Jun 9, 2026 10:54 AM
In Memoriam: James Blood Ulmer, 1940–2026
With deep sorrow and profound love, we announce the passing of James Blood Ulmer, a boldly innovative guitarist,…
Tarbaby will be among the performers at the inaugural Sound And Gravity Festival Sept. 10–14 in Chicago.
(Photo: Jimmy Katz)The inaugural edition of the Sound And Gravity Festival will take place between Sept. 10–14 on the North Side of Chicago, where it will take over several sites on either side of the Chicago River near Belmont Avenue. In an arrangement somewhat similar to Big Ears in Knoxville, Tennessee, the venues — which include Constellation, the Hungry Brain, Judson & Moore Distillery, Beat Kitchen, Rockwell Patio and Rockwell On The River — are walking distance from one another. The programming at each site is themed to provide a stylistically cohesive experience, but anyone with a daily or festival pass can drift between locations and choose from 51 adventurous jazz, indie rock, experimental, folk and international performers. Still to be announced is an additional program that will be selected by the staff of the renowned recording studio, Electrical Audio, which is located adjacent to two other festival venues.
The festival is a production of At Pluto, the company that produced the Pitchfork Festival throughout its existence, as well as the shorter-lived Intonation Festival and the Brilliant Corners carnival. At Pluto also operates Constellation and the Hungry Brain. Its owner is Mike Reed, who is also the chair of the programming committee for the Chicago Jazz Festival. He is a jazz drummer and composer who has led a series of bands, including People, Places & Things, which has explored the commonalities between Chicago’s hard-bop scene in the 1950s and the city’s 21st century avant-garde.
The Pitchfork Festival’s demise set in motion the initiation of Sound And Gravity. While Reed sold his interest in the festival before the publishing house Condé Nast bought the parent publication was bought in 2015, At Pluto continued to handle the festival’s production up through its final iteration in July 2024. At the end of that event, Condé Nast took an option to do one more year and At Pluto started laying the groundwork for the 2025 festival. But in November, Condé Nast told Reed that the festival was being discontinued — on the same day that Reed flew to Europe for a month of gigs.
“The first thing I started thinking about is, because I have people that work on Pitchfork, Hungry Brain and Constellation, all right, how does this affect everything?” Reed said. “Pitchfork is the big mothership, OK? Have you ever seen Mad Men? They have lots of clients, but when they lose their big client, Lucky Strike, they’re like, guess what? We’re gonna have to lay people off. And it’s no difference, right? Our big mothership is the thing that feeds most other things and all speculative work as well. And that’s what I started thinking about. How is this gonna affect Constellation?” To make matters worse, Reed knew that Link’s Hall, the dance and performance venue that shared a building with Constellation from April 2013 through June 2025, was in trouble, and is revenue could not be counted on. Reed knew he had to do something. “I didn’t want to do a gala, I didn’t want to do a fundraising campaign,” he said. “Let’s just make an event.”
While Constellation has both non-profit and for-profit arms working side by side, Reed has an abiding skepticism about relying on grant funding. “I will admit, I’m a deep capitalist. But where I want to put my social good, where I want to spend my money, is on these types of things, you know? I’m fine with that. These are my clubhouses. You know, they have a thing in Brazil where you can see that some of your taxes can go into social and cultural things. Essentially, I’m just doing that, these are things that I’m interested in doing. I want to have a world where [Norwegian clarinetist and festival artist] Andreas Røysum can have a place to play in Chicago.”
At first, Reed conceived of the event as a street festival anchored by Constellation and Hungry Brain, which are around the corner from each other. But it morphed into something bigger as he first added nearby music clubs, and then added Rockwell On The River, a space that usually hosts weddings and corporate events. Its size enabled him to add some higher profile rock performers who were still within Constellation’s wheelhouse, such as singer-songwriter Bill Callahan and Nigerien guitar hero Mdou Moctar. For balance, Reed brought Electrical Audio, the recording studio founded by the late Steve Albini, on board to program additional music (unannounced at press time) at a smaller space, Guild Hall, on Friday and Saturday.
Constellation and the Hungry Brain routinely book local performers, and musicians with past and present Chicago connections figure prominently in Sound And Gravity. Some, such as synthesizer player Sam Prekop, acoustic guitarists Nathan Salsburg and James Elkington, old-time-meets-minimalism duo Magic Tuber Stringband, uptempo roots combo Glyders and spacy steel guitar unit Mute Duo have zero connection to jazz. The percussion group Third Coast Ensemble, and the loops and strings trio Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl and Macie Stewart, and the duo of local electronic musician Olivia Block and upstate New York tape machine manipulator Lea Bertucci, represent Constellation’s enduring commitment to new composed music. But players in Ken Vandermark’s Edition Redux, the Chicago Underground Duo, and Jeff Parker’s Expansion Trio are as familiar with Downbeat polls as they are with Constellation’s stage.
But this is not simply a celebration of the local scene; there’s a formidable contingent of performers from four continents. Outside the jazz spectrum, there’s bilingual vocalist Helado Negro, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, hauntological Nashville guitarist William Tyler and Body/Head, the ferocious freeform duo of Sonic Youth alumna Kim Gordon and guitarist Bill Nace. Spanning it are Mary Halvorson Amaryllis, Anna Webber Simple Trio with Matt Mitchell and John Hollenbeck, Tarbaby, Zoh Amba’s Sun Ensemble, Cooper-Moore, Fred Moten and Brandon Lopez, Darius Jones Trio, Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis and Irreversible Entanglements. DB
To the world, James Blood Ulmer was a legend, a visionary and a musical force whose sound was distinctive and unique. To his family, he was their teacher, their storyteller and a source of strength.
Jun 9, 2026 10:54 AM
With deep sorrow and profound love, we announce the passing of James Blood Ulmer, a boldly innovative guitarist,…
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