Chicago has, thanks in large part Ken Vandermark, become a haven for progressive jazz. And as young composers have flocked to the flyover metropolis, its underground aesthetic has come to be defined by groups that imbue swinging post-bop with dual emphases on contemporary composition and free improvisation.
 

Aram Shelton

One such group is Fast Citizens. Formed by tenor saxophonist Keefe Jackson in 2002, the sextet features a who’s-who among Chicago’s young, post-Vandermark improvisers and composers, including coronetist Josh Berman, bassist Anton Hatwich, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, drummer Frank Rosaly and alto saxophonist Aram Shelton. Though Jackson’s name was on the marquee for the first record, Ready Everyday, the group operates as a collective since its establishment, with each member contributing compositions and taking turns fronting the ensemble.

“We all feel that it’s really important that everyone in the group make a big contribution,” Shelton says. “But at the same time, having someone as the focal point or the leader can drive the direction of the music in a certain way. So when I was in Chicago last summer, we were figuring out what we were going to do to keep the band moving forward and not have to put all that pressure on one person. So we decided that we would try to do this thing that we would rotate that leadership so that over time each person would get a chance to put a stamp on the sound of the band.”

This time around, it was Shelton’s turn to lead the ensemble. (“We had an ultimate fighting championship, and I won,” Shelton jokes.) Once a Chicago resident, Shelton moved to Oakland, Calif., during the recording of Ready Everyday. There, he studied composition at Mills College and immersed himself in the Bay Area’s dynamic outside-music underground. Fast Citizens’ latest long-player, Two Cities, appropriately finds Shelton putting his own personal stamp on the band, attempting to meld the blustery sonority of Chicago’s new-jazz scene with the Bay Area’s free-swinging tendencies.

“There’s a lot of free improvisation out West here that’s connected to European free improvisation,” Shelton says. “I definitely wanted us to have more moments of free improvisation surrounded by the composition. And so definitely aspects of what’s happening in the Bay Area influenced what I wrote.”

Despite the leadership change, Two Cities, stylistically, is not a radical departure from Ready Everyday; an intense, lyrical and inventive sextet, Fast Citizens’ cerebral, improv-heavy abstract jazz follows similar idioms to Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra’s Arkestra. What separates Fast Citizens from the pack, however, is its improvisational prowess, which sounds less like self-indulgent showing off than on-the-spot composition.

“When we improvise, it’s going somewhere and it’s leading somewhere,” Shelton says. “It’s maybe not following a narrative, but it’s following an arc. And when we improvise together, we’re listening together and we’re trying to build something together. There are certain kinds of improvisation that are more sound-based and more about textures, but when we play together, it’s creating music that … sounds like it’s a composition. And how I think of a composition is you take an idea and you develop it and you create music out of it.”

And though Shelton is in the driver’s seat, there’s never a question that Fast Citizens is a musical democracy, with each member contributing heavily to the avant-garde, free-jazz dialogue.

“The six of us, at this point, have a history,” Shelton says. “The first time I played with Josh was 10 years ago. And Fred gave me my first gig in Chicago. And so we all have this slowly evolving rapport. And even though I’m not living in Chicago any more, it’s still continuing for me.”

“It helps the music in a way where you don’t have to talk about things much,” he adds. “You can just play.” 


The Whig is at 1200 Main St. Doors open at 8 p.m.; admission is $8. Call 931-8852 or visit thewhig.org for more information.