As for the concerts:

Thursday, Jan. 5
Age is one of 82-year-old Mose Allison’s lyrical preoccupations...and one of his distinctions. The singer/pianist was born in Mississippi at a time when jazz and blues were more or less interchangeable—and in his music, they still are, along with R&B and even postwar pop crooning. Though Allison says his genre-blurring has made it difficult to maintain a steady audience, those who’ve remained loyal include Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Leon Russell, The Who, and The Pixies. It's a long string of generations that's been listening to Mose—but that says everything about his consistency and nothing about his energy. Allison’s got a furiously rhythmic, blindingly piano technique, and his voice, wise but youthful, has the knowing wink of a southern man who still knows how to get down. He makes the advancing years seem all but irrelevant. Allison performs with his trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. $25.

Saturday, Jan. 7
Setlist hearts Elijah Balbed. Did you notice? We get excited about his work as a leader, as a sideman, and as the vanguard of the youngest generation of DC jazz saxophonists, and we're not shy about saying so. We are thrilled to hear the new album he's promised for 2012 (more on that story as it develops), and just as thrilled about his new band, a quintet. It's a—relatively straightahead assemblage that features Samir Moulay on guitar, Andrew Adair on piano, Gavin Fallow on bass, and Lee Pearson II on drums. That "relatively" is an important qualifier, though: Balbed often leads the group through a set of standards, but they don't let it restrain them from taking the music in strange and adventurous new directions. The Elijah Balbed Quintet performs at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. at Bohemian Caverns, 2001 11th St. NW. $15.

Sunday, January 8
It may seem strange to recommend Eric Johnson, a guitarist who flaunts his debt to Jimi Hendrix and his blues-guitar-pioneer predecessors loudly and proudly, in this column. In fact, it's not too far-fetched at all. Johnson's breakthrough came when he was the guitarist for Austin area fusion band The Electromagnets—and in fact, his artistic development stems less from Hendrix than from John McLaughlin, the man who adapted Hendrix's innovations for the Fusion Era. You can hear it in his clear, tasteful, deceptively complex lines, even when he's singing blues-rock songs: This man is a craftsman, a technician, a guitarist's guitarist made for the delicacy and details of jazz, and it shows. Eric Johnson performs at 7:30 p.m. at The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria. $35.

Wednesday, January 11

Rodney Richardson is one of the area's premiere jazz guitarists. He has regular gigs in the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra with the Funk Ark, last year co-conducted a sharp experiment with trumpeter Joe Herrera via the "Sunday Jazz Lounge," and is a favorite sideman around the city. But his own major project, the Rodney Richardson Organ Trio, has been on the sidelines recently. That changes in 2012, with the organ trio roaring back into Twins Jazz to take its rightful place as the cream of D.C.'s soul-jazz crop. Richardson is accompanied by Will Rast, easily the organ king of Washington, and Larry Ferguson, the hard-driving drummer who proves that you can lay out soul on the trap kit. And admit it, you've been longing for that gritty, churchy, irresistably groovy sound of the organ trio to hit your ears again. The Rodney Richardson Trio performs at 8 and 10 p.m. at Twins Jazz, 1344 U St. NW. $10.

Photo: Allie Carroll.

Thursday, March 24
You could be forgiven if his nearly 20-year association with Jay Leno made you think Kevin Eubanks was a mediocre hack, too—forgiven, but you wouldn't be correct. Before he Jaywalked, guitarist Eubanks (the second of three musical brothers from Philadelphia) was a member of the M-Base Collective, the Brooklyn-based pool of musicians who made revolutionary musical and rhythmic structures in the 1980s. As a soloist, though, he's tended toward the fusion domain, albeit with a refreshingly progressive current running through it. The rock-ish textures still fool some critics into thinking Eubanks has watered his sound down, labeling his latest album, Zen Food (Mack Avenue), as pop-jazz; if you're tempted to agree, listen to Zen Food yourself...and try to hum any of the tunes you hear. Better yet, go see him play! Kevin Eubanks performs at 8 and 1 p.m. at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. $30.

Friday, March 25
Donvonte McCoy first appeared in this column two weeks ago when he was appearing in a solo set at Twins; at the time, I praised his "fluid, bouncy legato line, blinding speed...and hearty quicksilver tone on his horn." Having heard that solo set, I have to qualify my description. No question of his fluidity or legato (though McCoy also has some staccato tendencies), but his playing also has a tremendous capacity for languid, deliberate pace, and his tone has a smoky undertone both on trumpet and flugelhorn. His range, in other words, is wide and magnificent. That's apparent in the sets he performs weekly with his quintet at Eighteenth Street Lounge, where large insertions of funk and hip-hop, and the soulful stylings of singer Mavis Waters, infiltrate his spacey jazz music. It's something special. The Donvonte McCoy Quintet performs at 10:30 p.m. at Eighteenth Street Lounge, 1212 18th St. NW. $10.

Sunday, March 27

One of my items in this week's Best Of D.C. issue ("Best Instrument: Bass") inspired an open question from walking jazz library Larry Appelbaum: "What ever happened to Marshall Hawkins?" What an opportune time to ask! Hawkins is performing at a homecoming concert this weekend. He's sharing top billing with New Orleans clarinetist Evan Christopher; both of them work with Christopher's ensemble Clarinet Road. Christopher is a deep scholar of the clarinet styles that flourished in the early jazz of New Orleans, and has built his career on extending the elements of those sounds into the contemporary jazz milieu—accordingly, he calls his music "contemporary early jazz." Christopher got his musical education at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts near Palm Springs, Calif.—which is how he met Hawkins, the D.C. native and bassist who has been the school's jazz head since 1985. Teacher and student bring it home at 4 p.m. at All Souls Unitarian Church, 16th and Harvard streets NW. $20.

Tuesday, March 29
It's probably no surprise to anyone who watches jazz these days that Radiohead's oeuvre is popular and fertile ground for jazz musicians. Brad Mehldau's piano renditions are the stuff of myth at this point, and on the best album of last year, Christian Scott's Yesterday You Said Tomorrow, the best track was a cover of Thom Yorke's "The Eraser." Well, D.C.'s jazz musicians are as eager to blaze those trails as anyone else, and a group of the most adventurous among them— tenor saxophonist Bobby Muncy, trumpeter Joe Herrera, guitarists Rodney Richardson and Greg Loman, bassist Blake Meister, drummer Larry Ferguson, and vocalist Lena Seikaly—have come together under the auspices of the "Radiohead Jazz Project." Their mission, obviously, is to explore the British band's work in depth. Given the players involved, it can't help but be a stirring encounter. The Radiohead Jazz Project performs at 8 and 10 p/m/ at Twins Jazz, 1344 U St. NW. $10.

Friday, May 14
Terell Stafford is a sharp dude: suave, snazzily dressed, and with trumpet skills to spare. Stafford has strong D.C. roots, as well: He spent his formative years in Silver Spring and attended the University of Maryland, where he learned his craft before moving on to the New York scene. Stafford's no radical: He plays and swings straight—and hard. Harder than holy hell, in fact. He's also got a clear and snappy articulation, taking up the mantle left by Freddie Hubbard with solos that will leave you breathless and googly-eyed. His current quintet includes Tim Warfield, his partner in crime and another D.C. regular, as well as go-to bassist Peter Washington, piano maven Bruce Barth, and manic drummer Dana Hall; they perform 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. sets at Bohemian Caverns, 2001 11th St. NW. $25.

Saturday, May 15
Ramsey Lewis, the piano player best known for creating some of jazz's last true jukebox hits in the '60s ("The In Crowd"), is enjoying a new go-round as a serious jazz composer. In 2007 he premiered his first commissioned concert work, music written for the Joffrey Ballet, followed a year later by a full-length suite; parts of both works appear on his most recent album, Songs From the Heart: Ramsey Plays Ramsey (Concord), this writer's choice for the best album of 2009. D.C. will get a chance to hear some of it live, when Lewis performs a tandem concert with singer Ann Hampton Callaway. The show will feature Lewis' trio performing with and without Callaway, as well as Callaway with her own accompanists. (Arts Desk will post an interview with Lewis tomorrow, as well.) The concert takes place at 8 p.m. at the Warner Theatre, 13th and E Streets NW. $28-$58.

Sunday, May 16
What can compete with a great composer on Saturday night? How about six great composers on Sunday? Strictly speaking, the gig is under the auspices of the Bobby Muncy Sextet, but the inventive D.C. saxophonist takes equal onstage status with trumpeter Joe Herrera, guitarist Anthony Pirog, and bassist Kevin Pace. Each of these musicians is a musical adventurer—and a writer as well. At this show, everyone brings their own compositions to the stage, and the ensemble rotates through composers so that everyone gets equal time. (They are joined by drummer Larry Ferguson, and vocalist Lena Seikaly will stop by late in the set with her own compositions, too.) Their writing—some of which was also on display last night at U-Topia—is tuneful, sumptuous, and bends convention in its own unique ways. It's important stuff. The group performs at 9 and 11 p.m. at Twins Jazz, 1344 U St. NW. $10.

Wednesday, May 19
Pat Metheny's Orchestrion project has to be seen to be believed:

Put simply, Metheny has adapted a 19th-century device that plays several instruments mechanically (think player piano, but on a larger scale) to include keyboards, mallets, bass, drums, and more, all of which he controls through his own guitar. "Solo ensemble," he rightly calls it. Wow. Just watch the video; it's so much more amazing in images and sound than it is in words. Then, go see it in all its glory at 8 p.m. at the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane in Bethesda. $35-$75.

Nov. 5
Once upon a time it seemed that New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton was the reincarnation of Louis Armstrong, with his bright virtuosic phrases and Big Easy swing. Then came 2003's Sonic Trance and last year's Into the Blue, which transplanted Payton into slow, spacy fusion jams that had more in common with Bitches Brew than Satchmo Plays W.C. Handy. Though he now grounds himself with electronics (and occasionally even techno beats), Payton hasn't sacrificed his roots in blues, lyricism, and swing—he just lifts them into the stratosphere. Payton performs with his quartet at 8 and 10 pm at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Avenue NW. $30.

Nov. 7
On the other hand, Marcus Strickland jumps freely back and forth between acoustic and electric musical projects. The tenor saxophonist has worked with drummers Roy Haynes and Jeff "Tain" Watts as well as the two (equal and opposite) major trumpeters of the era, the traditionalist Wynton Marsalis and experimentalist Dave Douglas, and finds a comfortable and unique niche in all settings. That also applies to his own bands – Strickland leads both the Twi-Life group, which flirts with electro-funk and hip-hop, and a straight-ahead trio. It's the latter that appears at Bohemian Caverns at 9 and 11 pm, featuring Strickland's identical twin brother E.J. on drums and DC native and this year's Thelonious Monk Competition winner Ben Williams on bass. Don't be fooled: the acoustic trio will offer plenty of surprises from the other side of the fence.

Nov. 8
Despite Art Blakey’s admonition that “jazz doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa,” musicians everywhere have never stopped trying to establish the link. Americans usually think of African music in terms of traditional percussion and tribal rhythms; guitarist Lionel Loueke, who’s from Benin, fuses his jazz with melodic West African pop. Its primary effect is to generate music of startling beauty. Loueke is an acoustic player, and the new songs often sound like folk music at first (an impression that Loueke reinforces with soft humming and tongue-clicking); the harmonic labyrinths and the focused interplay are the jazz element. Loueke performs with his trio at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Stadium Drive and Route 193 in College Park. $37.

November 11
They sometimes call them "organ-grinder groups" — the soul-inflected jazz trios centered around a Hammond B-3 organ, in the tradition of players like Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff. D.C.'s contribution is the Rodney Richardson Trio. Richardson is actually the guitarist; Will Rast is the organist (and Larry Ferguson is the drummer). But it's Richardson's subtle, delicate touch that pushes the trio into its idiosyncratic sound. Rast pulsates and explores, doesn't jam, and Ferguson punctuates and makes surprisingly careful fills. It keeps audiences guessing, but also intrigued. Find them at Twins Jazz, 1344 U Street NW. $15.