TAMMY MCCANN: YES, MAHALIA!
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26.
TIME: 1:00 – 2:00 PM
VENUE: WILLIE PICKENS STAGE. SPONSORED BY DRS. CHERYL AND ERIC WHITAKER. (FORMER WEST STAGE) MIDWAY PLAISANCE AT S. ELLIS AVE.
TAMMY MCCANN
Tammy McCann is a jazz vocalist who uses music to tell life stories. Her warm delivery and engaging personality take audiences on a musical journey, connecting listeners both to each other and to their own humanity. As Inside Jazz critic Nora McCarthy puts it, McCann “step(s) up to the mic and into the hearts of everyone in the room.”
McCann is internationally recognized as a jazz vocalist whose powerful, sultry, and emotionally charged voice merges classical vocal technique with gospel aesthetic and jazz to create a sound that is completely her own. Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich says McCann has “a voice that inspires wonder” and “a voice that soars in all registers, at all tempos, on all occasions.” Cultural and jazz critic Stanley Crouch says, “I have not heard a voice like hers in decades.”
McCann has been honored to receive Chicago Tribune’s Best Jazz Vocal Performance accolade several times, and was recently honored as 2020 Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz. She has performed with NEA Jazz Masters, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ramsey Lewis, Von Freeman, and other jazz greats. She has thrilled audiences from the world’s top stages, from Carnegie Hall to Birdland, The Blue Note, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, and Chicago’s own Jazz Showcase and Green Mill.
Currently, McCann is Curator-at-Large for American Music for DuSable Museum of African American History, Executive Director of the Brownville Jazz Retreat in Brownville, Nebraska, and Artist in Residence for the Music Institute of Chicago in Evanston.
Yes, Mahalia!
“Mahalia Jackson is able to take a sacred moment into the secular, thus making all moments before, after, and around ring out with reverence and reverie.” (Broken Radio)
Mahalia Jackson’s connection to Chicago is historic, through her connection to Thomas Dorsey and his creation of the modern gospel sound. Over the last 20 years, Tammy McCann has toured the world with her gospel group, Tammy McCann & The Voices of Glory, in tribute to Mahalia Jackson. In 2019, she and arranger Eyal Vilner created and premiered Yes, Mahalia! in Israel.
Yes, Mahalia! is a synergy between gospel and the sonic power of big band. It is a fresh and soulful re-imagining of the sound that Mahalia Jackson embodied, and celebrates not only her music, but her life experiences and her contribution to the world community.
The musicians:
Tammy McCann – Vocal
Marques Carroll – Trumpet/Musical Director
Brent Griffin Jr. – Alto Sax
Anthony Bruno – Tenor Sax
Rajiv Halim Baritone – Sax
Matt Davis – Trombone
Norman Palm – Trombone
Ryan Nyther – Trumpet
Víctor García – Trumpet
Christian Dillingham – Bass
Sam Jewel – Drums
Tom Vaitsas – Piano