Jo Ann Daugherty Jazz Trio

The holidays deserve a little swing.

This December, Rendezvous Arts welcomes Jo Ann Daugherty and her trio for an evening of jazz that feels like exactly what we need at this time of year: warm, joyful, sophisticated, and just a little bit glamorous.

Jo Ann is one of those musicians who seems completely at home wherever there’s a piano. She has performed at the Chicago Jazz Festival, New York’s Dizzy’s Club and Smoke, the Havana Jazz Festival, and Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai. She has appeared at the Kennedy Center, performed for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert with SIX The Musical, and conducted major touring productions including Jersey Boys, Motown: The Musical, and SIX.

But for Rendezvous, we get Jo Ann where we love her best: at the piano, leading an intimate jazz trio with Joshua Ramos on bass and Ryan Bennett on drums.

Expect an evening filled with beautiful melodies, irresistible grooves, plenty of personality, and a few seasonal surprises along the way. This is holiday music without the fuss, played by three extraordinary musicians who know how to make a room come alive.

Come settle in, raise a glass, and let Jo Ann and the trio put a little more joy into your December.

Good friends. Great jazz. Holiday spirit. We’ll take all three.

We are especially grateful to the Saints Foundation for their generous donation of a Steinway grand piano for our Chicago performance. Their support lets Jo Ann and the trio bring this program to life on an extraordinary instrument, and we couldn’t be more excited to share that experience with our audience. 

 Featured Visual Artist: Deborah Maris Lader

Our featured visual artist for this program is Deborah Maris Lader, a Chicago artist, musician, and creative force whose work is rooted in craft, curiosity, and the possibilities of making something by hand.

Deborah is the founder and longtime director of the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, which she established in 1989 and has grown into an important home for generations of artists. Her own award-winning work has been exhibited internationally and is held in permanent collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago History Museum, and New York Public Library.

Printmaking may be at the heart of Deborah’s practice, but it is only the beginning. Her work moves freely through drawing, photography, mixed media, sculpture, handmade automata, puppetry, pressed flowers, and other unexpected materials.

In her current work, Deborah explores memory, fragility, grief, and connection, often through images of hands, migrating birds, tangled roots, and objects that move and cast shifting shadows. Some pieces even invite the viewer to become part of the experience by turning a crank or setting something into motion.

There is something wonderfully fitting about encountering Deborah’s work during a program centered on jazz and the holidays. Both invite us to slow down, notice the details, and find something new in moments, memories, and traditions we thought we already knew.