Articles

Al James entertains at O’Donovan’s By Jon Anderson Tribune Staff Reporter He calls his work up-close entertainment, working a foot or two from his audience. The act lasts eight, maybe ten, minutes. A good crowd is six people. And he’s been at it longer than anyone else in Chicago, he says. In a time when […]

Magician Al James started his magic career in 1971 after he was laid off and decided to pursue his then-hobby full time. PHOTO FOR THE TRIBUNE BY JOEL WINTERMANTLE Al James Entertains at O’Donovan’s By Kevin Pang | Tribune Reporter Halfway through the soothing sways of “Edelweiss” at the Chicago Brauhaus, a gentleman dropped a […]

Al James And The Art of Tableside Magic By Jefferey Kumorek Photography by Lloyd DeGrane What is it about magic that fascinates us? Street performers were doing card tricks—our most enduring form of performance art—in Europe in the 14th century and their heritage dates back further than that to the Orient, where it’s thought that […]

By Felicia Dechter If you are looking for a little holiday magic, literally, venture out and catch the baffling wizardry of Al James, who’s performing around town. I caught Al’s “exciting” (that’s how my 13-year-old daughter described it) act last weekend at the dynamite Sunday brunch at Leona’s in Rogers Park. Al, a North Sider […]

By Joe O’Brien In less than five minutes, Al James has won several young fans. After one mystifying card trick, Kathy, the talkative blonde to his left, shrieks, “Do it again!” Iain, somewhat more reserved under his baseball cap, can’t help but smile. “That’s cool,” he says. These are not 3-year-olds riding a sugar high […]