Delmark Records celebrated Chicago jazz master Ari Brown with two special events: a live broadcast on WDCB, directly from Delmark’s studio, on Monday, August 31, followed by a highly successful and well-attended concert in the Gateway Lounge at the Copernicus Center on Tuesday, September 1. Capping off a remarkable week for Ari Brown, he is also among the artists featured in the tribute to John Coltrane at the 2026 Chicago Jazz Festival.
Ari Brown was joined by longtime collaborators whose collective artistry has helped shape his unmistakable sound: pianist Kirk Brown, bassist Yosef Ben Israel, drummer Avreeayl Ra, and percussionist Dr. Cuz. Together, these musicians represent decades of shared musical experience, performing repertoire drawn from Brown’s recordings and original compositions, as well as spontaneous improvisations that celebrate the creative freedom at the heart of Chicago jazz. The host for the live broadcast was Paul Abella, Dan Bindert was overseeing the broadcast and the engineer for Delmark Riverside studio was Julia A. Miller.
The significance of this double tribute became especially clear during the final tune at Copernicus Center, when saxophonist Isaiah Collier—one of the leading voices of a younger generation of Chicago musicians and a musician who regards Brown as a mentor—joined the band. The moment became more than a celebration of Brown’s past: it was a vivid demonstration of a living Chicago tradition being transmitted from one generation to the next. See photo gallery of both events below. Photos by Dave Specter, Mike Jeffers, La’Keba Garcia-Gelardi, Frank Russel & Elbio Barilari.
Ari Brown’s discography as a leader on Delmark includes four albums: Ultimate Frontier, Venus, Live at the Green Mill, and Groove Awakening. He has also appeared on several Delmark albums by other artists.
ARI BROWN
Ari Brown is one of the great voices of Chicago jazz—a master saxophonist, composer, pianist, flutist, bandleader and educator whose career spans more than six decades. A native of Chicago’s South Side, Brown emerged from the extraordinary musical environment that also produced such figures as Jack DeJohnette, Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman. Beginning professionally as a pianist in soul, blues and R&B, he took up the saxophone in the mid-1960s and joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1971, becoming part of one of the most important movements in the history of creative music.
Brown’s remarkable versatility has allowed him to move naturally between hard bop, post-bop, the blues and the most adventurous forms of improvised music. Over the course of his career he has performed and recorded with an extraordinary roster of artists, including McCoy Tyner, Sonny Stitt, Lester Bowie, Von Freeman, Elvin Jones, Anthony Braxton, Kahil El’Zabar, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. His long association with El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio, which began in 1989, further established him as a major figure in Chicago’s international creative-jazz tradition. He has appeared on more than 75 recordings and has also devoted an important part of his life to teaching and mentoring younger generations of musicians.
Despite his extensive career as a sideman, Brown did not make his first recording as a leader until Delmark released Ultimate Frontier in 1996. That landmark album began a remarkable series of four Delmark recordings under his own name: Ultimate Frontier, Venus (1998), Live at the Green Mill (2007), and Groove Awakening (2013). Together they document the breadth of Brown’s musical personality—from the deep roots of the Chicago tenor tradition and the language of bebop to spiritual jazz, African-derived rhythms and free improvisation. They also feature a core group of longtime collaborators, including pianist Kirk Brown, bassist Yosef Ben Israel and drummer Avreeayl Ra.
Across those four Delmark albums and throughout his career, Ari Brown has developed an immediately recognizable musical voice: powerful and deeply expressive, grounded in tradition but never confined by it. His music embodies a particularly Chicago synthesis—the blues, bebop, the AACM legacy and the continuing search for new forms of expression. Brown stands alongside the great tenor voices of the city as one of the essential musicians in the history of Chicago jazz.
Delmark Records celebrated Ari Brown with a special double tribute that reflected both his extraordinary career and his continuing importance to Chicago jazz. The first performance, broadcast live from Delmark Records by 90.9 WDCB, brought Brown together with longtime collaborators Kirk Brown, Yosef Ben Israel, Avreeayl Ra and Dr. Cuz; the following evening, the celebration continued with a public concert at the Copernicus Center. The two events offered complementary portraits of an artist whose music has been inseparable from Chicago’s jazz history for more than half a century.
“Ari Brown represents something essential about Chicago jazz: a tradition that is never static, always moving forward. These two celebrations were not only a tribute to an extraordinary artist and his history with Delmark, but a recognition that Ari’s music, influence and spirit remain very much alive in the music being created today.”, says Julia A. Miller, President of Delmark Records.
Elbio Barilari, the label’s artistic director said: “These performances are part of Delmark’s continuing commitment to celebrate, honor and give the recognition they deserve to the elders of Chicago music, as we have done with artists such as Jimmy Johnson, Bob Stroger, Willie Buck, Linsey Alexander and Jimmy Burns. It is especially important to pay these tributes while the artists are still active—while they are still creating, performing and sharing their music with us. Ari Brown is not simply part of the history of Chicago jazz; he is a living, creative force in that history.”
Delmark Records extends its special thanks to WDCB and to Dan Bindert and Paul Abella for their collaboration and support in making the live broadcast possible, and to Mike Jeffers and the Copernicus Center for hosting the second night of this celebration. Delmark also gratefully acknowledges the support of the City of Chicago and the 2026 Chicago Jazz Festival, whose commitment to Chicago’s extraordinary jazz legacy helps make celebrations such as this possible.
