Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park

Augustana is one of the venues for the 2021 Hyde Park Jazz Festival, on Saturday September 25th, with performances at 2:30 pm and 4:00 pm. Like last year, the artists will be outdoors, in the parking lot. Bring your folding chairs or use chairs from the fellowship hall.

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival returns to present nearly 30 FREE live performances in multiple sites across Hyde Park, Kenwood, and Washington Park on September 25th-26th, 2021, including the return of the Wagner and West Stages on the Midway. As the Festival emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, the program focuses on Chicago artists, many of whom will perform with very special guests.

Mai Sugimoto – 2:30 PM, Saturday September 25

Mai Sugimoto is a saxophonist, composer, and active member of Chicago’s jazz and improvisational music scene. “A compelling performer” with “dry-champagne tone and lyrical lines” (Chicago Tribune), Sugimoto draws inspiration from her upbringing in Japan and her roots in jazz to compose and perform from her unique multicultural experience. “Born/Raised,” her 2018 debut album, explores this cultural and musical binary – juxtaposing, among other things, a jazz rendition of a Japanese children’s song with compositions inspired by the American jazz idiom.

Sugimoto is also a core member of the quartet Hanami, whose two albums similarly mix Japanese culture into creative music. She has performed three times at the Chicago Jazz Festival: in 2015 with Hanami, in 2019 as a leader, and in 2018 with renowned bassist Tatsu Aoki, with whom she frequently plays, including appearances in his Fred Anderson Legacy Band. Her first solo album, “monologue” (Asian Improv Records) was released in March of 2021.

Micah Collier – 4:00 PM Saturday September 25

Micah Collier is a bandleader, composer, and electric and acoustic bassist born and raised in Chicago. He is an alumnus of the Jazz Links Student Council, a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and the Hyde Park Jazz Society, among many other organizations in the Chicago area, and has been heavily involved with the Jazz Institute of Chicago. 

He has had the pleasure of working with world-renowned musicians including Vincent Davis, Ernest Dawkins, Marquis Hill, Corey Wilkes, Charles Heath, Robert Irving iii, Lewis Nash, Pharez Whitted, Terrell Stafford, Orrin Evans, Cyrille Aimee, and many others. He has also had the good fortune to play at festivals including the Monterey Jazz Fest, Silver Room Block Party, Taste of Chicago, Detroit Jazz Fest, Hyde Park Jazz Fest, and Englewood Jazz Fest, in addition to leading his band at the 2019 Chicago Jazz Festival. 

Collier’s spiritual love for avant-garde, hip hop, and funk helps him to create a space of freedom and spontaneity within the music, to expand the understanding of jazz to be more inclusive of other genres, and to create music that feels good to the soul. 

More Info

For more information, go to the festival’s website or Facebook page. Bennie Currie is the Augustana lead volunteer for this event and you may also contact him or Jim Vondracek for more info.