Jazz School News, Thoughts and Events.

June 18, 2017 Workshop and Concert with Gene Bertoncini and Larry Gray, 7:00pm

Posted by David Bloom on Jun 2, 2017 3:35:53 PM

Students and musicians are invited to the Workshop and Concert featuring Gene Bertoncini and Larry Gray, held June 18, 2017 at 7:00pm at Bloom School of Jazz, 226 S. Wabash. Admission $15. RSVP by emailing dbloomjazz@gmail.com, or call 773-860-8300.
 
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Topics: chicago jazz, jazz events, bloom school of jazz, workshop, concerts

Steve Rodby Joins Bloom School Faculty.

Posted by David Bloom on Oct 21, 2013 2:44:00 AM

We are very happy to announce that Steve Rodby, 13-time Grammy winner and Bloom alumnus, has joined our faculty. Steve is teaching bass (electric and upright) as well as music production and video editing.

Acoustic and electric bassist, editor and producer Steve Rodby was born in Joliet, Illinois. Steve began studying classical orchestral bass at age 10, and quickly developed an intense interest in jazz and pop music. A graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in classical bass performance, Steve studied with Warren Benfield (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), renowned jazz bassist Rufus Reid and jazz guru David Bloom. Steve has performed with numerous jazz greats, including Joe Henderson, Roy Haynes, Tony Bennett, Teddy Wilson, Milt Jackson, Art Farmer, Sonny Stitt, George Coleman, Ira Sullivan, Zoot Sims, Lee Konitz, Jackie McLean, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Kenny Burrell, James Moody, Johnny Griffin and Monty Alexander.

In addition to being the bassist in the Pat Metheny Group for 3 decades, Steve has conducted orchestras, recorded with many other artists in both jazz and pop, and lately has spent much of his time producing and editing, both audio and video.

His work as a producer includes Oregon In Moscow (Oregon's recording with the Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra) which was nominated for four Grammy awards, six records by Eliane Elias - including Dreamer, Something For You, Bossa Nova Stories - and numerous non-PMG projects with Metheny, including the Jim Hall & Pat Metheny duo record, two Pat Metheny Trio records, the soundtrack for A Map Of The World and the Grammy winner One Quiet Night. He also did extensive production on two Michael Brecker recordings, Nearness Of You and the Grammy winner Pilgrimage. In all, Steve has won 13 Grammys.

Steve edited the video and audio for the Pat Metheny Group's DVDs Imaginary Day Live and The Way Up - Live, as well as other music videos, and several full length concert specials for broadcast on PBS and DVD release, including Anúna's Celtic Origins. Steve produced and edited both the audio and video for world famous classical marimba star Nancy Zeltman's latest productions, music by Messaien arranged for marimba and clarinet. 

More recently, Steve worked as a producer on legendary jazz bassist Charlie Haden's Rambling Boy, performed on tour with singer/songwriter Boz Scaggs, and did production work on Maria Schneider's Grammy winning Sky Blue, as well as Pat Metheny's  most recent recordings Orchestrion and Unity Band, and Grammy Award "Best New Artist" Esperanza Spalding's 2 back-to-back Grammy Award winning albums Concert Music Society and Radio Music Society.  

This last year Steve produced 3 albums: Bloom mentee Ryan Cohan's The River, Eliane Elias' I Thought About You, and Internationally Recognised Aliens by The Impossible Gentlemen, a band that Steve has been touring with.

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Topics: jazz courses, chicago jazz, jazz classes, bloom school of jazz

We are very happy to announce that Isabelle Oliver; harpist, composer and teacher has joined our faculty

Posted by David Bloom on Sep 19, 2013 1:13:00 PM

Isabelle has been a professional musician for more than 20 years, performing and recording with many great international musicians such as Peter Erskine, Norma Winstone, David Linx, Didier Lockwood, Louis Moutin, Eivind Opsvic in more than 20 countries.

She recorded 6 albums of her own compositions in France, in Germany and in the United States and a DVD. She composed music for theater, film scores, exhibitions, poetry, dance and puppet shows. She has been nominated for the French Victory of Jazz for "Year Revelation" and received an "Outstanding Musicianship"award from the Berklee School of Jazz in Boston.

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Topics: chicago jazz, david bloom, bloom school of jazz

Jazz Vocal class starting Monday July 22 7PM. Enrollment due by this Friday July 19th. Spider is also taking private students. Call for details.

Posted by David Bloom on Jul 18, 2013 3:07:00 PM


Spider Saloff is the winner of five MAC Awards (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) including Best Female Jazz Vocalist, as well as the recipient of the Chicago Gold Coast Award for Excellence in Live Performance and also of a special citation from NARAS (The Grammy's). This World Class artist has taught vocalists at the Bloom School of Jazz for over a decade. As a concert jazz vocal artist, actress, songwriter and playwright with 8 national recordings, Ms. Saloff has been acclaimed world wide. She was featured with Chicago Jazz Orchestra's tribute to Ella Fitzgerald at Millennium Park to an audience of over 26,000. Saloff's Gershwin tribute The Memory of All That headlined in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her concert venues include: Auditorium Theater, Smithsonian Institution, Wilmington Grand Opera, Wallingford Symphony, Illinois State Symphony, Castro Theater, and New York's Town Hall and Lincoln Center.
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Topics: jazz, chicago jazz, jazz programs, jazz classes, Perfect Set Recording Course, vocal, perfect set

Perfect Set Recording Course Students Remember Main Stage concert.

Posted by David Bloom on Jun 23, 2013 4:23:00 PM

Tyler Callahan. Perfect Set Recording Course Student.
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Topics: chicago jazz, Perfect Set Recording Course, Jazz Vocal, voice

Bloom School of Jazz Now in 36th Year!

Posted by Phil Bruni on Sep 7, 2011 12:24:00 PM

Chicago Jazz Magazine Bloom School of Jazz Article by Mike Jeffers 

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Topics: chicago jazz, david bloom, jazz education, bloom school of jazz

Jazz School Experience Series: Escaping Yourself to Be You Part 2

Posted by David Bloom on Feb 5, 2011 9:55:00 AM

Escaping Yourself to Be You (Part 2)

I had a student named Joseph who had already played with numerous national stars when he first came in for an evaluation. During our first meeting he played only fast notes. It was clear to me that he had spent a lot of time on technique and was an accomplished guitarist but not a strong musician. His self-conscious desire to impress was greater than his desire to express. In his first exercise with me, he was forbidden from playing flurries of fast notes. This restrictive demand was the best thing that could have happened to him. Over time he discovered his individual expression, sense of lyricism and learned that technique must always serve an expressive idea.

Another student, Bob, was an excellent example of the converse. When he walked into the school the first time he had very poorly developed physical dexterity but as I listened to him, he revealed a selflessness and intuition for musical direction and expression. The last thing on his mind was that I was in the room. He had given in to the music and there was nothing to prove. The music had eclipsed his ego.

Self-consciousness on the bandstand can be heard, and can easily be noticed when the player is looking around the room to see if anyone is watching them while they are playing. They are taking "affirmation inventory" as they play; checking out who likes them or who looks impressed with them. Another example of self-consciousness occurs when a musician plays a barrage of undirected notes that communicate that they have no reason to be played other than to demonstrate to the audience that the player has Olympian technique and is "bad" (meaning dangerous). Hiding ones vulnerability with this desperate and cynical approach gives jazz a bad name. These musicians seem to give in to their worst feelings about themselves, which is, that they can't be appreciated for being themselves and have to put on a dog and pony show to elicit a favorable response.

Great jazz players teach you an appreciation of what you have inside you and what you love. Conforming to conventions, attitudes and behaviors is only about what other people think and do. Discipline, focus, sacrifice and heart are the tools used to respect your own life and to conquer your demons.

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Topics: chicago jazz, jazz programs, jazz classes, jazz school

Jazz School Experience Series: Escaping Yourself to Be You Part 1

Posted by David Bloom on Jan 24, 2011 8:11:00 PM

Escaping Yourself to Be You (Part 1)

We live in a culture where people go to the Caymans, play Nintendo, watch TV, take drugs, booze and engage in a host of other activities in order to escape negative aspects of their life. "Getting away" is a mantra that we hear regularly from fed-up folks, who can't stand their boss, mate, relatives or whatever. When they go on vacation they feel they are being released from prison. Some people who aren't just escaping from external things, but also from bewilderment, alienation, depression and low self-esteem, think that if they change their immediate state of mind or environment they will feel better. Escaping away from something dark and debilitating can never compare with moving towards something positive. In other words, the absence of a negative force is not a positive one; it's neutral.

Jazz musicians need to escape many of the same problems, but also encounter some different ones. They have to escape from the clutches of conformity and self-consciousness, which is mandatory in jazz. It is very easy for jazz players and civilians (non-musicians) to be wooed by the allure, the promise and scale of manipulative media in order to feel like they are more sexy, more powerful, rebellious, and not left outside. But losing or attenuating one's birthright because of the external influence is not part of the jazz personality.

Great jazz players know that all they have is themselves: pure, undiluted and uncorrupted. Doing what everyone else is doing is not an option in their world. They have never made any Faustian agreements about their music and treat their talents with great respect. The average jazz player's main focus is to conform to and imitate what great jazz musicians have played. They think that if they play Coltrane's ideas then maybe they will become hip or famous too. In the jazz community you don't get significant points for merely copying Coltrane's solo. Entry into the pantheon of great jazz is strictly reserved for those who play "who they are," not for those who second-guess what they think the audience wants to hear. The jazz masters all know that individuality can't be mass-produced.

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Topics: jazz courses, chicago jazz, david bloom, jazz school, jazz instruction

A’s and F’s in Jazz Schools

Posted by David Bloom on Dec 6, 2010 6:17:00 PM

In America, people who get A’s are smart, disciplined, and will help to enlighten society. And people who get F’s are stupid, uncreative, and probably will have no effect on society. Right? 

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Topics: j, chicago jazz, jazz programs, jazz school, potential

Hearing vs Listening

Posted by David Bloom on Nov 10, 2010 5:45:00 PM

As we walk down the street many sounds come into our reality. We hear buses accelerate, laughing, shouting, fire truck sirens, motorcycles… a whole array of auditory stimulants.  The awareness of these sounds is not a matter of choice but a matter of biology because we hear these sounds whether we like them or not.

Listening, on the other hand, is a matter of choice. If you are talking with someone you have the option of just hearing the sounds while you think your own thoughts or actually listening to what you are hearing. To listen means that you are carefully considering everything that is being said and responding to it.

If you are a musician and you are only hearing what others are playing without listening, the results will be chaotic. The dynamics won't match, some notes will be inappropriately louder or softer than the others, the timing will not be in synch, and other problems will occur. In affect, you will not be playing with others, you will only be playing simultaneously as others play.

The potential for musical or social intimacy becomes possible when you listen to others, and impossible when you don't.  A bad band sounds like they are playing in the same building but not in the same room.

In a great jazz band, everything that is played is listened to deeply in order to assess the inspirational and navigational value. While the sax player is soloing, the drummer, piano player, and bassist have many response options. They may imitate, play against or just play time without any dramatic response. When musicians listen at this deep level they are opening up access to the moment, talking musically with each other as new ideas occur. 

Nothing of value can happen between musicians (or civilians) without listening, a mandatory prerequisite for successful intimate human interaction.
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Topics: jazz courses, chicago jazz, practicing music, jazz school, bloom school