The other night, fretful about our East Coast friends, we went over to the Elastic Arts Foundation in Logan Square, to see the Caroline Davis Quartet.  It was my first ever visit to Elastic and the first time I’d seen her, and what a thrill and balm it was.

I’m not going to go into intense descriptions of this pure, exhilarating show, except to say two things.  She showed us all that she gets the origin stories of jazz, especially with a low, super-sultry “Stairway to the Stars”; and, with her own intense composition, “Passive Cloud,” she gave us what we needed to hear in this week of storm and aftermath. Her work is chamber music, when the chamber is our collective existence; music for loving the world, for surviving a hurricane, for facing a life and living it. We are excited to know we are in the same city as this powerful, very interesting young musician, so we can watch what she does next.

You can too. Chicago friends, the record release party for the Caroline Davis Quartet’s new CD, Live Work & Play, is this Wednesday at Jazz Showcase.  Go. And find out more about Caroline Davis (and purchase music) here.