NEIL TESSER
Neil Tesser has been a Chicago jazz authority for over 35 years. He covered the music scene for the Chicago Reader from 1972-2008, and for seven years wrote the paper’s popular Hot Type column. During that time he also wrote for publications ranging from Downbeat and Rolling Stone to Playboy, the Chicago Sun-Times and USA Today, where he was the paper’s first jazz reviewer. He is also a regular contributor to Examiner.com.
Many Chicagoans remember Neil from his nightly jazz programs at NPR station WBEZ-FM (1980-1996); listeners around the country know him from his anchor work on national broadcasts of the Chicago Jazz Festival (1983-1995) and for the jazz review-commentary-interview program “Listen Here!” (2005-2008), syndicated on some 100 stations around the country.
Neil has written liner notes for more than 250 albums and received a Grammy nomination in 1985 and a Deems Taylor Award in 2001. He is the author of The Playboy Guide To Jazz (1998) and is currently editing the autobiography of vibraphonist Gary Burton.
Recent Contributions
by NEIL TESSER | Jan 6, 2012
In recent years, Nicole Mitchell, an enterprising jazz flutist, modernist composer and leader of several inventive ensembles, has been a celebrated success story in Chicago music. Last spring, she received an Alpert Award, worth $75,000, from the California Institute of the Arts. Her albums regularly appear on critics’ year-end lists; she earned Flutist of the
by NEIL TESSER | Dec 16, 2011
Standing tall and cool in front of a small combo, the Chicago vocalist Rose Colella plumbs the Great American Songbook for her repertory, from Irving Berlin and the Gershwins through Cole Porter and Frank Loesser. In this respect, she fits the mold of many modern jazz singers. But most vocalists did not learn these tunes
by NEIL TESSER | Sep 26, 2011
SCENE: The original Playboy Club, on Walton near Michigan Avenue, circa 1961, painstakingly resurrected at the sprawling Cinespace soundstage in Douglas Park 50 years later. This sybarite’s delight, with its cottontailed waitresses and simmering sexuality, is the setting for “The Playboy Club,” which had its premiere Monday night on WMAQ. It is a place where,
by NEIL TESSER | Aug 7, 2011
Saxophonists are collectors; it’s an occupational hazard. They amass boxes of reeds to find one that works perfectly; their closets bulge with the secondary saxes, clarinets and flutes they are expected to play in bands and orchestras. And if the home of a professional saxophonist often resembles a small-town music shop of decades past, with
by NEIL TESSER | Jun 17, 2011
With the right tour guide, you can practically see the building that stood at East 47th Street and Martin Luther King Drive, and almost hear the music that escaped its windows in the 1950s. The right tour guide is Bob Riesman, who knows that the fabled blues musician Big Bill Broonzy called that building home
by NEIL TESSER | May 2, 2011
Last fall, during his consultancy to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma visited the Illinois Youth Center, a correctional institution in Warrenville. He accompanied the female inmates as they rehearsed a musical show based on their life experiences, as part of the C.S.O.’s program to reach communities far from Symphony Center. In
by NEIL TESSER | Apr 2, 2011
Home of the blues. Laboratory for the skyscraper. Birthplace of atomic energy. And cradle of children’s music?
by NEIL TESSER | Mar 10, 2011
If Kestutis Stanciauskas has done his job right, there should be at least some degree of discomfort Saturday night at the Chopin Theater in Wicker Park — both on stage and in the audience.
by NEIL TESSER | Dec 18, 2010
It may buzz at night or during Cubs games, but no one would describe predawn Wrigleyville as a beehive of activity — especially on the darkest day of the year, at the onset of winter.
by NEIL TESSER | Dec 11, 2010
When the pianist Bradley Parker released his first LP in 1979, he went to the Chicago Tattooing and Piercing Company parlor on Belmont Avenue and had the album title, “Latin Black,” inked across his left forearm. This was novel among artists in the ’80s, when tattoos belonged primarily to sailors and biker gangs.
