Feb. 17--From June through December of last year, Chicago music lovers and waves of tourists crowded Andy's Jazz Club to hear something great: one of the best big bands in the country shaking up the place every Monday night.
Though Jeff Lindberg's Chicago Jazz Orchestra had been in residence at Andy's many times before, this engagement gave listeners a chance to hear a hard-charging big band at close proximity for an unusually long run. At the same time, it afforded the players of the CJO an opportunity to sharpen their skills in the best way possible: continuous performance.
Now that the run has ended, the CJO -- which was founded in 1978 -- stands at a turning point, for Lindberg and colleagues are preparing to reposition the orchestra as something more than an ensemble playing various one-nighters in clubs, concert halls, churches and what-not.
"In recent years, most of our performances have been at Andy's Jazz Club, and that's been a great opportunity to keep the band playing," says Lindberg, whose ensemble in its early days was known as the Jazz Members Big Band, co-led by the late Steve Jensen.
"But the goal of the orchestra is now to move to a position where we're able to present our own performances, as well as play in bigger venues throughout the area."
Specifically, the goal is to build a season that spotlights the band in a particular concert hall, as well as locations across the Chicago area and beyond.
"We want to build an audience in a consistent (venue) and make it an experience for people to come our concerts," says Travis Rosenthal, the CJO's executive director. "The idea is to establish a home base and a home venue where we can start to make it our own, and build our own audiences and present our own programming."
To that end, the CJO announces a winter-spring season that will feature two major concerts in the Feinberg Theater of Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, a gleaming space seating 400 that's surprisingly underused by Chicago performing arts groups. Considering the dearth of mid-size concert spaces downtown, the Spertus auditorium stands out, thanks to its welcoming acoustics, enviable sight lines and easily accessible location on South Michigan Avenue.
By booking two forthcoming concerts at Spertus, the CJO seeks to discover if this could serve as a future home, even if the band surely will be invited to play Orchestra Hall, Millennium Park, the Ravinia Festival and other locations where it has bowed before.
This strategy to find a home base did not emerge out of nowhere. The CJO has received two grants from the Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development, "a funder collaborative created to help strengthen the management and operations of small arts and cultural organizations in Chicago and Cook County," according to Arts Work's website. Rosenthal and Lindberg have used the funds to engage a consultant to study "the jazz market and branding and positioning and really work to put together a business model for the CJO to propel us forward," says Rosenthal.
The research indicated that the CJO could benefit from a central performance location and an educational component, says Travis, so that a top-notch band can develop a business model and audience base to match.
In addition to the two performances already scheduled for Spertus, the new season will include an appearance at the sixth annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival and a collaboration between members of the CJO and the students at the Merit School of Music, both in March.
Meanwhile, the CJO is laying plans for its summer and fall seasons, in hopes of building on the momentum of the engagement at Andy's and the forthcoming performances in March through May. With this year marking the centennial of three jazz giants -- Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Billy Strayhorn -- commemorative performances saluting one or more of these figures would seem natural for the CJO. Rosenthal says they're all under consideration.
The move by the orchestra to dream bigger comes not a moment too soon, for the other celebrated Chicago big band, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, has been on hiatus at its home base, Columbia College Chicago, since 2012. Financial pressures led the school to put the band on ice, and no word has been forthcoming on its future, if there is one. A legacy that stretches back to 1965 seems nearly forgotten.
Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic operates in a somewhat different artistic realm -- the Third Stream repertoire that merges jazz and classical traditions -- which means the CJO is uniquely positioned to fill a gap left by the disappearance of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. But the CJO offers much more than that, for its represents traditions of its own, with an obvious emphasis on Count Basie and Duke Ellington repertory and performance styles.
"I would say the CJO is looking to establish itself as Chicago's big band," observes Rosenthal of a band that has come up with a sleek new logo to signal its new outlook.
"I think there's in a sense a void for that in Chicago. New York has the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (led by Wynton Marsalis). New Orleans has the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (led by Irvin Mayfield).
"They're the historians and the torch bearers in those cities. There's a need to step up and provide that here."
That's for sure.
Following is a guide to the winter-spring season of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. For more information, visit chicagojazzorchestra.org.
March 8: Jazz Vespers Service as part of the sixth annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, featuring Lindberg's CJO and singer Tammy McCann. 4 p.m. at First Presbyterian Evanston, 1427 Chicago Ave., Evanston; $20 at 847-864-1472 or chitownjazzfestival.org.
March 15: Members of the CJO share a marquee with students. 1:30 p.m. at the Merit School of Music, 38 S. Peoria St.; free; 312-786-9428 or meritmusic.org.
April 11: Pianist Monty Alexander in concert with the CJO. 7:30 p.m. at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, 610 S. Michigan Ave.; $30-$40 at chicagojazzorchestra.org.
May 30: "Mingus Maynard," featuring bassist Rodney Whitaker and trumpeter Walter White in Charles Mingus' "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" and early 1960s music of Maynard Ferguson. 7:30 p.m. at Spertus; $30-$40 at chicagojazzorchestra.org.
"Portraits in Jazz": Howard Reich's e-book collects his exclusive interviews with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald and others, as well as profiles of early masters such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. Get "Portraits in Jazz" at chicagotribune.com/ebooks.
hreich@tribpub.com
