Photos: At Chosen Few, A Master Class In Old-School House, & Community

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 3, 2017 2:44PM

Even after more than 25 years, an international rep and a shoutout from Obama, the annual South Side house-music celebration known as the Chosen Few Old School Reunion Picnic sadly remains a blank spot for far too many in Chicago. But for the househead faithful who attend, it’s dance party-as-homecoming—with a palpable sense of community and joy (“rapture” isn’t too strong a word in terms of some DJ sets) that extends its hand to newcomers as well.

That sounds like a florid way to talk about a music festival, but Chosen Few—which landed on Jackson Park this past weekend—is indeed far more “picnic reunion” than festival. The huge constellation of camping tents, grills and lawn chairs that extends beyond the sweaty, body-jackin’ stage-front crowd is essentially a thousand house-soundtracked Fourth of July cookout parties going at once: smoked meats and smoked cigars, with nary a hydration backpack to be found. And if you’re not running into old friends, then you’re constantly running into people who are running into old friends.

The packed Saturday was a DJ master class. Steve “Silk” Hurley mixed soul cuts with dance classics (including his own immortal “Jack Your Body”) before brining out his old co-conspirator, house-pop diva icon CeCe Peniston (“Finally”). (Watching Hurley nimbly hop from mixer to Mac to controller, you could nerd out as much as get down, but everyone wisely chose the latter.) Hearing Jesse Saunders, one of the homegrown genre’s pioneers and part of the original, decades-running Chosen Few DJ collective, mix up “Love Can’t Turn Around” is an absolute treat. And when Terry Hunter dropped “It’s Your World,” the Jennifer Hudson 2014 hit he also produced, it played simultaneously like festival banger and civic affirmation.

Both house and dance music in general are at the age where the legacy circuit—and subsequent handwringing about ossification—starts to take root. So it’s a pretty beautiful irony that the old-schoolers at Chosen Few—and the queer-friendly community of color that flocks—feel far more progressive than the more wayward corners of EDM that house ostensibly inspired.