Fourth Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival

Thursday, October 1 till Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Fourth Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival (CCAF4) features Chicago-based artists collaborating with artists in other locations -- both here in the U.S. and abroad. These collaborations involve a range of art forms -- including music, dance, film, literature, and intermedia -- and they are prepared or improvised. Some CCAF4 events involve live feeds between Chicago and other locations.

Please visit chicagocalling.org for a complete schedule of events.

Blank Slate Festival follow-up

Blank Slate Festival was fantastic. The quality of musicianship was great, and it was great to see the visual artists -- painters & videographers -- contribute to all the artmaking. The audience was receptive, and there was a lot of genuine community spirit. Blank Slate Festival's venue, the beautiful old Methodist church, was unique. Thanks to Gerard Cox, the festival's main organizer, and thanks of course to all the artists, all the other people who helped out, the audience for supporting the festival, and the good people at Earth House Collective for hosting Blank Slate Festival!

Here are some photographs. Several people were taking photos throughout the seven hours of artmaking, and the entire festival was captured with video and audio recording. Examples of the festival -- in photos, video, and audio -- will be more readily available shortly.

Wizards -- Hasan Abdur-Razzaq (saxophones), Gerard Cox (piano), Adam Smith (drums), with Josh Burke (painting). Photo credit: Dan Godston.


Wizards, with Josh Burke. Photo credit: Dan Godston.

Constellation Grid -- Scott Deal (percussion), Dan Godston (trumpet), Alex Wing (piano), Michael Drews (laptop), & Jordan Munson (videography with MaxMSP Jitter). Photo credit: Curtis Glatter.

Constellation Grid performing. Photo credit: Curtis Glatter.

Gibson Thorne and Cory Salas painting during the James Cornish Group's performance


Gibson Thorne and Cory Salas (painting) and the James Cornish Group -- James Cornish (trumpet), Marco Novachcoff (saxophones and contrabass clarinet), & Curtis Glatter (percussion)

James Cornish Group -- James Cornish (trumpet), Marco Novachcoff (saxophones and contrabass clarinet), & Curtis Glatter (percussion)

Marco Novachcoff (baritone saxophone) and James Cornish (trumpet), during the James Cornish Group's set


Curtis Glatter (percussion), during the James Cornish Group's set

balcony shot of the James Cornish Group

Cory Salas (painting), Gerard Cox (piano), Marco Novachcoff (baritone saxophone), Hasan Abdur-Razzaq (tenor saxophone, and James Cornish

Gibson Thorne and Cory Salas (painting), Gerard Cox (piano), Marco Novachcoff (baritone saxophone), Hasan Abdur-Razzaq (tenor saxophone, and James Cornish

disassembled organ pedals at Earth House Collective

Southern Illinois-- it's nowhere near Chicago!

Things are moving slow (but steady) down here in Southern Illinois. I believe we have many of the necessary ingredients for a vibrant music scene, but we're still quite a ways from being truly inclusive of more experimental work.

Southern Illinois has been fortunate to have WDBX-FM, a not-for-profit community radio station. Due to WDBX's inclusive, highly-eclectic format, I've been able to present experimental music and sound art for the past seven years on my radio show, "It's Too Damn Early." The station has grown tremendously since its founding-- we are now broadcasting at 3000 watts throughout most of Southern Illinois, as well as streaming live online.

Although WDBX is not affiliated with our local college, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, the regular influx of Chicago-raised students often helps bring interesting ideas and viewpoints to our area. Of course, the somewhat transient student population is difficult to rely on in the long-term-- building a regular listenership among students is a task performed over and over with little net gain. Gathering a local listenership has been more difficult, and many of the techniques Gerard described in his previous post can easily be applied here. The trick seems to be staying flexible and attentive to the needs of my listeners, as well as providing a helpful and valuable environment for visiting musicians.

I often feel a greater burden on my part with visiting musicians. Although Carbondale is somewhat conveniently located on the way to and from St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, and Nashville; many seem to prefer traveling between Chicago, Bloomington, IN and St. Louis-- often bypassing Southern Illinois completely. When I DO convince someone to come down; I'll often try to get some advance notice in the local entertainment press, blog about it, make a promo spot, etc... a little professionalism goes a long way.

Because Southern Illinois does not yet have any sort of regular venue for this sort of music, I have tried to make my show a central place for locals interested in or performing it. This past year; I hosted two DVD "screenings" of experimental music and film, presented a handful of live performing artists, and participated in a local documentary about experimental music.

Right now, one of my main challenges is drawing live performers. I've had some luck with paying close attention to musicians coming through St. Louis, particularly those performing at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. Some musicians have been able to add "It's Too Damn Early" to their day's itinerary-- with the show airing between 4 and 6:30 a.m. Saturday mornings, it's relatively easy to drop in after a Friday night show or before a Saturday evening elsewhere. My experience has been that the musicians benefit from increased exposure and airplay, and we benefit locally from the exposure to new ideas and methods.

Another challenge is people's awareness of Southern Illinois-- we've got 300,000 people down here in a rather tight-knit bunch of communities, but Illinois is often perceived to end just south of Chicago... or on a good day, at Champaign. I'm not sure how much can be done about this, frankly.

Of course, I'm also interested to see how Fire Music's cooperation among presenters and venues will pan out. It will be nice to get to know everyone a little better, and to be able to recommend other broadcasts and venues to interested musicians in the future. A bit of organization on our collective part could be a tremendous help.

--DaveX, "It's Too Damn Early," Carbondale IL

Greetings from Gerard (Columbus OH)

We are trying to keep the "fire" burning here in Columbus, OH. We have an improvisers collective called Outpost and we stage shows which typically involve both musicians from the collective and touring artists. I myself have been putting on shows for over 5 years. In the course of that time we've built a small but stable audience. Recently in the past year we've been putting together more in the way of mixed bills....DJs, some alt-folk, etc. Presenting this music in a town where people haven't really been exposed to it on any consistent basis demands a more flexible approach in order to bring new people into the tent.

I encourage presenters in other Midwestern burgs to do eclectic shows that involve improvised music but are not an all-or-nothing proposition. Being pure and dedicated solely to improv/experimental music is beautiful but makes the task of building an audience way more difficult. I am also an advocate of "theme" shows. I know some might find it cheesy or slick, but a lot of the names in this music have very little wider currency/recognition so developing a theme around an evening allows you to promote the evening in a way beyond just asking people to come out to see individual musicians. Examples of theme nights: "Percussion Discussion" --- experimental percussion, plus a world music rhythm group....."Guitars on the edge" --- (varied progressive approaches to guitar).....you get the idea.

Creating a positive, welcoming climate is what I find has probably been the most important thing in our shows success though. Being human, people are going to remember evenings not just for the music they heard but for the hang and the people they met. So I'm proud that the guys in our collective are as much ambassadors for the music on a social level as in playing. They don't have insular/exclusivist attitudes and make a point to be friendly and helpful. One of the perils of "art music" is that it can quickly descend into just another insular, pretentious scene if this climate isn't actively created. I guess some people don't mind this. I think we in the Midwest though are less likely to succumb to that, and I'm thankful that's the case.

I will keep offering more insights that I've gained presenting shows here in the future. Feel free to ask me any questions if you like.

- Gerard Cox, Columbus OH

writers & books

Arcana: Musicians on Music, edited by John Zorn

Michael Azerrad: Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Music Scene 1981-1991

Derek Bailey: Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music

Richard Florida: The Rise of the Creative Class

Bob Gilmore: Harry Partch: A Biography

Steve Isoardi: The Dark Tree: Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles

George Lewis: A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music

Graham Lock: Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton, by Graham Lock

Alan Lomax: The Land Where the Blues Began

Benjamin Looker: Point from Which Creation Begins: The Black Artists' Group of St. Louis

Lloyd Peterson: Music and the Creative Spirit: Innovators in Jazz, Improvisation, and the Avant Garde

Gene Santoro: Myself When I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingus

Vladimir Simosko and Barry Tepperman: Eric Dolphy: A Musical Biography And Discography

John Swed: Space Is the Place: The Life and Times of Sun Ra

Kevin Whitehead: New Dutch Swing

Valerie Wilmer: As Serious as Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz

Sharon Zukin: Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change

support for local presenters

I would be curious to hear news about recent initiatives to help out presenters and artists who want to bring their music to new audiences. Last year some legislators in Chicago tried to pass an ordinance which would cost promoters and presenters more money, but that has been tabled.

Welcome to the Fire Music Consortium blog

The Fire Music Consortium is a collective of presenters and venues in the Midwest whose goal is to promote and support creative music.