Mike Jeffers Audio Experience

067 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Frank Catalano

No stranger to adversity, Frank cut off his right middle finger in an automobile accident. After several surgeries and much effort, Catalano relearned his signature technique, making him one of the most in-demand musicians today. He regularly donates his musical services to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Also an entrepreneur, Frank has patented a devise that allows him to control his saxophone via midi components. Yamaha acquired the patent rights and in 2007 they received a Special Merit Grammy Award for Technical Achievement. Frank is a spokesperson/clinician/performing artist for companies such as Yamaha, Rico/D’Addario, and JodyJazz. He can be seen in their Print Ads worldwide. Catalano’s songs have been used in the ad campaigns of Motorola, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Drambuie as well as numerous TV and Film productions.

066 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest John Dorhauer

JOHN DORHAUER

HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PLAYERS

 

Heisenberg Uncertainty Players HUP is a 17-piece new music ensemble with jazz big band instrumentation that is quickly becoming known as one of the most ambitious and creative ensembles in Chicago. Formed in 2011 and playing exclusively original compositions and arrangements from founder and director John Dorhauer, HUP has performed at venues like The Jazz Showcase, Wire, Fulton Street Collective, Martyrs’, Fitzgerald’s Night Club, The Logan Center for the Arts, Reggie’s, and WGN-TV, and they were nominated for Best Jazz Band in Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago 2017 and 2019 Polls.

 

Recent projects for HUP include performances of original arrangements of The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy albums in their entireties; HUP the Third, in which they perform original arrangements of movements from the third symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler; We Tear Down Our Coliseums, which is a nine-movement multimedia suite in which each movement is written as an homage to a baseball stadium that has been destroyed; and a collaboration with hip-hop collective Hitmakuzz Productions. HUP currently holds monthly residencies at Wicker Park’s Phyllis’ Musical Inn and Chicago Magic Lounge.

Episode 065 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest Thaddeus Tukes

Tukes is a Luminarts fellow and recipient of the Vivian G. Harsh Emerging Artist Award. He has been featured at the Chicago Jazz Festival, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, and more. When he's not performing, Tukes is an educator, giving master classes and workshops to students from pre-Kindergarten through undergraduate.

Episode 064 Chicago Music Revealed with Special Guest John Minnock

Minnock ups the ante on Herring Cove both musically and conteptually on what is, in essence, a heartfelt exploration of the contemporary gay experience. The album sets the stage with its name; Herring Cove is a predominantly gay beach in the LGBTQ epicenter Provincetown.

On Herring Cove, John Minnock offers a much needed and oft-overlooked perspective to the jazz audiences. “My hope is to musically express myself with honesty and integrity; something I feel can be done best in a jazz setting. I hope that this new project offers listeners a greater understanding of the LGBTQ community, and most importantly, that they like what they hear!”

Episode 063 Chicago Music Revealed with Charles Pillow

Charles Pillow comes from Baton Rouge, LA. After college at Loyola University, he pursued his Masters Degree in Jazz Studies at the prestigious Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, NY. Since moving to NYC in 1987, he has appeared on over 100 recordings of jazz, pop luminaries such as Frank Sinatra, Mariah Carey, Jay Z,Luther Vandross, Paul Simon, Michael Brecker, Bruce Springsteen, John Scofield, Tom Harrell, Dave Liebman, David Sanborn, to name a few.

He has 5 solo recordings available, Currents, In this World, Pictures at an Exhibition, The Planets, van Gogh letters. Known as a saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist and oboist, his recordings showcase those instruments.

In addition to an active performing and recording schedule, he is an Assistant Professor of Jazz Saxophone at the Eastman school of Music.

Episode 062 Chicago Music Revealed with Chris Greene

Saxophonist and composer Chris Greene was born in Evanston, IL. He spent his formative years in the award-winning Evanston High School Wind and Jazz Ensembles. As a teenager he began to play professionally with many local pop/rock and jazz bands. Greene eventually went to Bloomington, IN to attend the prestigious Indiana University Jazz Studies program and studied with renowned professor and cellist David Baker. Greene returned to Chicago in 1994 and has since collaborated with some of the nation’s most creative and versatile musicians. As a performer, Greene can be seen with many different groups - in many different genres. He also leads his own critically-acclaimed group, the Chris Greene Quartet. He has also performed or recorded with the following artists: Common, The Temptations, Eric Roberson, Ed Motta, Steve Coleman & Five Elements, Maysa Leak, Ten City, Sheena Easton, Steve Cole, Michael Manson, Andrew Bird, The J. Davis Trio, Chris Rob, Vic Lavender, Jesse De La Pena, Liquid Soul and The Mighty Blue Kings.

Chris Greene has also been featured in several episodes of the FOX-TV show, "Empire" and he also composed the score for the Chicago Childrens’ Theatre’s recent production of “Bud, Not Buddy.”

Episode 061 Chicago Music Revealed with Jimmy Johnson

James Earl Thompson, known professionally as Jimmy Johnson, is an American blues guitarist and singer. In the 1960s he played music in more of an R&B style, working with Otis Clay, Denise LaSalle, and Garland Green. He had his own group from the early 1960s, and by the mid-1960s he had released his first single. By 1974, Johnson had returned to playing blues, working with Jimmy Dawkins and touring Japan with Otis Rush in 1975.In November 1980, Johnson was awarded at the first annual Blues Music Awards, held in Memphis. His career continued to pick up until December 2, 1988, when his touring van crashed in Indiana, killing his band's keyboardist, St. James Bryant, and bassist, Larry Exum.^[3] Johnson was injured and took an extended break from the music industry. He returned to record for Verve Records in 1994. In 2002, he recorded with his brother Syl. He remained active and toured Europe in 2009, performing in the United Kingdom and at the Copenhagen Blues Festival in Denmark. On Friday June 7, 2019, while performing at the 36th annual Chicago Blues Fest, Chicago Major Laurie Lightfoot officially declared it to be Jimmy Johnson Day.

Episode 060 Chicago Music Revealed with the Jazz Institute of Chicago

Founded in 1969, the Jazz Institute of Chicago promotes and nurtures jazz in Chicago. We do this by providing jazz education, developing and supporting musicians, building audiences and fostering a thriving jazz scene.

 

Episode 059 Chicago Music Revealed with Harvey Tillis

Harvey Tillis creates original photo art and shoots portraits, events, and documentary projects for nonprofit, corporate, and government agency clients. He applies more than 40 years of experience as a businessman, designer, photographer and artist in the financial, corporate, and advertising communities to his craft. Starting with a successful fifteen year career in the commodity futures industry he moved into a second fifteen year career to follow his life-long passion with documentary and editorial photography. During that time Harvey worked for corporate publications of Fortune 500 companies and ad agencies.

Episode 058 Chicago Music Revealed with Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson is the founder and driving force behind the “Jazz Record Art Collective”, held at the Fulton Street Collective, which offers musicians the platform to re-create a classic jazz recording and educate the audience on its influential importance to the artist and the music.