This, folks, is one of those rare weeks where I'm recommending two shows on the same night. Make it out to both.
Friday, December 2
The Grammy nominations were announced last night, and one of the few standouts on a terrifically vanilla list of jazz nominees (which mostly consists of a handful of old-guard darlings nominated several [...]
Los Angeles native Gretchen Parlato is among an elite group of musicians who made their breakthrough in Washington, D.C.: She was the winner of the 2004 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition for Vocals. Seven years and three albums later, Parlato is one of the most acclaimed and closely watched singers in jazz, and her star [...]
Friday, April 15: It's not a stretch to call Ben Williams the pride of the current D.C. jazz scene. A native of Michigan Park, Williams grew up playing bass with the District's own Jolley Brothers, worked with Thad Wilson and Paul Carr, and studied with Michael Bowie and the Ellington School of the Arts' Carolyn [...]
Friday, Oct. 1
The Airmen of Note are a fine attraction all by themselves, aren't they? This is Washington—we know a thing or two about military bands—and "the Note," the Air Force's jazz ensemble, has a storied history of great players and even better arrangers (Sammy Nestico, Mike Crotty, Alan Blaylock) who've both maintained the band's [...]
While jazz's clash with the mainstream was the most intensely debated topic of 2009, it was actually an incredibly fruitful year for the music. The recordings I discuss in the link above were among the best and most exciting; whether or not they ultimately catch commercial fire, their attempts to employ rock and hip-hop aesthetics [...]
Oct. 30
The Brooklyn-born pianist Randy Weston was reared in blues and gospel, grew up with some of bebop’s revolutionaries, and as an adult began exploring musical traditions from all across the African continent—from Somalia to Nigeria to Morocco. His vision manages to assimilate all of those sources into an insoluble whole, equally able to interact [...]
