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Velvet Lounge

Michael Jackson

Music

Arie Crown Theater Named for a Lithuanian immigrant who came to Chicago poor in 1875 and ended up an influential businessman, this theater opened in 1960 and has spent its lifetime deep in the innards of the behemoth McCormick Place convention center. When a fire gutted the center in 1967, the theater was spared, but during the subsequent reconstruction its capacity decreased from more than 5,000 to roughly 4,300. After it reopened in 1971 it was briefly a hot spot for musical theater, but these days its sporadic offerings also include live music, dance, and less classifiable cultural events—it’s hosted everyone from Stevie Wonder to Stephen Hawking. A $7 million renovation completed in 1997 improved the theater’s sound significantly, but it’s still a relatively chilly and sterile venue. Upcoming concerts include Patti LaBelle and Jeffrey Osborne (3/28), Russian singer Philip Kirkorov (4/4), the liturgical oratorio Tu Es Petrus by Polish pop composer Piotr Rubik (4/12), and a Mother’s Day soul jam (5/10).  McCormick Place Lakeside Center, 2301 S. Lake Shore Dr., 312-791-6190 or ariecrown.com.

Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University Designed by Adler and Sullivan in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, this national landmark opened in 1889 and served as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first home, but by the Great Depression it had sunk into disuse and disrepair. The city repurposed it as a servicemen’s center during World War II, installing a bowling alley on the stage, and it wouldn’t reopen as a theater till 1967, after a seven-year lobbying and fund-raising effort spearheaded by Beatrice Spachner, who’s now memorialized by a statue in the lobby. In the late 60s and early 70s it was one of the city’s dominant rock venues, booking the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Who, and Janis Joplin. The 3,900-seat theater, refurbished again after a $13 million state grant in 2000, has excellent acoustics, great sight lines, and unbeatable ambience. It’s been controlled by Roosevelt University since 2002, and these days programs a diverse schedule of dance and music—in the past two years, it’s attracted finicky eccentrics like Bjork and Tom Waits. Upcoming concerts include Celtic Woman (4/4-4/6) and Widespread Panic (4/11-4/13, 4/11 and 4/12 sold out).  50 E. Congress, 312-922-2110 or auditoriumtheatre.org.

Buddy Guy’s Legends Opened by guitarist Buddy Guy in June 1989, Legends quickly established itself as one of the city’s premier blues clubs. The space itself is short on character, but Guy is a regular presence, and over the years loads of rock stars—David Bowie, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones—have dropped in to jam with him. Legends books a steady stream of top-tier players year-round, and every January Guy headlines a string of shows himself, reliably selling out every one. The bar also sells southern-fried and Cajun food (many of the dishes supposedly from Guy’s own recipes) and opens for lunch at 11 AM on weekdays, with free music till midafternoon. Columbia College owns the building and plans to evict Guy, but it’s promised not to shut down the venue before it finds a new home. Upcoming headliners include Sugar Blue (3/15), Lurrie Bell (3/19), Phil Guy (3/20), Mem Shannon (3/27), and Eddy “the Chief” Clearwater (3/29).  754 S. Wabash, 312-427-0333 or buddyguys.com.

Cal’s In business since 1947, this tiny dive bar (attached to an equally modest liquor store) is an unlikely survivor in the financial district, with cheap PBR and a men’s room nasty enough to make you nostalgic for the Fireside Bowl. The weekday crowd tends toward bike messengers and traders, but on Friday and Saturday nights the live music brings out a whole different set. The bands play right on the floor, toe to toe with the audience, and the sound system consists of a vocal PA propped up on the bar. It’s an arrangement tailor-made for snotty, primitive garage punk (and Cal’s books plenty of that), but you can also hear indie rock, Americana, and all kinds of grubby, unclassifiable weirdness. Though most of the acts are local, the occasional touring band is worth looking out for: in the past few years Montreal’s Mind Controls and Paris’s Operation S have passed through. There’s never a formal cover charge, but somebody with a beat-up ice bucket is liable to ask you for five bucks before the night’s over. Upcoming acts include Lord of the Yum-Yum (3/14), Childsize Monster Pistol (3/21), and Pat Boone’s Farm (3/22).  400 S. Wells, 312-922-6392 or drinkatcalsbar.com.

Close Up 2 The only smooth-jazz club in the country (according to its owner) positions itself on its Web site as a good place to network with an “ethnic diverse professional clientele,” so maybe they know nobody actually pays attention to this kind of music. The space has a sleek, airy look, with plenty of exposed brick and stuff painted blue. There’s live music Thursdays through Saturdays, but you can try one of the 25 martinis on the menu anytime. Upcoming acts include Frank Russell (3/27-3/30, 4/3-4/5) and Kafele (4/10-4/12, 4/17-4/19).  416 S. Clark, 312-385-1111 or closeup2jazz.com.

Cuatro This upscale nuevo Latino restaurant recently reintroduced late-night live music every Thursday through Sunday, but the idea seems to be mostly to sell more drinks to the postdinner crowd. The bookings thus far focus on veteran house and hip-hop DJs—the kind of pros who know how to work a room even when everybody’s dressed too nice to really want to break a sweat. Most nights the music starts after ten, but on Sundays honest-to-God jazz artists (Ari Brown, Yoko Noge) get to work at 7 PM. Local Brazilian trio Bossa Tres also plays during Sunday brunch. DJs Mark Grant and Mario Romay, who specialize in house, soul, and funk, spin every Thursday in March and April, and other upcoming acts include Jose Valdes (3/23), Mike Dearborn (3/28), Kimberly Gordon (3/30), and Jesse De La Peña (4/4).  2030 S. Wabash, 312-842-8856 or cuatro-chicago.com.

Reggie’s Music Joint This sibling to Reggie’s Rock Club shares the same address, but since in this part of the building the food and beer are the attraction, there’s often no cover charge and admission is 21 and up. Framed gig posters hang on exposed brick, banquettes line the walls, and the middle of the room is packed with wooden benches and narrow slab tables. The menu is strictly bar basics and comfort food, but the beer selection is extensive. The music is mostly local and mostly straight-up rock, but you can occasionally hear jazz, comedy, roots rock, or blues. (MP Shows, which books Reggie’s Rock Club, isn’t involved here.) Upcoming headliners include Bullet Called Life (3/14), the Ropes (3/20), Ted Sirota’s Rebel Souls (3/24), and Painkiller Hotel (3/28).  2105 S. State, 312-949-0120 or reggieslive.com/musicjoint.

Reggie’s Rock Club MP Shows, which used to book the Fireside Bowl and now handles places like the Note, Ronny’s, and the soon-to-reopen Bottom Lounge, programs the music at Reggie’s Rock Club, and it’s the most put-together venue MP has ever worked with. Though the oddly pristine graffiti murals, snack bar, and spiffy brick-steel-and-cement construction give the place the look of a brand-new youth center, the sound system is great, the lighting is sophisticated, and the sight lines are well thought out. The main room holds about 250 and the balcony about 80; the bookings are pretty much exclusively indie rock, garage, metal, hip-hop, and punk, and almost every event is either all-ages or 18 and up. The on-site music store, Record Breakers, is open till 11 every night, sometimes later during shows. Upcoming headliners include the Vandals (3/14), Red (3/18), Xiu Xiu (3/15), Raheem DeVaughn (3/23), Office (3/28), Converge (4/6), and the Anti-Nowhere League (4/8).  2105 S. State, 312-949-0121 or reggieslive.com/rockclub.

South Union Arts The multi-arts space operating in the former Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church shuts down every winter—nobody’s willing to pay to heat the place—but in April it returns to presenting indie and experimental rock, visual art exhibits, and occasional film screenings. Most events here are booked by MP Shows; there’s never a cover charge, only a suggested donation, and everything’s all-ages. The movie-theater-style seats used by the congregration are still in place—part of the reason the room only holds around 100—and so is the enormous blue neon crucifix, complete with the motto JESUS IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, that hangs above the chancel-turned-stage. Upcoming shows include Heligoats (4/5), Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista and Aunt Dracula (4/11), and Odawas, Eric Carbonara, and Nick Schillace (4/18).  1352 S. Union or southunionarts.com.

Velvet Lounge This venerable mecca for free jazz—owned by legendary tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, who’s usually collecting the cover at the door when he’s not onstage—was forced from its old spot on South Indiana by a condo development and in the summer of 2006 reopened around the corner. The new Velvet lacks the original club’s uniquely headache-inducing wallpaper and ramshackle charm (thankfully the not-quite-right black-velvet portraits survived the move), but in other ways it’s much better. The sound is greatly improved, and the sensible layout of the room—as opposed to the “L” shape of the previous space, which caused a lot of rubbernecking—offers a view of the stage from every seat. There’s music seven nights a week, including a long-running jam session on Sundays. The Velvet frequently books nationally prominent artists and reliably showcases members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, but it’s also a crucial incubator of up-and-coming talent, as it has been for much of its long history. Upcoming concerts include Lester Lashley & the Urban Bushmen (3/14-3/15), Nicole Mitchell (3/21-3/22), Holus Bolus (3/26), and the AACM Great Black Music Ensemble (3/29).  67 E. Cermak, 312-791-9050 or velvetlounge.net. —Peter Margasak

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