Howard Reich

For years, the genre-bending flutist Nicole Mitchell has dreamed of collaborating with musicians from Mali. The mystical sounds of the balafon and kora — akin to the marimba and harp...

Try to imagine American music without the work of George Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim. Each transformed the realms in which they worked, Gershwin bringing a jazz sensibility to the concert...

Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel has built a large and loyal following around the world with muscular phrase-making, virtuosic solo flights and a sophisticated yet accessible sense of harmony. Whether playing jazz...

Even by Chicago standards, this will be a brisk weekend in live music. Among the highlights: Shemekia Copeland: One of the great blues voices of our time, Copeland gave birth...

Blues guitarist John Primer and the Real Deal and soul singer-songwriter William Bell will headline the 34th annual Chicago Blues Festival, running June 9-11 in its new home in Millennium...

Jazz can look as great as it sounds, and two new documentaries playing the DOC10 Film Festival in coming days will underscore the point. Granted, neither "Sweet Dillard" nor "Chasing...

Danger lurks when great symphony orchestras play programs devoted to music of George Gershwin. Not because the ensembles can't dispatch the music brilliantly, but because not all conductors can finesse...

How did they do it? How did the hungry, sick and dying Jews of the Terezin ghetto/concentration camp manage to learn Verdi's Requiem in the midst of such horrors? How...

Few sounds in jazz are more annoying than classical musicians applying leaden, four-square downbeats to an idiom that thrives on rhythmic swing and improvisational freedom. Even music by George Gershwin,...