percussion

New Year's Eve 2014 in music and pictures

I spent New Year's Eve 2014 in much the same way I spent most of the year: photographing great music. During Evanston's First Night celebration, I hopped from one downtown cathedral to another, in and out of the cold, to catch some killer jazz ensembles, as well as slam poet extraordinaire Marc Smith doing his thing. Here are some of my favorite shots from the evening, the last pictures I took in 2014, and some of the first of 2015.  

Ian Maksin at Old Town School of Folk

It's a pretty cool thing when one artist can blend so easily with other styles.  Russian-born cellist Ian Maksin gave a great concert Saturday at the Old Town School of Folk Music that began with contemporary works for unamplified solo cello.  By the end of the night, he was plugged into some reverb and sharing the stage with Flamenco guitarist Carlo Basile, percussionist Bob Garrett, and veena master Saraswathi Ranganathan (Basile described her sound as "an Indian Ry Cooder").  As one last feature, Maksin performed with Lucas Segovia from Joffrey Ballet.  Here are some shots from the concert, and a few from soundcheck that afternoon.