Another Chicago-based entertainment company has been purchased by a larger New York competitor in yet another repeat of Chicago traditions. Jam Theatricals has been purchased by the Nederlander Organization of New York, the company that operates Broadway in Chicago. As is usual in Chicago, no one will rue its passing because no one was aware it was even here. Jam Theatricals started in Chicago in the late 1990's as a spin-off from Jam Productions, 

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The American musical extravaganza, begot in Chicago over thirteen decades ago, is alive and well in Las Vegas, Nevada; not that anyone in Chicago is aware of their City's cultural history. At the dawn of the nineteenth century's Gilded Age, a Chicago theater producer created a musical extravaganza, Arabian Nights, inspired by Christmas pantos he had witnessed as a child in England. It became a sensation!

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In 1996 the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago-based Tribune Company (predecessor company to Trib Media), had a vision that he could create a media empire. There was a schism opening in the ownership of the Times Mirror Corporation, a similar conglomerate of newspapers and television stations based in Los Angeles, and this could lead, it was hoped, to a merger, actually a takeover, of the similar company if an offer was made that could not be refused.

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Chicago rarely wins when another company purchases a Chicago media company or cultural asset. Consider what happened to the Field Empire after its assets were purchased by Fox or how the Barn Dance and the Prairie Farmer were summarily killed as soon as the American Broadcasting Company got control of WLS's broadcast license. But perhaps the recent purchase of Trib Media by Texas based Nexstar will result in a big positive development.

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No one does historical or cultural documentaries as well as Ken Burns. The Civil War, Prohibition, the Vietnam War and now Country Music. It is detailed, extensive and enrapturing. And yet, there is much that Burns and his crew neglected especially in regards to Chicago and the influence of Chicago's country music industry on the genre and the business.  For example, in the very beginning completely unmentioned was Wendell Hall who preceded Jimmy Rodgers by four full years. Hall, who worked as a song-plugger for a Chicago publishing company, 

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While the Public Domain Day 2025 bespoke the demise of Chicago's music industry in the 1920's, the Library of Congress did honor Koko Taylor's rendition of Wang Dang Doodle as an audio treasure worthy of preservation in the Library's collection. The song was published and recorded by Chess Records in Chicago in the 1960's. Leonard Chess was an astute businessman who understood that owning a publishing company was as important as owning a 

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Thanks to the generosity of former Governor Bruce Rauner the Art Institute has its first Norman Rockwell painting. Sarah Kelly Oehler, the Art Institute curator for American art, was quoted as saying: “I had been thinking for years that it would be wonderful to get a Rockwell for our collection.” My how attitudes have changed over those years, if in fact they have.

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Chicago Art and Design WTTW

On Friday, October 4th, WTTW premiered their new art history program Art and Design in Chicago, sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Driehaus Foundation. Kudos for their good intentions but the show seemed to be more about "our values" than about "our art." It appears to be congruent with another Chicago tradition: the primacy of fine art, or high-brow, over commercial art or low-brow. If they are going to present the history of Chicago Art, they should present a complete chronicle.

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The bookshelf for glossy tomes about the Chicago School of Literature or its putative renaissance well nigh a century past just keeps growing. The latest offering from the Illuminati is A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls about Margaret C. Anderson, a minor participant in the literary movement whose celebrity abides not from what she did but what was done to her.

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  New City, Chicago's last extent magazine for the fine arts, has published a book about the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue. Published as a glossy coffee table book, The Fine Arts Building, is based upon a series of articles published in New City last year. While the Fine Arts Building is certainly a worthy subject for a historical documentary  there were some inaccuracies about the history of the Studebaker Theater and a big missed opportunity to recall a forgotten era of Chicago popular culture.

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