Keefe Jackson & Anton Hatwich

BlueStem Jazz.

media release: Keefe Jackson (reeds) and Anton Hatwich (bass) will perform as a duo on October 1st, bring with them the tunes, the vibes, and the rapport that comes of twenty years of playing together in groups like the Fast Citizens, the Aram Shelton Quartet, Tim Daisy’s Festival Quartet and Josh Berman’s Old Idea. The nice thing about such a long history of music making together is that the methods and the language need minimal or no discussion (it was like that since the beginning, believe it or not), and the two can get right to the chase: making momentous music in the moment. Other things that are guaranteed: original compositions by the duo and their immediate cohort, and other other people’s music: chestnuts old and new, the most fruitful of them. Hatwich and Jackson both moved to Chicago in the early aughts, and made their association very deep very quickly. A partial list of their mutual collaborators includes Frank Rosaly, Aram Shelton, Nick Mazzarella, Russ Johnson, Jason Stein, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Paul Giallorenzo. They have also appeared together at a number of larger music festivals, including the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival (California), the Ring Ring Festival (Belgrade, Serbia), and the Umbrella Festival (Chicago).