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Community Corner

Deacon Blues featuring Howard Levy

The Steely Dan tribute band Deacon Blues with special guest Howard Levy. This concert will feature the incredible music
 of STEELY DAN, as well as music from their 
doppelganger THE DUKES OF SEPTEMBER 
with a special surprise from the Jazz 
Fusion Kings WEATHER REPORT.

DEACON BLUES is America’s premier Steely Dan tribute experience!  The genesis of DEACON BLUES began when Steve Kikoen, Jon Hey, & Michael Hesiak formed an original jazz/rock collective in Chicago known as BEBOP DADDYS.  The Daddys also featured the renowned rhythm section of Tom Mendel (bass) and Tom Hipskind (drums).  You can catch Daddys fan Donald Fagen on many a Steely Dan Live/YouTube video sporting his very own BEBOP DADDYS T-Shirt! 

Steve, Jon, and Michael formed a bond within the Daddys which has followed them into DEACON BLUES.  The group reads as a "who's who" of world class musicians from the Chicago area.  This stunning collective is re-defining the Steely Dan tribute experience!  Performing songs which include tunes that even Don & Walt have rarely done in concert, they have structured their repertoire to encompass a wider range of the Dan's prolific material - including repertoire from the the Dan’s 1991 reunion prototype:  The New York Rock & Soul Revue.

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DEACON BLUES is dedicated to presenting the music of Steely Dan in a new live show experience that is featuring a higher level of sophistication in digital audio and video formats, courtesy of multi-media guru and sound engineer David Levit.  The musicians in DEACON BLUES have played to sold-out audiences at multiple theatre venues, procured standing-room only crowds at festivals and nightclubs, and have appeared on WGN-TV's Live Performances segment of the Morning News.  Close your eyes, and you'll be there.  In the words of another defining band . . . "A splendid time is guaranteed for all!"

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Multiple Grammy-Award Winner HOWARD LEVY is an acknowledged master of the diatonic harmonica, a superb pianist, innovative composer, recording artist, bandleader, teacher and producer. His musical travels have taken him all over the geographical world and the musical map. Equally at home in Jazz, Classical music, Rock, Folk, Latin, and World Music, he brings a fresh lyrical approach to whatever he plays. This has made him a favorite with audiences worldwide, and a recording artist sought after by the likes of Kenny Loggins, Dolly Parton, Paquito D’Rivera, Styx, Donald Fagen and Paul Simon.

He is perhaps best known for the four CD’s he recorded with Bela Fleck and The Flecktones, a unique band that set the musical world on its ear back in the early 1990’s. He got back together with the band in 2010 and recorded the CD Rocket Science. They toured extensively in 2011-2012, and Howard won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition for “Life in Eleven”, which he wrote with Bela Fleck.

Howard is music director and chief composer for the Latin/Jazz group  Chévere de Chicago. He produced and released the band’s CD Secret Dream, and Time Capsules with his acoustic swing group Acoustic Express, on his own label, Balkan Samba Records.  His solo Jazz CD, Alone and Together on Balkan Samba, and his Jazz trio CD Tonight and Tomorrow on the Chicago Sessions label, both received 4-star reviews in DownBeat.

Admission is $15

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