The deluge of comments on my Radiohead fiasco post last month included a debate on whether Merriweather Post Pavilion was just as bad as Nissan Pavilion. Having never made it out there, I didn’t comment, but last night Mrs. J. West and I braved rush-hour traffic on the BW Parkway to see R.E.M..

After doing some calculations, I can say that MPP is exactly 9,531 times better than Nissan.

Traffic in and out was kept orderly and flowing. Parking was painless. On-site staff knew what they were doing. The layout and even the landscape were vastly superior. Granted, we didn’t have the apocalyptic weather conditions this time out, but what I saw on a temperate summer evening gave me confidence in their ability to handle disaster.

By the way, the show was great too. Modest Mouse played a great opener (we missed The National), R.E.M. had us eating out of their hand for their full two-hour set, and they played my favorite, “Driver 8.” All was well.

All this week–and perhaps longer, though I only noticed on Monday–Dupont South Metro exit has been the bandstand for an impressive duo of street musicians. Two men, one on violin and the other on 5-string electric bass, set up music stands, speakers, and a money jar and let fly with surprisingly inspired takes on the favorites. On three mornings I’ve heard rock hits, jazz standards (”Summertime” was this morning’s treat), and the odd blues number.

Joshua Bell it ain’t, but these guys are worth a five-minute stop on your way to that 9 a.m. meeting.

I can’t shut up about the Thad Wilson Jazz Orchestra, which holds court every Monday night at Bohemian Caverns. But it’s not all that Wilson does–he also maintains a “chordless” trio (featuring drummer Lenny Robinson and bassist Ameen Saleem) that plays every Thursday at JoJo Restaurant and Bar, just a few blocks down U Street.

This weekend, though, Wilson’s doing something different from either of these: a quartet with a piano player (Allen Johnson), along with Eric Wheeler on bass and Russell Carter on drums. “I just wanted something really, really loose,” says Wilson. “Kind of like a Miles Davis at the Plugged Nickel type of feel.”

You can hear ‘em at Bohemian Caverns on Saturday night, with two shows at 9 and 11 for $15.

Terence Blanchard sure does spend a lot of time in D.C. The New Orleanian trumpeter has, since August, appeared at Blues Alley to promote his album A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), at the Kennedy Center for a presentation of his music for Spike Lee’s films, and at Strathmore as part of the Monterey Jazz Festival’s 50th Anniversary Ensemble.

Not that that’s any reason not to see him again this week. He’ll be at Blues Alley from Thursday through Sunday night, with two sets each night priced at $27.50 per set.

Blanchard also has big plans for D.C. in 2009, if you can hold out for it: the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival has announced that their ‘09 lineup will feature Blanchard and his band, and very possibly a full orchestra, performing the Tale of God’s Will in its entirety.

Time spent at the concert: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Time spent in the car getting to and from the concert: 6 hours, 50 minutes.

Cost:

• 2 tickets - $66.50 each.
• 1 parking ticket for the only available (metered) space in my neighborhood when I got home at 1:30 am - $30.
• 1 ruined pair of shoes.
• 1 even more ruined pair of socks.
• Seeing Liars’ set.
• Any chance that I’ll ever go to Nissan Pavilion again.
• The credibility of Radiohead’s self-righteous prattling about the benefits of getting to the show via carpooling and/or public transit.

And apparently, I was one of the lucky ones.

Dear People at the Next Table at HR-57 on Saturday Night:

I understand the perception that jazz is background music. In some places, that’s quite true. A jazz club, however, is not one of those places. At a jazz club, jazz is what you might call the whole fucking point.

One would think that you knew that, having paid fifteen bucks to get in. However, Eric Lewis’s name on the bill was clearly not a big motivation for you, since you were talking at the top of your lungs all through his set and causing people in the front row to glare back at you. If anything, your motivation was the empty bottle of Maker’s Mark on your table. (For which I grudgingly respect you guys—I’ve never seen anyone, even a large group, finish a bottle of Maker’s Mark in one sitting.)

Still, it might have occurred to you that the other people who paid $15 a head DID want to hear the music. They probably weren’t that interested in your discussion of Barack Obama’s foreign policy platform. Which is why by the end of the night people were choosing to leave their seats and stand against the wall, packed in like sardines, rather than listen to you anymore. Not that it helped, as your decibel range was in the high hundreds.

However, when it comes down to it, the joke’s on you. What you missed was one of the most astonishing musical performances of your lives. Lewis played an astonishing repertoire of classic songs, obscure rock music, and his own compositions, and he did it all with great sturm-und-drang and hands that I’d never believed could move so fast over a keyboard–at least with any reasonable degree of accuracy.

So I don’t even have to tell you to fuck off. You already pretty well did.

Cheers,
MJW

Yes, yes, when you hear people talking about going to see Iron Man this weekend, they’re probably talking about this Iron Man—or as I call it, Another Damned Comic Book Movie. But there’s another Iron Man in DC this weekend: the Gaithersburg-born doom-metal band, which headlines Velvet Lounge Saturday night.

The name, as you might guess, comes from their origins as a Black Sabbath cover band; their sound is drawn from those days too, specializing in the sludgy darkness that Ozzy, Tony, and the boys brought to life in the ’70s. Here’s a CP cover story on the band’s history from about three years ago, courtesy of the ever-reliable Mike Kanin.

It’s a 10 p.m. show, with two openers (Baltimore’s Revelation and Pennsylvania’s Pale Divine, and it’s only 8 bucks. Bring your black clothes; spiked collars, full goatees, and black eyeliner optional.

Saturday night at the Lincoln Theatre’s jazz concert “Duke, Ella, and Beyond,” Charlie Fishman, founder and executive producer of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, announced the lineup of the 2008 festival.

This year’s festival will be held October 1-7. It will be the last autumn festival; beginning in 2009, DEJF has been given a permanent slot in the first two weeks of June on the city’s event calendar.

The lineup, with other performance information where available:

• Monty Alexander (performing at Blues Alley)
• Dee Dee Bridgewater (performing at the National Mall)
• Edmar Castaneda
• Chopteeth Afro Funk Big Band
• Anat Cohen
• Benito Gonzalez
• Conrad Herwig’s Latin Side Project
• Ramsey Lewis (2008 NEA Jazz Master recipient)
• Taj Mahal
• Christian McBride
• Jeremy Pelt
• Grady Tate
• La Timbistica
• Turtle Island String Quartet (performing at private opening gala)
• McCoy Tyner (performing at the National Mall)

Tickets go on sale May 1.

“The whole thing seems designed not to let Sonny talk,” said my companion last night at the event that Washington Performing Arts Society advertised as “A Conversation with Sonny Rollins.” Perhaps the more accurate “An Evening of Jazz Scholar/XM Radio Host Dick Golden Telling Irrelevant, Self-Serving Stories and Occasionally Asking Sonny Rollins to Respond to Them” was too long for the handbills.

During the 90-minute program at the Freer Gallery, Rollins spoke for perhaps 25. Five minutes was occupied by audience questioners; the remaining hour was a waste. Golden filled it by recounting his own encounters with Tony Bennett, Count Basie, Gary Giddins, and others; these were often connected to some tenuous end, Golden turning to Sonny and saying “How did YOU feel about him?” Mostly, though, they emphasized how well-traveled Golden was in jazz circles and how much he loved hearing himself speak.

Even more dubious, Golden frequently paused to play recordings–none of which were Rollins’, but were instead by Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Frank Sinatra–assumedly because these had greater value in understanding Rollins’ musical development than, say, Rollins actually discussing his musical development.

Despite these concerted attempts to trivialize him, Rollins had some interesting things to say. He talked about the importance of growing up in a musical family, and in Harlem during its Renaissance. Asked about his creative process, he discussed it in terms of the burden he places on himself when he goes onstage: “It’s not about whether the audience is good or bad. It’s up to me to give them something good or bad.”

In this case, however, it was also up to the evening’s host to give us a good or bad experience with Sonny Rollins. By that standard, it was a train wreck.

Last night, WHUT-TV was screening a pretty good documentary, entitled Sam Cooke: Legend. More or less: A lot of the time, WHUT was actually broadcasting from its studio, doing its pledge “break.” A long, long break.

“It’s so important to give your financial support to WHUT,” they’re saying, “so that we can keep bringing you outstanding programs like Sam Cooke, and programs about other great artists and great music.”

…So how come the only time they broadcast these great music programs is during the pledge drives?