Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

Thursday, we opened this season’s Traffic Jam with Kahil El Zabar, the extraordinary internationally acclaimed percussionist. Kahil was the first curator of the Traffic series when we started it in 1995 and helped me program the series for the first three years. It was important to me that Kahil return to the Steppenwolf stage and I thought it would be most appropriate to open this year’s festival with him.

When I asked him to do so he gladly accepted and we discussed presenting an evening with the best jazz musicians around. As per usual, Kahil pulled together some of the greatest world-class musicians working today – and almost all of them live in Chicago. Some of the extraordinary artists joining Kahil on our stage last night were saxophonists Ari Brown and Ernest Khabeer Dawkins – with very special guest from St. Louis, Hamiett Bluiet, leader of The World Saxophone Quartet; guitarist Fareed Haque; pianist Robert Baabe Irving III; trumpeter Corey Wilkes and half a dozen other great musicians.

It was an outstanding evening for jazz fans as they witnessed The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble play the first set and the 13-piece Orchestra Infinity bring down the house in the second set. Standing ovation for the evening. And a big start for the festival.

Over the coming three weekends, I’m very excited to present some of the greatest artists working in the performance scene today including singer/actor Sandra Bernhard; jazz guitarist Bill Frisell; Maude Maggart, the hottest young cabaret singer making her Chicago debut; and the spectacular vocalist Oleta Adams, who everyone knows from her signature song “Get Here” but whose voice and range of material soars through cool jazz, R&B, and gospel.

Traffic Jam is a huge undertaking. Every night we present a new performer, with new technical needs and a fresh and expectant audience. Our production staff literally reinvents our stage every night for the needs of all these performers and magically creates an intensely enjoyable theatrical experience. Somehow it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a concert but rather experiencing a one-of-a-kind live performance in an intimate place.

There’s nothing quite like that.

This entry was posted by Tim Evans on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 11:28 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.