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…
Deerhoof vocalist and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith
(Photo: Courtesy Of Artist)Avant-garde trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is teaming up with out-rock ensemble Deerhoof on a release to benefit Black Lives Matter.
To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough (Joyful Noise) is set for a July 3 release and will be available only on Bandcamp. The album’s title comes from the Walt Whitman poem “I Sing The Body Electric,” which also gave Weather Report’s 1972 studio album its name.
The Deerhoof-Smith collaboration was recorded during the 2018 Winter Jazzfest in New York at Le Poisson Rouge, with Smith appearing on the album’s last five songs and contributing trumpet flights to some of the band’s heavy riffing.
“Black Lives Matter has been doing fantastic work in keeping the rights and the liberty issues up-front in the minds of the Americans and international peoples,” Smith said in a press release. “I think that [the] BLM organization is an excellent place to give support to and to help bring democratic practices into the American society.”
Deerhoof’s drummer Greg Saunier’s ties to the jazzworld extend beyond this latest recording: In 2017, he teamed with guitarist Mary Halvorson and trumpeter/cornetist Ron Miles for the trio album New American Songbooks, Volume 1. The drummer also appears on a live set of Anthony Braxton compositions in the company of multi-instrumentalist Taylor Ho Bynum and guitarist Nels Cline on Quartet (New Haven) 2014, which was released in 2019. DB
To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough tracklisting:
Believe E.S.P.
Chandelier Searchlight
I Will Spite Survive
Mountain Moves
Polly Bee
Bad Kids To The Front
Snoopy Waves (with Wadada Leo Smith)
Breakup Songs (with Wadada Leo Smith)
Flower (with Wadada Leo Smith)
Last Fad (with Wadada Leo Smith)
Mirror Monster (with Wadada Leo Smith)
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…
