Doors: 4PM / Show: 5PM / 21+
Empty Bottle Jazz & Improvised Music
Box Set Launch/Mini Festival
From 1996-2005, the Empty Bottle hosted a weekly series of Wednesday night jazz and improvised music concerts and an annual festival. These events were hailed by the international press as landmarks in creative music, and helped shift the focus in experimental jazz towards Chicago. Curated by writer and producer John Corbett and musician Ken Vandermark, much of the Bottle Jazz & Improvised Music Series was documented by legendary recordist Malachi Ritscher, and these recordings form the basis of a lavish new 6-CD set, The Bottle Tapes: Selections from the Empty Bottle Jazz & Improvised Music Series, 1996-2005, featuring nearly 70 artists including Milford Graves, Bobby Bradford, Joe McPhee, Thurston Moore, Available Jelly, Peter Brötzmann, and Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble, which is being released by Corbett vs. Dempsey, the label associated with Corbett's art gallery of the same name. In the spirit of the original series, this launch event/mini festival will include old guard and new blood. Joe McPhee, who is now internationally famed (also for his soundtrack music included in the TV show Severance), first played in Chicago at the Bottle in 1996. Nearly three decades later, he returns for a triumphant set of duets with drummer PNL, a frequent partner of McPhee's. Bottle Series co-curator Ken Vandermark will perform in a duet with Black Monument Ensemble's founder/leader Damon Locks, and Chicago improvisor Dorothy Carlos will perform a solo for cello and electronics. The afternoon festivities will include a new poster by Dan Grzeca, first dibs on the initial hundred copies of the box set, and a surprise set in the tradition of all Empty Bottle Jazz & Improvised Music festivals.
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