This is one of those weeks when I wish I could be in several places at once. Alas, dear reader, I cannot, and therefore can't recommend more than one at a time for you.
Friday, Dec. 9
Tim Warfield is one of the best Christmas gifts D.C. gives its jazz fans every year. He does an annual [...]
Thursday, October 20
Fusion! Boy, has that word been a mindfuck for 40 years of jazz. But the blending of jazz with rock—and just about everything else it encounters—has undergone a revitalization in the last decade or so, particularly in Europe. One of the performers leading the charge across the Atlantic is the trumpeter Eric Vloeimans. [...]
Yes, it happens every year in July and August—the steady stream of jazz in D.C. slows to a trickle. Summer sluggishness is nothing new in our fair city, and God knows it ain't exclusive to the jazz scene. You're probably slowing down, too, and the music is just trying to match pace with you. And [...]
Alas. Dutch piano prodigy Michiel Borstlap was scheduled for shows at Blues Alley tonight and tomorrow, a performance that was sure to be radiant. Now it will not be radiant or anything else, as the shows have been canceled due to poor ticket sales.
That's the bad news. The good news is that the club has [...]
Friday, April 1
Night of the Cookers. The Modern Jazz Giants. The Bebop All-Stars. One of those big hyperbolic album titles should by rights be hung around the necks of the cast of characters D.C. jazz patriarch Paul Carr has assembled for the weekend. In truth, Carr, born and bred in the "Texas Tenor" tradition of [...]
Damnation, D.C.! The Christian Scott performance at Wolf Trap tonight has been canceled! This was going to be the week's big pick! With a big, glorious photograph of Scott playing trumpet to accompany! Oh, sure, there's plenty of other good stuff for the week, but still.
Thursday, Feb. 3
As jazz piano develops in increasingly abstract and [...]
Friday, Jan. 7
It's perhaps the most casual gig in town, but something interesting is always happening at Westminster Presbyterian's Jazz Night. Under the buzz of people chatting quietly to each other, or the scraping of plates of food sold by the SW Catering Company downstairs, can be heard the most swinging and warm jazz music [...]
Friday, Sept. 3
Kenny Rittenhouse's trumpet sound is a thing to behold. He's got the hurt romance, the vulnerability, of Miles Davis' tone, but he spins them into the long virtuoso phrases of a Freddie Hubbard. Those are two very different stylists whose common ground can be summed up as "Kenny Rittenhouse"; however, even if you [...]
Thursday, July 29
We've discussed before the deep vein of gospel that runs through Baltimore jazz. Well, meet the furthest exponent of that style: Cyrus Chestnut. A highly esteemed, technically dazzling mainstream pianist, Chestnut's inspirational roots couldn't be suppressed with a steam shovel; the church seems to glow through the tips of his fingers, and you [...]
Friday, July 2
Nathan and Noble Jolley Jr. are together one of the most powerful musical forces known to man. The twin sons of local legend Noble Jolly Sr., who passed away in 2003, play drums and keyboards, respectively, and swing each with such intensity and aggression that it can often seem like they're barely in [...]
