Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Bassist Nick Dunston is set to issue his debut as a leader, Atlantic Extraction, Nov. 1 through Out of Your Head Records.
(Photo: Gaya Feldheim-Schorr)Bassist Nick Dunston’s name just keeps cropping up.
If you didn’t catch him on Amirtha Kidambi’s release with Elder Ones, From Untruth, keep an eye out for the upcoming Dave Douglas recording, Engage, with his contributions.
The bassist, though, also is an ambitious bandleader and composer who’s writing can make his quintet sound like a massive ensemble, flits among dense and aggressive pieces (“Tattle Snake”), and breathy, spacious snatches of calm (“A Rolling Wave Of Nothing”) on his upcoming debut, Atlantic Extraction, due out Nov. 1. For “S.S. Nemesis,” an avant-leaning cut off that album premiering below, he reaches back through history to reassess the melody of a Stephen Foster work.
“I want to also think about the other definition of ‘extraction.’ ‘Oh! Susanna’ is a minstrel song, and the tradition of appropriating historical artifacts (sometimes racist ones), as a means of subverting, creating and thriving is something that Afrodiasporic people are all too familiar with,” Dunston wrote in an email. “All of this stems from a fundamental goal of my work, which is to establish a deeper connection with my ancestry and to contribute my own narrative to the continuum of that lineage, whether it be biological, social and/or artistic. ”
For more on Dunston’s work, visit his homepage. DB
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
