The Majesty of Chicago Jazz, Reich

Author and Chicago native Howard Reich gives readers a front-row seat to the history of Chicago jazz as it roared forth in jazz clubs, concert halls and festivals. Reich covered Chicago jazz for more than 30 years as the Chicago Tribune’s staff critic, and in this collection, he argues that jazz as an art form is inconceivable without Chicago. Carefully choosing from among his thousands of articles on jazz, Reich highlights 25 of the most important Chicago jazz artists who pushed the art form forward.

The Majesty of Chicago Jazz begins with two New Orleans visionaries who achieved their artistic pinnacles in Chicago in the Roaring Twenties: Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong. In the decades that followed, Chicago produced an uninterrupted line of innovators: revolutionaries Ahmad Jamal and Sun Ra, iconoclasts Von Freeman and Fred Anderson, populists Herbie Hancock and Ramsey Lewis, chameleons Patricia Barber and Kurt Elling and the breakthrough band of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), among others. Reich offers two pieces on each of the book’s 25 visionaries, including profiles, reviews, appreciations and obituaries. The book concludes with a beginner-friendly discography, perfect for those looking to listen along.

The Majesty of Chicago Jazz is captivating for jazz newcomers and aficionados alike — all are guaranteed to learn something surprising here. With a musician’s ear and a journalist’s expertise, Reich offers listeners a valuable guide to the groundbreaking jazz that has come out of Chicago, a city that remains a fertile breeding ground for musical experimentation. 

Howard Reich covered music for the Chicago Tribune for 43 years and served as the newspaper’s staff jazz critic from 1989 to 2021. Reich is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and the author of six other books, including Let Freedom Swing and Portraits in Jazz. Reich served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Music four times, including the year when Wynton Marsalis’ Blood on the Fields became the first jazz composition to win (1997).