PLEIN AIR CONCERT SERIES: Jazz and Tap Dancing with Chicago Human Rhythm Project's Jumaane Taylor

Walk-Ins Welcome!

Our Plein Air Concerts return to our jewel-box courtyard! Enjoy an hour of music with your friends while sipping rosé wine in an intimate setting. We cover the range from jazz to chansons françaises, and bossa nova to tap dancing and we go international with performers from France, Argentina, Venezuela and of course… Chicago!

Tonight’s program / Ce soir! 

Tap dancer and Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s Artistic Director, Jumaane Taylor, and alto saxophonist, Brent Griffin Jr., play into improvisational and compositional sets. This particular arrangement of musicians have played at the Jazz Showcase, Back Alley Jazz, Stony Island Arts Bank and Museum of Contemporary Art. Continuing the progressive exploration of live music with a jazz dance, or hoofing. Hoofing is a style of tap dance established by The Original Hoofers displaying the body moving naturally with their instrument, like playing jazz music.

Door opens at 6:00 p.m. Live music starts at 6:30 p.m. Please enter via 810 N. Dearborn. Each table of four includes one bottle of Rosé de Provence and salted nuts. Reserve early! Seating is limited in our intimate courtyard. Weather permitting otherwise event moves indoors in our salon.

More about Jumaane Taylor and Brent Griffin Jr

A Chicago native, Jumaane has been tap dancing since the age of 7 at the Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre. He has had the opportunity to train with Idella Reed Davis, Geraldine Williams, Runako Jahi, Bril Barrett, Martin Dumas III, Jimmy Payne Jr., and George Patterson III.
Since 2021 Jumaane has also been the artistic director of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project.  He was a part of the ensemble in Imagine Tap! (2006 directed and choreographed by Derick Grant); Tap Into Peace (2009 directed and choreographed by Sarah Savelli and Ayodele Casel); and Rasta Thomas’ Tap Stars showcased in Hamburg, Germany – while also tapping with local bands, Corey Wilkes’ Abstrakt Pulse, and Sidewalk Chalk until 2014.

Jumaane created Supreme Love in 2015, a tap dance production honoring John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ and the art of tap, premiering at jazz music and dance festivals including Jacob’s Pillow in 2017. In 2018 he established Heel and Toe Productions, presenting The Jazz Hoofing Quartet, a solo dance performance using improvisation, to continue the progressive exploration of live music with tap. In 2020 Ugly Flavors covered Ornette Coleman’s ‘The Shape of Jazz To Come’ then Igor Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’, choreographing a new layer of rhythmical dynamics for the two legendary compositions as the tap dancers celebrated their relationship to the earth. “Cheap Suites & Hotels”, a collection of choreographed works premiered with tap ensemble Stone Soup Rhythms in 2022.

Jumaane has received the Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2017 Lab Artist Award, 3Arts 2019 Award, and has presented his work with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Jazz Institute of Chicago, Columbia College-Dance Center and abroad. He teaches at Mayfair Arts Center, Ruth Page School of Dance, and the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.