Review Mon Dec 03 2007

Review: Old Town School's 50th Anniversary Concert

By David Polk

The entire concert lineup on stage at the same time, singing with the audience.

Back in September on this page, I predicted that the Old Town School of Folk Music’s sold-out 50th Anniversary benefit concert celebration, which was held this past Saturday, would end as a giant sing-a-long. I was wrong. In fact, the singing started before the concert even began, in the lobby and on every floor of the enormous Auditorium Theatre, led by both school faculty and volunteer ensembles. The joyous pre-concert hootenannies exemplified all that the Old Town School stands for -- community, inclusiveness, and fun -- and were the perfect prelude to an extraordinary 17-act musical montage of what the school offers year-round to us lucky Chicagoans.

Expectedly, the audience didn’t have to wait long before the next participatory opportunity. As the lights dimmed, Old Town School faculty members came out in increments to perform Pete Seeger’s hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!” in many different styles and variations, the final variation being, of course, a sing-a-long. As a result of some superb technical coordination, the faculty continued to perform in-between acts through the entire evening – both on stage and in the balconies – so that not one minute of the precious 3-hour concert was wasted.

Next up, the versatile roots guitarist David Bromberg joined with popular Chicago folk vocalist Bonnie Koloc and harmonica virtuoso Corky Siegel in a trio that performed so energetically that one of Bromberg’s strings broke off, providing one of the most entertaining moments of the first half. Not missing a beat – literally – Siegel accompanied Koloc by himself with a contagious liveliness, screeching and bending and pulsating, until Bromberg was able to rejoin the group a couple of minutes later.

But the evening wasn’t all about strumming. Reflecting the school’s diverse offerings were faculty tap and hip-hop dance sequences, a faculty African drumming duo, a Spanish-language version of “This Land is Your Land” by the Sones de México Ensemble and dancing by The Luna Negra Dance Theater. Singer Abigail Washburn, accompanied by banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck (without the Flecktones), even bust out her seemingly-perfect Mandarin for a song she learned while living in China. Who knew?

We were brought back to Chicago by bluesman Lonnie Brooks and at the end by Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, whose kids attend Old Town’s “Wiggleworms” classes and who was joined by the Wilco Ensemble, one of the school’s classes devoted to learning the music of a single group. That I didn’t sign up for that class this term will haunt me forever.

The event made clear that it wouldn’t be difficult to play an Old Town School version of Jewish Geography with American traditional musicians of the last century. Frank Hamilton, the school’s very first instructor, came back to Chicago from Atlanta to perform a few favorites (yes, including an all-audience sing-a-long of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”) immediately before a former student of his, The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn. Everyone else on stage, it seemed, had either learned or played with or known each other prior to the concert, and the sense of community shone through.

It’s unfortunate then, despite the homecomings and remembrances of last weekend, that the Chicago institution most instrumental to the school’s founding and success, WFMT-FM, was forgotten on Saturday. In a Sun-Times interview, former school director Jim Hirsch said that "in the early days, Ray [Nordstrand],” WFMT’s late General Manager, “was one of the staunchest supporters we had. It's not a stretch to say that the Old Town School would not have been as successful if it had not been for his involvement."

The emcees of the evening, Terry Hemmert, Tom Marker and Tony Sarabia, while good radio hosts in their own right, come from stations that have either abandoned Chicago music (WBEZ) or have little more than a corporate relationship with the school (WXRT). WFMT, however, still broadcasts material from the school, almost weekly, on The Midnight Special and it was Frank Hamilton himself who said that without “…the climate in Chicago in the artistic community and the station WFMT-[FM 98.7], I doubt very much sincerely whether this could have happened...”

Full disclosure: I work for WFMT, but don’t just take my word for it. Look on the school’s own website or find pictures of former WFMT host Studs Terkel, a major Old Town School supporter, on the walls in the school's basement.