In late November of 2018, long-time collaborators (& life-long Los Angelenos) Carlos Niño &Miguel Atwood-Ferguson flew to Chicago to participate in the album release performance ofMakaya McCraven’s Universal Beings. Just 11 months prior, Carlos & Miguel were part ofrecording the ‘Los Angeles Side’ of Universal Beings at Jeff Parker’s house in Altadena,California, and this performance in Chicago would be the first time that all of the musiciansreunited to re-learn and perform the music they’d collectively composed during those sessions.
The Universal Beings performance and preceding days of rehearsal took place at the iconicSouth Shore Cultural Center – a historic gilded-era urban club-turned-public facility deep onChicago’s Southside and right along the reedy shore of Lake Michigan, giving the building’sbackdrop an infinitely blue Northern expanse.
The night after the performance at South Shore Cultural Center, friend of International AnthemJeremy Cunningham was scheduled to debut new music (The Weather Up There, which has sincebeen released on Northern Spy Records) at our HQ, Co-Prosperity Sphere. Since Carlos &Miguel were still in Chicago (before they’d head to NYC for a second Universal Beings performanceat Le Poisson Rouge), we invited them to do a Special Guest duo set to open the show.
At the conclusion of their 44-minute improvised set that night, Carlos spontaneously dubbed thepiece “Chicago Waves.” His proclamation gave us the distinct impression that the previous daysspent in South Shore (and the many commutes to-and-from, along Lake Shore Drive) hadimprinted the deep blue vastness of early-Winter Lake Michigan into Carlos & Miguel’s respective& collective consciousness, and thus, into the spirit of the luminous music they created that nightat Co-Prosperity Sphere. We at IARC are happy to share Chicago Waves with the world in a timewhen peace-bringing sound and a sweet memory of live music, sparkling inside the collective breathof community in community space, has potential to provide the utmost nourishment.
- 1. Part I
- 2. Part Ii
- 3. Part Iii
- 4. Part Iv
- 5. Part V
- 6. Part Vi - Into Etenity
- 7. Part Vii
- 8. Part Viii - Chicago Waves
