New Orleans may have another month or so of summer left, but Chicago is celebrating the end of the season with at least three festivals over this long weekend—the North Coast Music Festival, the Chicago Jazz Festival and African Festival of the Arts. There is also a one-day celebration of the 40th anniversary of Soul Train on Monday.
Here are some picks from your correspondent down south for each festival, Also, check out this video from last year’s inaugural North Coast Music Festival.
The band I am most excited about is the New Mastersounds and they are playing at the North Coast Music Festival on Saturday. Though they are from Leeds, England, this group is connected to the music of New Orleans because they cite the Meters as one of their primary influences.
Lettuce follows them on North Coast stage. This band features members of Soulive including the great guitarist Eric Krasno. They play fairly regularly in New Orleans during the Jazz Fest season and are no strangers to the Chicago area.
Our correspondent Ariane Trahan also recommends Bassnectar, RJD2 and Lotus.
Over at the Chicago Jazz Festival, trumpeter Maurice Brown performs on Saturday evening. New Orleanians call him our own because he made quite a mark on this town before moving to New York. But, he’s originally from Chicago, so I am sure he will get a big hometown welcome.
The singer Cassandra Wilson (pictured above) closes the musical proceedings out on Saturday at the Jazz Fest. She has been living just up the road in Mississippi and travels down to the Crescent regularly.
Grammy-award winning trumpet great Roy Hargrove just finished a four-night stand at Irvin Mayfield’s I Club in New Orleans. He closes out the Jazz Fest on Sunday.
Bootsy Collins (pictured at top) was recently added to the schedule of African Festival of the Arts. That’s all you need to know about that!
