Music festivals tend to be backloaded, primarily to keep people coming back for more, but as a nice side effect it keeps the most happening stuff fresh for critics who do post-festival wrap-ups. Thus this writer is basking in the afterglow of last night's smash "A Night in Treme"—maybe the first time an event at the staid ol' Kennedy Center ended with ushers lining the front of the stage to prevent its being stormed—and still flush with the profound impact of Bobby McFerrin at the Warner Theatre. Well played, DCJF. Well played.

It was a good year for the festival. It regained its keystone, Jazz on the National Mall, and a deep-pocketed sponsor (Bing). And, in addition to the above events, it offered the legendary Heath Brothers (one of whom, Tootie, served as a house drummer throughout the entire festival), DCJF favorite Cyrus Chestnut (who served as house pianist), alto saxophonist Antonio Hart, and The Brass-A-Holics. A pretty good stock of artists, and that's before we mention the usual gang of local talent. Oh, and Tomas Fujiwara, Darius Jones, and JD Allen, the headliners of this year's new CapitalBop Jazz Loft arm of the festival.

That last is a major development. This city is a stronghold of traditional jazz, make no mistake about it, but this year in particular has seen a revival of the post-bop and progressive streams' fortunes in D.C., and these need to be showcased and celebrated as well. The festival took a bold step in enlisting Giovanni Russonello and Luke Stewart to broaden its appeal. Russonello and Stewart went them one better: Allen, for example, has a progressive vision but is not terribly far removed from the mainstream, and CapitalBop could easily have held that line with its full series; instead, it embraced a broad spectrum, adding in the genuine cutting edge pf Fujiwara and Jones, as well as local straightahead-ers (Amy Bormet, The Jolley Brothers) and experimenters (Stewart's OOO Trio). The partnership apparently isn't a definite for future festivals, but its establishment this year did great things for both sides of it. Letting it dissolve could be a significant step backward for both.

Not to say that everything was perfect. I've already discussed the scheduling problems; the festival's broad lineup, impressive as it is, also suffers a little bit in comparison to last year's glorious 24-country kaleidoscope. Furthermore, an old gripe raised its head again this year: the length of the festival. The calendar was stretched a little thin in a couple of spots; its second day, for example, had exactly one act that didn't appear regularly in town—and that one had appeared elsewhere, for free, on the previous night.

Which also brings up an interesting controversy. There have been some debates about the heavy reliance on local acts; that's a valid point for D.C. residents who are looking for something different and see that much of the schedule is the stuff they can see any night of the week. This can be frustrating to me, too—but in the end I can't get too worked up about it. For one thing, this is an inevitable facet of a jazz festival in any city with a thriving jazz scene: Really, how many people at the festivals in New York (Or Chicago, or New Orleans) aren't that scene's usual suspects? For another thing, DCJF attracts a healthy chunk of its audience from outside D.C. As festival producer Charlie Fishman pointed out, those people don't know who plays our clubs, when, or how often, and ought to be told about what we have to offer here. For that matter, there are plenty of locals who know nothing about D.C. jazz beyond the festival, and those people ought to be informed, too. And how about the musicians themselves, who are deserving of the extra publicity? There are those who don't want it (as I've said before, that's between them and the festival); those who do, like Bormet and the Jolleys, or Victor Provost and Lena Seikaly, deserve it. And who doesn't want a major jazz festival on their resume?

None of this, however, has dulled my appetite for next year's DC Jazz Festival. Indeed, I'm curious to see its developments, from the CapitalBop association to how it can possibly top sublime moments like McFerrin. It will also be interesting to see what happens with the traditional NEA Jazz Masters concert (which was planned for this year, but didn't work out) now that the NEA is phasing out the Jazz Masters program. Fishman and the DCJF staff have their work cut out for them; undoubtedly they'll find compelling routes.

This time, however, the DCJF's length seemed to fit—odd, since its ambitions were even further constrained. It was, however, cohesive in a way that 2009, even with its defined "Honoring New Orleans" theme, was not. The informal "world jazz" theme was no coincidence: Twenty-four countries were represented in one way or another across the fest, including, among others, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, Japan, Korea, India, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Curaçao, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, and Israel. Producer Charlie Fishman noted with pride that the Berklee World Jazz Nonet (which played three gigs during the festival) featured "an Israeli and a Palestinian, negotiating through music." Some international perspective on the music, from the opening night's Etienne Charles to the closing night's "Latin Tinge of Jelly Roll Morton" program, was on display every night, and in various combinations. The most interesting, like Uri Gurvich and Michael Philip Mossman, managed to explore several nations' and ethnicities' music all under the jazz rubric—or, like Edmar Castañeda, brought something completely original and daring to the proceedings.
Not that there weren't problems. The co-opting of regularly scheduled local jazz gigs as "festival events" is still a bit of a stretch, though the DCJF should still be forgiven for budgetary reasons (and, as has been noted, the extra promotion offered by the fest swelled the crowds at the clubs, and it's damn hard to find fault with that.) The NEA Jazz Masters' tribute to James Moody is a sticking point; the festival was admittedly scrambling after Moody's unexpected illness and withdrawal, but the lack of his material was more conspicuous than the lack of Moody.

Still, by accident or design, Fishman seems to have found a new footing on this sixth time out for the DCJF. Last night after the closing concert, thinking as always in terms of his relationship with Dizzy Gillespie, Fishman evoked Gillespie's United Nation Orchestra, which he created to bring world cultures together in the name of jazz. "This was Dizzy's vision," he said, referring to the internationalist tact. "This is what we wanted to do, what we have done, and what we'll keep doing." That, going forward, will be the secret of the DC Jazz Festival's success. Excited though the staff is about a planned tribute to Chicago, they will continue to be at their best when they pay tribute to everywhere. In this international city, stocked with ambassadors official and un-, political and cultural, that order is not so tall... but it'll be fun to fill.

Festival boss Charlie Fishman reports that there's been a dispute with the Ellington family over the rights to use the name of District jazz's favorite son. Henceforth, then, it shall be known as the DC Jazz Festival, and shall be accorded all rights and privileges commensurate with that name.

It is notable, however, that festivals with the names of famous musicians attached have tended to be second-tier festivals, held in fifth-tier cities. Who, after all, could forget the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho; the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington, Delaware; or the headline-grabbing Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival in bustling Davenport, Iowa?

By contrast, the big-time fests — Newport Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Portland Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — are all named after the cities that host them.

So let's call this name change a promotion, shall we?