Illegal Smile

Showtimes:  5pm-6:30pm & 7pm-8:30pm

Illegal Smile is a jazz organ trio that re-imagines the music of singer songwriter John Prine. Bandleader and guitarist, Casey Nielsen, has been captivated by Prine’s music since childhood when his parents regularly listened to Prine’s iconic 1971 self-titled debut album on family road trips. Though Prine is not a jazz musician, organ and guitar are featured prominently on his recordings and his evocative songs offer an open landscape fertile for new stylistic possibilities. With Illegal Smile, Nielsen inhabits these sonic landscapes, making them his own with new arrangements and improvisations, while paying tribute to the original mood of Prine's recordings that have long captivated his imagination.

Casey Nielsen was 12 when he began to study classical guitar with Paul Henry of Roosevelt University, adding lessons with Chicago jazz guitarist Neal Alger at 14. He earned a BM in Jazz Studies from NIU, studying both genres with internationally renowned Fareed Haque and three more years, post graduation, with classical guitarist Denis Azabagic, also at Roosevelt. Casey performs solo recitals throughout the Chicago area and is a jazz bandleader and sideman in various groups throughout the USA.