Dear Chicago,I realize that Sugar Blue plays around town an awful lot.I realize that it's easy to take that fact for granted.Here's some advice: don't. Sugar just put out an new CD called Voyage and busted out of the clubs he typically plays, and checked in to Fitzgerald's for a...

Widespread Panic's lighting rig has been at a consistent level of awesome for the last several years now. But they just may have stumbled on a new use for it lately.They'd been utilizing three suspended LCD screens to flash some incredible poster images all night (some with trippy animation). Deep in the second set,...

This edition ofNotes From The Jazz Underground was culled from the April 29thbroadcast.The broadcast version fellon Duke Ellington's birthday. But just like everything else NFTJU, host Paul Abella doesn't play it straight. Offeringequal parts Ellington oddities, oddball covers and a straight-up jazz history lesson this week. He offers a bunch of notes from this...

The guitar/drums duo is a format that is finding all sorts of interesting permutations. Chicago has bred a pair of fine practitioners in Ryley Walker and Charles Rumback. Walker'sacoustic, and the sounds that hecoaxes out of it, set these guys apart -- briliant, exploratory, conversationaljams with just two instruments.Here's the duo at Chicago's...

Maybe if we all get together, close our eyes, join hands, and think really hard about it, Causa Sui will realize that there's an audience in the States for their psych-jazz-jam music.Until then, here's a video from an appearance in Copenhagen. The venue is called Jazzhouse and, like their recent record, the band is...

By: Alex WoodId be lying if I said I wasnt skeptical going in to White Denims Thalia Hall show on Saturday.Mylast two White Denim shows, during their 2014 tour, both took place in venues in the 200 and 500 capacity range. This, combined with the band's newlineup,gives reason for a longtime fan to think, or possibly...

This edition ofNotes From The Jazz Underground was culled from the April 22nd broadcast, Charles Mingus' birthday.What was planned as astraight tribute set to Minguswas hijacked a few days before by the untimely passing of Prince.That's great news for radio listeners, but for those checking in to our site for the streamable playlist,...

Beyondify is our periodic feature which features new music before it hits Spotify. As usual, we mine Bandcamp, Soundcloud, YouTube for the goods. There's even a new distribution platform featured prominently in this edition. Saudade features Jon Medeski, along with members of Deftones and Bad Brains. Like nearly every other Jon Medeski project, it's...

This edition ofNotes From The Jazz Underground was culled from the April 15th broadcast. The program airs on90.9 FM WDCB Fridays from 10 to midnight.Paul tells us, "every once in a while, I put together a show by scrolling on my library fox 'x' number of seconds and wherever I land is where I have...

I am very happy to announce the return of Notes From The Jazz Underground. Not that it ever went anywhere, it's been airing on 90.9 FM WDCB Fridays from 10 to midnight, dutifully every week.But we've not been assembling and sharing playlists here for the last couple of years. People, this stuff is too good not...