Ravinia 2025 Issue 1

THE GOLDEN RULE OF JAZZ IS TO BREAK THE RULES. At its core, jazz music bonds artist and audience with constant anticipa- tion of the unexpected. It’s the random mystery of discovering that one new note, melody, guitar solo, piano progres- sion, or lyrical phrase that’s never been heard or played that keeps jazz alive and addictive for the artist and the listener. Jazz is a musical melting pot that symbolizes the American experiment. It stands on a firm foundation; however, it gains its strength, vibrancy, and purpose by ingesting the influences of the varied individual building blocks of multiple cultures and traditions. It is a restless music that attracts restless souls. Two of those restless souls are jazz vocalist extraordinaire Kurt Elling and the pioneering instrumental jazz-fusion ensemble Weather Report. Ravinia Festival devotees will have the special opportunity to revel in the “mystery of jazz” through the combined musical talents of two unique, jazz rule- breakers when Elling makes an evening of celebrating and transforming classic Weather Report tracks on June 15 in Ravinia’s historic Martin Theatre. Elling is joined by pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Essiet Okon Essiet, guitarist Mike Moreno, and a rare, excit- ing element—legendary drummer Peter Erskine, one of Weather Report’s noted and vital members during the late ’70s and early ’80s, beginning with 1978’s highly praised Mr. Gone album. Erskine, a New Jersey native, began his career in 1972 and played with jazz heavyweights Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson. He joined Weather Report during one of its many new phases, later leaving to steer the rhythm section for the famed fusion band Steps Ahead. For all his adventures, Erskine has been voted Best Jazz Drummer of the Year 10 times by the readers of Modern Drummer magazine and was elected to the magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2017. He’s also got two Grammy Awards to his name, as well as an honorary foctor- ate from the Berklee School of Music (awarded in 1992). These days, when he’s not playing kit onstage, Erskine’s teach- ing it, subdividing his time to be a pro- fessor and director of drumset studies at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. For more than three decades Kurt Elling has established himself as the premier jazz vocalist of his era, with his musical and jazz roots first blos- soming in Chicago’s spirited scene in the late ’80s. Chicago-born and a two-time Grammy winner (among 16 total nominations), Elling is one of jazz’s most enthusiastic ambassadors, prolific practitioners, avid historians, and fluent philosophers. He has won numerous international jazz awards—for almost 15 years, Elling has been rated by critics and readers of leading jazz publications such as Downbeat magazine as Best Vo- calist—and has collaborated with many of jazz’s most respected musicians, as well as performed around the world. Elling has become a Ravinia regular since he returned to Chicago from a long stint in New York, performing several times across each of the festival’ stages. Since 2023, Elling has been serving as Ravinia Festival’s prestigious Audrey L. Weaver Jazz Advisor, picking up the mantle of artistic leadership from Ram- sey Lewis to help keep the jazz irons hot. He recently explained the creative catalyst for the present venture into the Weather Report catalogue to Thor Steingraber, director of The Soraya at California State University. “The intention here is to move myself forward with challenging material that stands on the jazz premise and the electronic, backbeat, loud premise. I don’t want to step back into Ellington or Count Basie. I want to move forward and still bring that along with me. And I want to bring audiences along with me.” Though admittedly not a household name to the music masses, in jazz circles the multicultural, multiracial, Gram- my-winning Weather Report is revered with Mount Rushmore-like awe. In 1970, the jazz-altering album Bitches Brew found the genre’s ultimate experimenter, trumpeter Miles Davis, rattling purists’ cages by embracing and incorporating rock’s emerging power and electricity into the jazz lexicon. Davis’s double album became a Grammy winner and at- tained jazz-fusion “classic” status. In early 2025, Bitches Brew was one of 25 “cultur- ally, historically, or aesthetically signifi- cant” recordings honored with entry into the National Recording Registry of the United States Library of Congress. (This year’s other noteworthy inductees includ- ed Chicago’s debut album Chicago Transit Authority , Mary J. Blige’s My Life , Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road , and Steve Miller Band’s Fly Like an Eagle.) Building on the bold, forerunning sound and attitude forged by Davis on Bitches Brew , two of the album’s key contibutors—Austrian keyboardist and composer Joe Zawinul and American saxophonist Wayne Shorter—formed Weather Report that same year. Zawinul and Shorter first gigged together in 1959 as part of Maynard Fer- guson’s band. A decade later, after going separate ways to tour with saxophonist Cannonball Adderly and drummer Art Blakey, respectively, the two reunited on Davis’s 1969 seminal album In a Silent Way . Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš became the band’s third core member. Throughout its 16-year run, Weather Report boasted several different but each supremely talented lineups that included a litany of esteemed musi- cians: the inventive fretless bassist Jaco Pastorius, percussionist Airto Moreira, RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JUNE 6 – JUNE 15, 2025 18 CORYDEWALD