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Dynamic, restless jazz keyboardist and composer Paul Hecht returns to the Sidebar with Ben Dillinger on
bass and Gustavo Cortiñas on drums. Hecht has an unusual background: after studying jazz intensively
during his education in New England, he veered into literary studies and classical violin, becoming a
professor and playing in orchestras and chamber groups in his spare time. His path to professional jazz
performance over the last ten years had everything to do with finding himself in Chicago during a period
of creative expansion led by a new generation of musicians as willing to innovate as they were wired
into the city’s storied living musical traditions. His collaborators this evening have deep ties to various
parts of that expansion, and are both accomplished composers and bandleaders in their own right.
Hecht’s first album of original music, Pyrography, will be released on ears&eyes records in April 2025,
featuring Cortiñas and Dillinger, along with trumpeter James Davis; Cortiñas has his own record label,
Desafío Candente Records, and his latest release, The Crisis Knows No Borders is due out in April. Hecht’s
book about this history of English poetry in the late sixteenth century, What Rosalind Likes, was
published by Oxford University Press in 2022. He writes regularly about the midwestern jazz scene on his
Substack, ZLR.

Grab dinner before the show at BABYGOLD BARBECUE

***PARKING***

There is rather limited street parking in the area, we recommend arriving by rideshare, bicycle, or rickshaw.  

***AGE RESTRICTIONS***

21+, Minors admitted with guardian!