Howard Reich

Many musicians have performed for students at Smith Elementary School, on East 103rd Street, but none quite like the visitors who appeared Monday morning. For they brought with them music...

Cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci has built a career performing shows structured around crisply defined themes, concepts or points of view. But "Crossing Time," the program she offered in its Chicago...

For years, music lovers have been urging Jazz Showcase founder Joe Segal to write a book. Having presented the music in this city since 1947, when he was a student...

This weekend, an unstoppable Chicago musician will oversee a neighborhood jazz festival that has defied the odds for nearly two decades. During some years, saxophonist-composer Ernest Dawkins had to dig...

The sounds of Brazil swept into Evanston on Friday evening, though imbued with the character of American jazz. Brazilian singer-pianist Eliane Elias has been intertwining the two, to varying degrees,...

Recordings of great interest for the fall season: Vijay Iyer, "Far From Over" (released). Pianist and MacArthur Fellow Iyer leads his innovative sextet. Jason Stein, "Lucille!" (released). The Chicago bass...

It has been seven years Chicago ragtime visionary and MacArthur Fellow Reginald Robinson officially released an album, the majestic three-disc anthology "Reflections." Anytime a pianist-composer of Robinson's stature goes that...

Premieres, tributes and festivals crowd the fall jazz calendar: Matt Ulery's Loom Large. Chicago bassist-composer Ulery, a restlessly creative figure, presents his new big band, Loom Large. 8:30 p.m. Sept....

The past year has been volatile for cabaret star Andrea Marcovicci. Her mother, cabaret singer Helen Marcovicci, died in August 2016. Her daughter, Alice Reichert, graduated college in May 2017....