Terence Blanchard sure does spend a lot of time in D.C. The New Orleanian trumpeter has, since August, appeared at Blues Alley to promote his album A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), at the Kennedy Center for a presentation of his music for Spike Lee's films, and at Strathmore as part of [...]
Saturday night at the Lincoln Theatre's jazz concert "Duke, Ella, and Beyond," Charlie Fishman, founder and executive producer of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, announced the lineup of the 2008 festival.
This year's festival will be held October 1-7. It will be the last autumn festival; beginning in 2009, DEJF has been given a permanent slot [...]
Charlie Fishman, founder and executive producer of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, will host a birthday concert for the late, legendary Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, featuring local jazz talents, at the Lincoln Theater on Saturday, April 26.
The concert features three acts: Jam on U All-Stars (featuring frequent U Street jazz luminaries such as saxophonist [...]
Anat Cohen is one of the fastest- and highest-rising stars in the jazz world; the Israeli reedist is a rare breed, specializing in both tenor saxophone and clarinet. The former makes her an even rarer breed: female saxophonist. Cohen headlined a show at Bohemian Caverns with her quartet on Saturday night, and was a member [...]
This year the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival adopts the notion that jazz is something that the whole family can enjoy—not just a music for over-21s and after-hours. Thus organizers Charlie and Michal Fishman planned Saturday as Jazz ‘n Families Fun Day, loaded with daytime concerts to bring the kids to.
1:30 p.m. – Smithsonian Sculpture Garden
Trumpeter [...]
“These are the last of Dizzy Gillespie’s protegees,” host Maureen Bunyan said at the Lincoln Theatre’s “In the Footsteps of Dizzy” concert Friday night. It was an all-star lineup of musicians who had studied with the great bebop professor.
Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez opened the show with a pointillistic solo of “September in Rio” that evoked [...]
Hank Jones’ tones can light up a room. The 89-year-old from Pontiac, Michigan, is the elder statesman of jazz piano, if not of all of jazz, and has worked with everyone from Charlie Parker and Miles Davis to Jack DeJohnette and Joe Lovano.
Meanwhile, Roberta Gambarini is a relative newcomer on the jazz scene. A native [...]
Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel at Blues Alley was Wednesday’s headliner, but for a variety of reasons I decided instead to visit jazz clubs for the festival’s unfortunately named “Jazz in the ‘Hoods” series. This proved challenging, as the schedule I’d been given was less than accurate. But I took what I could get.
8:15 pm – Bohemian [...]
Tuesday’s main event was a CD release party at Bohemian Caverns for Soul Con Timba, which recorded the disc at the venerable U Street club. It’s the first-ever release on the festival’s DEJF Records imprint and the first live album at the Caverns since Ramsey Lewis' 1964 classic. I couldn’t make the party, but I [...]
