While walking along Chicago Avenue on the first Thursday of the month, you just might hear a crooning saxophone solo wafting out of the restaurant Prairie Moon.
Last week, the music came from chemical engineering Ph.D. student Michael Brough, who performed with three musicians he had just met in an open jam session.
“When I solo, I can improvise and create melodies out of more than what I can say eloquently,” Brough said.
Set on the corner of Chicago Avenue and Church Street, Prairie Moon hosts a monthly open jam session from 8 to 10 p.m. in addition to professional gigs every Wednesday night.
Dim lights, a lacquer bar countertop and waiters carrying wide plates of American-style food transform the restaurant into a jazz club reminiscent of the speakeasy era. An entry ticket for a blast to the past rings up at $7 for all ages.
The spontaneity that can only be captured with live jazz brings Brough to Prairie Moon, he said. It remains one of the only places for him to play outside of Northwestern’s Jazz Club.
Prairie Moon owner and operator Robert Strom said the restaurant has been hosting jazz sets since reopening after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He’s no stranger to merging live music into dining experiences. Before opening Prairie Moon, Strom worked at Pete Miller’s, which brought jazz to Evanston for 25 years until its closure in 2019.
“Evanston has a great love of music, all types of music, and I feel that the jazz really resonates,” Strom said. “We have some of the best players in Chicago that play here.”
One of those musicians is upright bassist Clark Sommers, who has toured worldwide and played with jazz greats such as Cedar Walton and Ernie Watts. Sommers kicked off Thursday’s set with a three-piece combo before inviting audience members to come up with their instruments.
Sommers said he values organizing informal performance opportunities because of the presence of music students in Northwestern’s renowned jazz program.
“You need to have places where people can develop their craft, and you need to have a situation where you have older musicians and younger musicians interacting,” Sommers said. “It’s a lot harder to get opportunities to play nowadays. It’s one thing if you’re doing it in an academic environment, but it’s an entirely different thing to be doing it out in the world.”
For Brough, playing at open jam sessions allows him to showcase his talent on the saxophone. Despite having played for 11 years and averaging five hours of practice a week, Brough has no intention of pursuing music as a career. Still, he uses open jam sessions as a creative outlet.
“If you think about language, there’s a lot of limitations of how we express ourselves, but in music, it transcends that, where you can translate direct thoughts and emotions into words,” Brough said. “It’s always been a form of self-expression for me, where I can communicate.”
Free playing time is also an asset for the restaurant, Strom said. Jazz nights are the busiest for Prairie Moon, sometimes bringing in wall-to-wall crowds.
Helena Burgueño joined Thursday’s crowd to support her fiance, a professional jazz drummer.
She said she makes a point to go to a couple of live shows every month to experience the fleeting nature of jazz and the talents of local musicians.
“It’s a really hard hustle, and it’s cool to get to support them,” Burgueño said. “And it’s cool because it’s so temporary, like this is just happening in the moment, and it will not be played like this ever again. It’s very ephemeral.”
To produce impromptu melodic solos over the bass’s steady thrum and the drums’ weighty rhythm, Brough said he draws inspiration from classic players like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.
But, in the moment, anything could happen. That impulsive drive of jazz is what keeps him coming back.
“It’s a real challenge for me, because I have to listen a lot more than I’m used to and really try to lock in with other people who have different styles, different thoughts,” he said. “But I really like the challenge, and to get to meet some great people.”
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— Thaddeus Tukes returns to Evanston with jazzy vibes and tunes
