DCist reported before this year’s Duke Fest began that it had lost $200,000 in corporate sponsorships. Charlie Fishman also reminded me that with moving the festival from fall to early summer, the staff had only seven months to pull the whole thing together, including fundraising and booking. That meant that the festival lost some of its trademark features, including its big events at the Lincoln Theatre, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and Voice of America.

It also meant a very heavy reliance, particularly in the first half of the fest, on local jazz musicians—about which I heard a few grumbles, to the tune of “So much of it is gigs that happen every week anyway! Shouldn’t a festival be about special events?”

The local focus should get a pass. The budget difficulties were pretty big for the festival this year; besides, D.C.’s jazz musicians need all the extra publicity they can get. If there was a problem with the festival, it was the 11-day duration—too long. The cushioning of the schedule with local musicians might not have been necessary if there wasn’t so much space to fill.
Read More “DEJF: Postscript” »

Terence Blanchard. (Photo: Morrice Blackwell.)

1:00 PM
It was immediately clear that the Rebirth Brass Band would be a tough act to follow. Their lineup of three trumpets, tenor sax, trombone, sousaphone, and two drummers were working out their theme song, “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up,” demonstrating rather handily that hardcore funk is not so far removed from New Orleans traditional jazz and marching band styles. They then threw rock & roll into that same mix, making short work of The Rolling Stones classic “It’s All Over Now.”

Watching them, however, the most obvious continuum for the Rebirth Brass Band was that of D.C.’s own go-go scene. The riffs, the party chants, the aggressive rhythms were all there. The audience sensed it too: before the end of the set, the area in front of the stage was filled with men and women holding aloft umbrellas and blowing whistles, dancing and shuffling to their heart’s content. Rebirth was the party band of the day.
Read More “DEJF: Jazz on the National Mall” »

The son of New Orleans jazz polymath Kidd, trumpeter Marlon Jordan works largely in mainstream post-bop — a glut of which has been heard by this second weekend of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival. But Jordan rescued it from ennui at Twins Jazz Friday night with some of the most distinctive stylings the fest has had so far.
Read More “DEJF: Marlon Jordan @ Twins” »

Much fun as Yamomanem was, what would a jazz festival with a “Celebrating New Orleans” theme be without a real-deal traditional New Orleans jazz band? Fortunately, Dr. Michael White was at the French Embassy Wednesday night to keep anyone from having to answer that question.

White is a professor of New Orleans music and culture (and, apparently, Spanish) at New Orleans’ Xavier University, but being a scholar of the music goes hand-in-hand with understanding that there’s no place in it for scholarly sterility. So White, in his other guise as a clarinet player, formed his 7-piece Original Liberty Jazz Band to play the music with that sense of authenticity that necessarily includes fun, spirit, and the culture of African-American New Orleans. That’s how we got songs with titles like “Shake It and Break It” and “Boogaloosa Strut” (the band’s first two songs) in the first place, and how the OLJB could craft originals like “Come Together Sunday Morning.”

And, of course, it comes with the great sound of New Orleans polyphony, with White, trombonist Lucien Barbarin, and trumpeter George Stafford—who also sings with an unpolished but smooth and pleasant voice. Each player also turned in folksy solos, by and large embellishments of the written themes; that’s far from a bad thing, as White’s stunning reworking of “Summertime” proved.
Read More “DEJF: Dr. Michael White and the Original Liberty Jazz Band” »

Traditional jazz has become associated with corny trappings like straw hats—which meant that the yachting caps worn Tuesday night by four of the six members of Yamomanem was a bad sign indeed. But it was a ruse: traditional New Orleans jazz is the band’s foundation, but they gleefully subvert it.

Lord knows Jelly Roll Morton never had an electric guitar, let alone the kind that Steven Walker used to let loose the funky licks of the band’s (unnamed) second tune; nor did anyone in jazz of any genre (okay, maybe Anthony Braxton) play the sousaphone, the big-ass tuba that wraps around the player’s body. But Monty Montgomery does, and he uses it to lead the band through Dixieland melodies (instrumental and vocal), Caribbean dance tunes, and swing-era standards like “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.”

But the band did always return to that foundation of New Orleans polyphony, with joyful interplay between clarinet (Henning Hoehne), tenor saxophone (Megan Nortrup), and trombone (Brian Priebe). And novel though they were, the sousaphone and guitar did often play the usual roles of the tuba and banjo, respectively, in the trad style. And most importantly, it was fun. That may be why the band stuck almost exclusively (save once) to fast numbers. For their finale, they actually put slow vs. fast to an audience vote, but when applause was evenly divided (”This country cannot agree on ANYTHING!” Montgomery teased), a fast one it was—the legendary “Tiger Rag,” no less, and at a blinding velocity that made it that much better—before marching off the stage, through the aisles, and out the door in a classic Mardi Gras parade formation.

So it wasn’t strictly authentic New Orleans trad … but it wasn’t corny New Orleans trad, either. And really, that’s a lot better—in this case, a blast.

Hey, kids! Been thinking that what’s missing from today’s jazz festivals is an act that combines a jam-band-lite sound with roots rock circa 1998-2000 (now in heavy rotation on Washington Sports Club’s PA system)? The Revivalists might just be for you.

Yes, they’ve got all the trappings: ska, reggae, and funk grooves; furiously strummed acoustic guitars; the vocalist with the deep, earthy voice; the loud, chopsy drummer; the ’70s musical touchstones. If you ever went to H.O.R.D.E. Festival, you’ve probably seen a dozen bands just like them.

“We’re gonna mix it up,” singer/guitarist Dave Shaw promised as they began their set at the Millennium Stage Monday evening. “Some rock, some jazz, some reggae.” The jazz quotient consisted in its entirety of one chopsy saxophone solo from their guest saxophonist (whose name was indecipherable from the audience, and not listed in the program). The remainder of the muisic was middle-of-the-road “modern rock” that alternated between basic rock backbeat, whiteboy funk, ska, and reggae. Certainly Shaw made the most out of his “rootsy” voice, which falls somewhere on the spectrum between B.B. King and Dave Matthews, and bassist George Gekas did his best to exhibit some personality in a pinstripe sport coat, purple t-shirt, cutoff shorts, mohawk, and pink plastic sunglasses. The audience seemed to enjoy it, although a significant portion (who were apparently expecting jazz, or at least jazziness) left within three songs.

It’s bad music journalism to spend too much time comparing a band to other bands, but the Revivalists’ pastiches were too manifold not too notice. Matthews, Third Eye Blind, Rusted Root, Leftover Salmon, Madness…and, just when I had sworn to myself that I wasn’t going to mention The Allman Brothers, guitarist Zach Feinberg stole, verbatim, a lick from “Blue Sky.” Alas.

But hey, at least it was free….

The Symposium out of the way, the concert commenced: DC drummer, composer, and bandleader Nasar Abadey was premiering his three-part Diamond in the Rough Suite with a 12-member Supernova Chamber Orchestra. Included in the ensemble was a full string quartet — this was Abadey’s first time writing for strings, he explained: “But be aware that it’s a lifelong dream in terms of orchestration, and it’s really a lifetime’s work.”
Read More “DEJF @ Atlas Theater: Premiere” »

The main event on the program was the premiere of Nasar Abadey’s “Diamond in the Rough Suite,” but the opening act was a panel symposium on “Technique vs. the Blues - Jazz on the Auction Block,” moderated by jazz journalist and producer Willard Jenkins. He called on panelists to address two questions: What, in your view, is the health of the music from a playing perspective? And, as jazz musicians develop across the globe—many of them trained in the U.S.—they have filtered the music through their own cultural lens; does that remove the music from its roots, and is that a bad thing?
Read More “DEJF @ Atlas Theater: Symposium” »

David Schulman improvising in response to X Within X Orange by Robert Mangold.

The most interesting part of this weekend’s jazz performances at the Phillips Collection isn’t advertised in the Festival’s schedules. All weekend, solo musicians are moving through the Phillips galleries with their instruments, stopping at pieces of art, and responding to those works by improvising music.

Saturday afternoon the roving player was David Schulman, a Takoma Park radio producer and jazz violinist, who was also playing viol in the galleries—along with an electronic pedals-and-effects console and a small Kustom amp. As he found artworks that inspired him to play, Schulman used the electronics to create his own accompaniment. He would improvise until he found a riff he liked, record that riff, play it back on a loop, then improvise again over that, creating layers as thin or dense as he wanted them (not unlike the innovations that Robin Eubanks developed a couple years ago.

But Schulman had quite the arsenal of sounds to begin with. He was playing two instruments; one (the violin) was amplified, and one was not; and he was plucking and bowing each of them. Add to that the canned beats he was using, and Schulman was his own small combo, creating spontaneous and completely unique music off the inspiration of the modern art in the Collection’s Goh Annex. It was hard not to be wowed; the audience certainly was.
Read More “DEJF: Jazz n’ Families Fun Day @ Phillips Collection” »

10:30 PM - MARSHALL KEYS QUINTET
Marshall Keys is one of the most skillful alto saxophonists in the DC area, and as one of the opening acts for the Festival he brought with him an equally skillful quintet: trombonist Greg Boyer (who also works with Prince and George Clinton), pianist Benjy Parecki, bassist James King, and drummer John Lamkin.

Undoubtedly a swinging ensemble - but they opened their second set with a Latin-tinged riff tune that the band soon turned into a flat-out rocker. This turned out to be Wynton Marsalis‘ “Big Fat Hen,” the first in what Keys joked would be a set dedicated to “fowl. Our goose piece is coming up soon.” Actually, true to the festival, the theme was New Orleans, as evidenced by the next tune: an arrangement of “When the Saints Go Marching In” by big easy trumpeter Nicholas Payton (who will also appear at the festival). This second tune may already have been the highlight of the set, played as a midtempo hard-bop ballad, but with beautiful and unexpected harmonies added. Boyer, featured on the tune, delivered a cerebral solo that was both sensitive and muscular, Parecki following with a dancing, delicate piano submission.

The set continued with a couple of traditional New Orleans-style Dixieland marches, albeit with whiffs of the modern; soulful takes on standards and Crescent City legends; and a cha-cha rendition of “Happy Birthday.” All contained meaty, fruitful solos from Keys, Boyer, and Parecki. Easily overlooked, however, was James King; the bassist was perhaps the most consistent person onstage, with a steady hand and relentlessly smart lines but only two extraordinary solos.

Keys and his quintet play Bohemian Caverns again tonight at 8:30 and 10:30; they’re phenomenal. Don’t miss them.
Read More “DEJF: Opening Night at Bohemian Caverns” »