Friday, Oct. 15
In the already-tough climate of avant-garde jazz, the piano is perhaps the most fearsome instrument. It's one of the noisiest, for one thing, and for another it's only on the keyboard that you can hear, a la Cecil Taylor, up to 10 dissonant notes played at the same time. Dave Burrell has a [...]
Thursday, Sep. 16
Even after 50 years, there is still controversy about whether Brazilian bossa nova is really "jazz," per se. But the musicians who developed bossa nova certainly had no problem with the association; they were happy to work with Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz, and Gil Evans, and to market themselves stateside under the jazz [...]
Friday, August 13
If you've been watching HBO's Treme, you've probably seen an appearance by Trombone Shorty, a real-life native of the show's titular neighborhood in New Orleans. But pay TV isn't where the 24-year-old, born Troy Andrews, is making his mark. Shorty (who plays...oh, you guessed!) is a living musical mash-up: Having worked as a [...]
I believe this column owes a retraction. I said last month that July was "the slowest month for jazz in D.C." That was before August, that period of (yet more) stifling heat and congressional recess. Ick. So while our fair city is emptied of the folks who work on and around the Hill, look an [...]
Thursday, April 29
Pianist Vijay Iyer, perhaps the moment's most critically acclaimed jazz musician under 40, has taken several different paths with his music, including extensive work with avant-garde visionaries Steve Coleman and Wadada Leo Smith. Among his most frequent and fruitful explorations, though, is of his Indian heritage, filtered through jazz's language. It's something he's [...]
March 18
Puzzlebox describes itself as a fusion of "traditional, third stream, progressive, and avant garde jazz." All of which is true, but there's a more direct touchstone for their sound: Charles Mingus, whose uneasy juxtaposition of the dark and the boisterous permeates the Philadelphia octet. Indeed, Keith DeStefano, the founder and leader of Puzzlebox, is [...]
JAN. 15
Every Friday night for the past 11 years, one of DC's best nights — and best bargains — for local jazz has taken place far away from the clubs and other usual suspects. I speak, of course, of Jazz Night in Southwest at the Westminster Presbyterian Church, where the music takes place right in [...]
Nov. 27
Antonio Parker is a smallish-built fellow, with dapper dress and a huge smile. His looks may leave you unprepared for his sound on the saxophone: 100 percent pure brawn. So much muscle is flexed in any one of his solos that his astonishing harmonic sense—trumpeter Kenny Rittenhouse notes how he "devours the changes"—can almost be overlooked. Not [...]
Mike West is out this week; here's some jazz!
