The evening will feature live painting from visual artist TBA.

‘Songs of a Decaying Empire’ is a project at the intersection of jazz, poetry, avantgarde and the singer-songwriter genre. It contemplates the dark corners of contemporary imperial depravity, it explores dreams, ecstasies, horrors and comedies of our “late capitalistic” circumstance and it philosophizes the aberrations of contemporary socio-political habits and paradigms. But it also looks- in the dark matter that it investigates- for light, love, humor and redemption.

The music and the poetry for this project- and for an album forthcoming in late summer 2025- has been almost entirely written by Robert Świstelnicki. Swistelnicki is a poet, songwriter, composer and philosopher from Poland, who moved to Chicago for his PhD Studies (in German Philosophy and Literature at Northwestern). His previous project (in a rough translation from Polish) was called ‘Love Songs of Early Post-Communism and Late Capitalism’ (SJ Records 23’). That project has been, among others, chosen as the Album of the Year (Editor’s Choice) by “Polish Jazz”; and in reviews it was called: “one of the biggest sensations in Polish jazz in recent years” (M. Nowotny), “the best Polish album of ALL TIME” in its category (prof. M. Lewenstein), a “visionary album” (T. Janas) and a “new point of reference” (M. Płudowski).

For his current project Świstelnicki has invited the pearls of the Chicago jazz scene.

Ana Everling- voice

Marvin Tate- voice

Mark Feldman- violin

Dave Miller- guitar

Ethan Philion- bass

Robert Świstelnicki- compositions, poetry, piano

Quin Kirchner- drums (just for set 2)

7pm Doors

7:30 Show

$15 Suggested Donation

Free Parking