Randy Sabien will take a break from fly fishing to appear at the North Shore Music Association’s Spring Dance at the North House Folk School with The Unusual Suspects— Cook County’s own Chris Gillis and Jim Chenoweth—on Saturday, April 4.
Grab your comfy shoes and come on down to North House Folk School for a NSMA-hosted community dance, featuring internationally acclaimed violinist and fiddler Randy Sabien, locally loved jazz/blues pianist Chris Gillis, and supersolid upright bassist Jim Chenoweth. The dance will be from 7:30 – 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 4.
No dance experience is necessary. Just bring your pent-up winter energy and get ready to release it! For those familiar with dance steps, there will be multiple styles presented, including: swing, 2-step, foxtrot, waltz, polka, and Latin (rumba, cumbia, salsa, and samba). There will be very limited seating for those who prefer to sit and listen.
Randy Sabien, dubbed “the past, present and future of jazz violin” by NPR’s Jazz Profiles, is a regular at Big Top Chautauqua and has performed on A Prairie Home Companion and Austin City Limits, as well as at the Daytona Jazz Festival, the Juneau Jazz Festival, and the Winnipeg Folk Festival. His instrumental skill on the violin, guitar, mandolin, and piano, in the genres of jazz, country, and rock, is legendary. He also plays in various musical combos, bowing up a foot-stomping storm on traditional folk favorites, clever originals, and an occasional jazz surprise.
Chris Gillis is primarily a jazz/blues pianist who is also fluent in classics, standards, old school R&B, and New Orleans style. He’s led several different church congregations in singing the old African-American hymns and traditional melodies with improvisations. Now making Minnesota his home, Gillis began his musical career in New Orleans, where he performed at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with the J.D. Hill Blues Band, at the Colt 38 Club with the Mighty Sam McClain, at the Maple Leaf Bar with the Neville Brothers, and with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
Jim Chenoweth has played bass professionally for more than 30 years, studying with world-renowned bassist Anthony Cox, and recording and performing with local luminaries such as Irv Williams, Debbie Duncan, Phil Aaron, and Benny Weinbeck. Jim has also been featured multiple times at the West Bank School of Music Jazz Composers Series, and his compositions appear on the 1997 release Dream of the Serpent Dog with Clint Hoover, and Bobby E.
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