Whenever multi-Grammy Award winner and NEA Jazz Master Paquito D'Rivera hits the stage, you can be sure you're hearing the best in Swing and Latin Jazz! Celebrate the holiday season when Jon Faddis and The Chicago Jazz Ensemble (The CJE) present the 10th American Heritage Jazz Series featuring Paquito D'Rivera and The Chicago Jazz Ensemble: Commemorating Goodman, Celebrating Swing & Latin Jazz, on Friday, December 12, 2008, at 8:00 pm at the Harris Theater, 205 East Randolph, Chicago. In addition, Faddis and music aficionado, writer and broadcaster Neil Tesser will present a pre-concert conversation about the evenings performance at 7:20 pm.

Paquito and I first met on the bandstand when we both were sitting in with Dizzy Gillespie in the 1980s, said Faddis. We continued to work together with Diz and, of course, with Diz's United Nation Orchestra, for which we each served as music director over the years. Im excited to once again share the stage with Paquito, who is a master of classical, jazz and Caribbean-infused music. He is tremendous fun and a great friend. With The Chicago Jazz Ensemble, these renditions of Benny Goodmans music will definitely shine. Of Benny Goodman, Faddis says, There is so much to honor with Goodman, not the least of which is the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert which marked the first time the bandstand was integrated. It was absolutely brave and remarkable to prioritize artistry and to respect musicians, whatever their race, above whatever prejudice and social pressures exist. Thats deeply admirable. Second, the concert represented the first real moment when jazz was presented at Carnegie Hall. Third, the night was a tremendous success, changing the way audiences both heard and saw jazz, and what can be achieved.

College campuses were once a prime spawning ground for new digital music services.

Those days appear to be over.

Closing the book on the role of campuses as digital music laboratories is the recent demise of Ruckus—an ad-supported music download service that was available for free to students at 200 universities through direct content deals, as well as to anyone else with a .edu e-mail account. The closing came after Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment dissolved their Total Music joint venture, which acquired Ruckus last year.

Ruckus joins a list of several other once-promising services, including Napster and Cdigix, that suffered an early death after attempting to offer college students a low-cost, legal alternative to peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks. The abrupt closing of Ruckus in early February has left university officials scratching their heads over where to turn next.

Compounding the problem is the U.S. Higher Education Opportunity Act, enacted in August. It requires universities to offer students who use their networks alternatives to popular P2P offerings, along with other measures like implementing technology to block unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works.

But the law doesn't state which measures would be considered appropriate as an “alternative." The U.S. Department of Education is currently defining what that means, but the process could take months.

How many larger instrumental ensembles endure for over ten years with the core of the line-up unchanged? In the economic climate of the last decade, not many. All the more remarkable, then, that the Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet, which draws its membership from two continents, is now thriving in its eleventh year. Embarking on their latest European tour, the band descended on Amsterdam's Bimhuis, where they held court to a packed house on a cold Friday evening.

Brotzmann's interactions with the fertile Chicago arts community blossomed into a three disc extravaganza in 1997 with The Chicago Octet/Tentet (Okka). Of course. Brotzmann has been no stranger to large ensembles over his career, having erupted onto the scene with his legendary debut octet Machine Gun (FMP, 1968). Longevity first beckoned when reedman Ken Vandermark selflessly pledged some of his 1999 MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant to finance a North American tour for the Tentet, unlikely to have been realized in any other way. Since then the band has become a fixture on the festival circuit, appearing at all the major events on both sides of the Atlantic.

Forming the spine alongside the leader are the five ever-present Chicago stalwarts, Vandermark on reeds, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Fred Lonberg Holm on cello and electronics, Michael Zerang on drums and Kent Kessler on bass. Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee has also been a longstanding member, and here featured his pocket trumpet, flugelhorn, tenor saxophone and clarinet. In addition, the newest incumbents, from a revolving cast of other players, are Johannes Bauer on trombone and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. Two further constituents were notable by their absence: the Swedish contingent of Mats Gustafsson and Per-Ake Holmlander were reported lost somewhere en route from Vancouver. Brought in to cover their absence was Bauer's older trombonist brother Conrad, for his first time with the Tentet...