Umbrella Music Festival kicks off Wednesday

From chicagotribune.com:

The boldest festival of them all kicks off Wednesday and runs through Sunday night. During the course of nearly 20 sets, the Umbrella Music Festival will bring the most innovative ideas in jazz to high-profile spots such as the Chicago Cultural Center and grass-roots clubs such as the Hideout and the Hungry Brain.

That a festival of unrepentantly avant-garde jazz should flourish for six years – its audience steadily growing and its lineup constantly expanding – says a great deal about the artistic value of this music and the ingenuity of those presenting it. No one is getting rich, after all, by staging musical performances that avoid the clichés and conventions of contemporary jazz.

Related articles

• Umbrella Music Festival announces its 2011 program (chicagoreader.com)
• Pre-Umbrella Music Festival action today (chicagoreader.com)