Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park

Augustana is hosting two concerts as a part of this year’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival, on Saturday September 28th. Augustana’s lively acoustics and dramatic visual space will provide the context for two duos, the first featuring percussion and the second a cello/guitar collaboration.

3 pm: Karuna

Hamid Drake (drum kit, vocal, frame drums, bata, tabla, percussion); Adam Rudolph (handrumset (kongos, djembe, tarija, zabumba), thumb pianos, sintir, multiphonic vocal, percussion, electronic processing)

The HAMID DRAKE and ADAM RUDOLPH duet traces its beginning to a chance encounter between two fourteen-year-old aspiring percussionists in a downtown Chicago drum shop. Their shared love for rhythms and music of the world, and music’s relationship to matters of the spirit, has taken them around the world and led to years of shared creative journeys. In the mid-1970s, they performed and recorded with AACM co-founder Fred Anderson, and in 1977 they joined Foday Musa Suso in founding Mandingo Griot Society, one of the first groups to combine African and American music. By 1978, they were touring Europe with Don Cherry and since then have performed together in projects with Yusef Lateef, Pharaoh Sanders, Hassan Hakmoun, Hu: Vibrational, and Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures. Their Chicago roots and longtime global music research and performing experience have allowed them to forge a uniquely shared musical understanding and creative outlook. Drake once encapsulated their reciprocal influence by saying, “I have been developing a hand-drum concept on the drum set, while Adam says he is developing a drum-set concept on his hand drums. We understand one another.” After over forty years of music making together, this is their first tour as a duet.

With their new KARUNA duet, Drake and Rudolph bring their unique and evolved rhythm languages to the fore, reaching to inspire any audience through spirited dialogue. The name Karuna reflects the duo’s ongoing research into the connection of the inner life to musical expression, and speaks to the idea of creative action as a gesture of compassion.

5:00 pm: Bill MacKay and Katinka Kleijn

Katinka Kleijn (cello); Bill MacKay (guitar)

BILL MACKAY and KATINKA KLEIJN met through mutual friends in Chicago and noticed an immediate creative bond and chemistry, as well as a shared interest in varied music styles and the possibilities inherent in improvisation. MacKay, a guitarist, composer, and Drag City recording artist, and Kleijn, a classical cellist and veteran of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), formed an unlikely yet perfect pairing, and have spent the ensuing years joining forces regularly for concerts both in and beyond Chicago. Their chemistry and creativity have lent their duo a surprising and organic density, fueled by influences drawn from avant-rock, folk, jazz, and chamber music. The goals behind their collaboration? “To allow narratives in sound to emerge and blossom.” And: “To allow the full range of our backgrounds to be and extend.” And also: “We like to make people dance.”

Follow this link for more information on the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and the 2019 lineup. Plan on joining us at Augustana, come early to get your seats – last year’s concerts were standing room only. Limited parking is available. Augustana is easily accessible via CTA bus – take the Garfield 55 bus to the Woodlawn stop. Augustana is located on 55th Street, between Woodlawn and University, and its address is 5500 S. Woodlawn.