th
European Jazz Meets Chicago
@ The Chicago Cultural Center
6pm: Christian Weber Quartet (Switzerland)
6:45pm: Elisabeth Harnik Group (Austria)
7:30pm: Mikolaj Traska Trio (Poland)
8:15pm: Schlippenbach/Lovens Duo (Germany)
9:00pm: Zu (Italy)
10pm: Braam-De Joode-Vatcher (The Netherlands)
Thursday, November 6th
@ The Velvet Lounge
9pm: Rempis/Kessler/Vatcher
10pm: Josh Berman Quintet
11pm: Alexander Von Schlippenbach Solo
Friday, November 7th
@ Elastic
9pm: Harnik/Bauder/Roebke
10pm: John Tchicai Solo
11pm: Bik-Bent-Braam
Saturday, November 8th
@ The Hideout
9pm: Trzaska/o'Reilly/Weber/Fujiwara
10pm: Tchicai/Drake Duo
11pm: Douglas Ewart And Inventions
Sunday, November 9th
@ The Hungry Brain
9pm: Baker/Williams/Sandstrom/Hunt
10pm: Taylor Ho Bynum Quintet
11pm: John Tchicai Septet
