And yet, the music goes on, as it must. If there's one life lesson 'Bug taught with every day of his life, it was to live, love, and embrace the music fully. So, kids, let's do it.

Thursday, February 2
Cricket Fusion was born about four years ago from a taste for music with two things: spontaneous group improvisation and groove. It was for that artistic ideal that trumpeter Joe Brotherton organized what was then a trio, as conversant in funk, fusion, and hip-hop as in jazz. One that could, with equal ease, play standards, write originals, or take off on in-the-moment, free-form runs. Before long, the Cricket Fusion Trio had grown into the Cricket Fusion Quartet, and today is simply Cricket Fusion. Even their written music is essentially a launchpad into free-form directions, with an incredibly tight rhythmic core and unceasingly original ideas coming out from all sides. Need one word? Try "fiery." Cricket Fusion's current incarnation includes Brotherton, tenor saxophonist Elijah Balbed, alto saxophonist Herbert Scott, bassist Blake Meister, and drummer Terence Arnett. They perform at 8 and 10 p.m. at Twins Jazz, 1344 U St. NW. $10.

Photo: Carlyle V. Smith

Friday, February 3
Here's a question you don't hear often. What do you get when you cross Banghra (the dance-pop music of Punjabi culture), brass-band music, and jazz? There's really only one answer to this one: You get Red Baraat. The brainchild of drummer/percussionist Sunny Jain, Red Baraat calls itself "dhol 'n' brass" — the dhol being the two-headed Indian drum that Jain plays, while six of his bandmates—Mike Bomwell, Alex Hamlin, Sonny Singh, MiWi La Lupa, Ernest Stuart, and John Altieri—brandish some sort of brass instrument or another. (There are two other members, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and percussionist Rohin Khemani.) If nothing else, the sound is fiercely original. You'll likely hear some cousin of D.C.'s own go-go rhythm (and occasionally the sound of go-go outright) in their lively, hard-hitting party music; you certainly will hear dance rhythms that won't let you escape. Red Baraat performs at 7 p.m. at U Street Music Hall, 1115 U St. NW. $15.

Saturday, February 4
Was a time, long about 1950 or so, when Charlie Parker was the king of the alto saxophone. But he had a pretty strong rival for that title, and that was Lee Konitz. Konitz, just like everybody else of his generation, studied Parker carefully, soaking up his concepts and innovations; what Konitz did, though, that very few people of the time could, was use those elements to fashion a sound that was his and his alone—among the first to follow Mingus' constant exortation, "Stop copying Bird." Among Konitz's greatest admirers? Charlie Parker, who loved hearing something original on the horn he'd revolutionized. Sixty years later, Konitz is still one of the most distinctive of the alto's practitioners, and, unquestionably, the greatest living one. And as it turns out, one of his proteges is one of our fair city's most visible jazz musician: saxophonist Brad Linde. The two will perform together, along with another frequent collaborator, up-and-coming pianist Dan Tepfer, and one of the great one-two punches of D.C. rhythm, bassist Tom Baldwin and drummer Tony Martucci. It goes down at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. at Bohemian Caverns, 2001 11th St. NW. $25.

It's a spectacular week for jazz, folks.

Thurday, June 23
It's been a long time—over a year and a half, in fact—since D.C. has seen a gig by the Cricket Fusion Quartet. The collective is the brainchild of Joe Brotherton, a trumpeter (and a hip one) with a taste for two things: spontaneous group improvisation and groove. Brotherton thus organized a small ensemble that was as conversant in funk, fusion, and hip-hop as in jazz... and one that could, with equal ease, play standards, write originals, or take off on in-the-moment, free-form runs. Indeed, the written material tends to launch powerfully into the free-form direction, too. It was a hell of a band, tight and endlessly creative; its members, however, had busy gig schedules, as did Brotherton, who also wanted to take some time to write music the band could record. Fast forward to tonight: Brotherton has re-formed the Cricket Fusion Quartet with bassist Blake Meister, drummer Terence Arnett, and saxophonist Elijah Balbed, and landed them a new weekly gig at the WXYZ bar at National Harbor. Tonight is the inauguration (although Balbed will be replaced by Herbert Scott for the evening), featuring a special guest, hip-hop artist Yusef. They hit at 6 p.m. at the WXYZ Bar in the Aloft hotel, 156 Waterfront St. at National Harbor. Free.

Saturday, June 25

Dizzy Gillespie is dead and gone, but his legacy is enormous—as a trumpeter, as a composer, as a bandleader, and as a thinker. In D.C., much of his legacy is embodied in the DC Jazz Festival, in many respects created in Dizzy's image; in the world at large, his legacy remains enormous but finds a particular focal point in Jon Faddis. Faddis was a Gillespie protégé, remains his standard-bearer, and is the undisputed heir to his title as the most virtuosic jazz trumpet player alive (who in many aspects has surpassed his onetime guru). He was head of Dizzy's United Nation Orchestra, the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars, and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars Big Band. Here's a guy who takes his "keeper of the flame" status very, very seriously. But Faddis isn't exactly free of his own accomplishments; he leads an orchestra under his own name, has released multiple Grammy-nominated recordings, and is even the composer of a jazz opera (Lulu Noire). He also passes the torch on himself, as a teacher of music at SUNY Purchase. And, in this case, he's a performer in Washington, where he'll play at 8 and 10 p.m. at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. $37.75.

Sunday, June 26
Fans of the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra will know its trombonist Shannon Gunn. What they may not know is that she leads her own big band—an all-female big band. Shannon Gunn and the Bullettes was formed in the summer of 2010, when Gunn (then a graduate student in George Mason University's Jazz Studies department) did the math and realized there were enough women in enough instrumental positions for such a thing to be possible. She began organizing rehearsals and raising money for a recording session. As a result, the Bullettes had their first record (the Introducing the Bullettes EP, with five sharp, elegantly crafted arrangements) before they had given their first public performance. And this is their first performance. At least 15 women will assemble as the Bullettes at 4 p.m. at Northern Virginia Community College's Ernst Cultural Center Theatre, 8333 Little River Turnpike, Annandale. $15.

Wednesday, June 29
The work of bassist/composer Anne Mette Iversen (as documented on her new album The Milo Songs) is seriously tricky stuff. It's tuneful, but can lose you going around its abrupt rhythmic corners; it seems to hide mysteries that can't be unlocked; and it forces the musicians playing it to engage in some serious instrumental cartwheels—sometimes just to find their own ways around it. Nevertheless, it's incredibly compelling music, full of gorgeous musical ideas and proof that intensity has nothing to do with the amount of volume or force applied to the instrument. Iversen, Danish by birth, is a member of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, a creative coalition dedicated to the cause of progressive jazz. But she has a special sense of what "progressive" means; in the case of her quartet (pianist Danny Grissett, tenor saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh, drummer Otis Brown III), it's getting challenging artistic concepts across in intriguing ways, even if the paths can be a bit bumpy and jarring. The Anne Mette Iversen Quartet performs at 8 and 10 p.m. at Twins Jazz, 1344 U St. NW. $10.

Tenor saxophonist Elijah Jamal Balbed reports that he was at U-Topia Bar & Grill at about 1 a.m., listening to the regular Sunday night band co-led by keyboardist Wayne Wilentz and drummer Jim West, when "next thing I know a man wearing a leather suit with black and orange Nike shoes is walking up to the stage to sit in with a flugelhorn. That was Roy Hargrove." Over the next few hours, Hargrove's impromptu sit-in became an open jam session featuring Jamal, singer Cheryl Jones, and local trumpet mainstays Donvonte McCoy, Joe Brotherton, and Israel Lattimore.

See what you miss when you decide you've "got to get up for work in the morning?"

But despair not! For, says Balbed, "I run a jam session at Utopia on Mondays, and although Roy has already left town, we may have appearances there tonight by some of the members of his band." Not quite the same, perhaps, but a hell of a good excuse to hit U-Topia this evening anyway. (Another good excuse: the chicken pecan.)

Oct. 4
Don't let the name throw you: Digital Primitives don't play any electronic instruments whatsoever. Instead, leader Cooper-Moore builds his own musicmakers — twangers, mouthbows, diddley-bows — as well as playing piano and flute and singing. He teams in DP with percussionist Chad Taylor and Israeli saxophonist and clarinetist Assif Tsahar for an eccentric but inescapably catchy avant garde music that contains elements of funk, jazz, blues, and folk music from the Middle East, Africa, and America. It's unique and fascinating, and don't be surprised if you find yourself dancing in your seat, even without electronic beats. Digital Primitives play Sunday at Contradiction Dance in Takoma Park. $15.

The solo was classic Brötzmann, requiring great intellectual energy to penetrate his harsh, often shrieky tone for the melody and pace ("rhythm" isn't quite the right word) of his tenor/alto/soprano saxes and clarinet. The clarinet was a particularly intense tune, Brötzmann running his fingers up and down the (much simpler than a saxophone) keyboard, hard—as if sanding down the burnished wood—and blowing with such force that he was audibly grunting.

Brötzmann's ferocity was impressive...but honestly hard to take in a large (nearly 60-minute) dose. Without an accompanying ensemble, however chaotic, it's hard to stay with his many twists and turns; my mind wandered, and I looked at my watch more times than I care to admit.

So, when Brötzmann called intermission after the solo, I decided to get a recharge — and headed over to 1905, in 9th Street's Little Ethiopia corridor. D.C. trumpeter Joe Brotherton was playing his regular Thursday gig with his Cricket Fusion Quartet, featuring bassist Oliver Albertini, James Brown veteran Mousey Thompson, and 19-year-old tenor saxophonist Elijah Balbed — already one of the scene's hottest up-and-comers. They were starting Art Blakey's "Moanin'" when I came in, then moved back to their usual 100% improvised tunes. The solos from all four were killer, their interaction edgy and dramatic; the audience was rapt and the staff were delighted. "They're playing some different shit tonight," I heard the bartender tell one of the waiters. "I like it!"

Thus re-oriented, I ducked back out of 1905 and back to the Velvet Lounge just in time to see one of the most transcendent sets of free group improvisation ever performed in this town. Largely drawn from Verrastro's large experimental collective Kohoutek, Chromatic Mysteries created an atmosphere of alien psychedelia in which Brötzmann was a natural fit: two additional saxes, guitar that wandered mostly through the lower registers (and had more than a little freaky noise from a console of pedals and electronic equipment), and drums and percussion (marimbas, mostly). The sync between the three saxophonists was uncanny, but the whole ensemble's ability to listen to and follow each other was astonishing and as rewarding on the surface as in penetrating.

Perhaps this second set would have been just as good had I not gone to 1905, but it was nonetheless a refreshing, stabilizing experience. So a hat tip to Brotherton and his band – it ain't easy to compete with a monster like Peter Brötzmann. You guys held your own without even trying.