Daring solo sax set highlights Umbrella Music Festival

A first of hopefully a string of reviews of Chicago’s Umbrella Music Fest is available.

The best Chicago jazz festivals tend to be grass-roots events, planned by self-styled impresarios and staged in top-notch clubs, concert halls and other felicitous settings.

Consider the 3rd annual Umbrella Music Festival, which during five days last week convened performers from around the world and across the city. Though the artists spoke a variety of musical languages—from free jazz to classical avant-garde—all were linked by a fervent desire to seek out new forms of improvisation and composition.

Some of Umbrella’s most effective musicmaking unfolded at Elastic, where this year’s featured artist, the iconic reedist John Tchicai, played a rare solo set before a standing-room-only crowd late Friday night.