When coronavirus descended on Chicago, Marques Carroll made himself a promise. If the pandemic was the end of live music as we knew it, he was going “to go out swinging.”

The trumpeter, 47, has been a steady presence on the Chicago scene for decades. But, like so many others, the pandemic made him take stock of his career. For the first time, he felt emboldened to funnel creative energy into his projects, giving impromptu porch concerts with a combo at his Bucktown home and writing music with renewed urgency…

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