‘Don’t write an opera, tell a story:’ Terence Blanchard’s path to ‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones’
New Orleanian musician Terence Blanchard is known for many things. Recently named a 2024 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and appointed the artistic director of SFJazz, Blanchard launched his career over 40 years ago as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He served as the band’s music director until 1986, then established […]
Bob Boilen, creator of NPR’s ‘Tiny Desk,’ named program director of WOWD-FM, Takoma’s community radio station
Bob Boilen, the veteran NPR music host and creator of the widely popular “Tiny Desk Concert” series, has come out of retirement and will be bringing his talents to the world of local community radio in D.C. Boilen will succeed Steve Hoffman as the program director at WOWD 94.3 FM, Takoma’s community radio station, the […]
At the Sonic Lifeline’s shows, artists come first — and audiences reap the rewards
From the outside, late on a Tuesday night, the downstairs of Whitlow’s DC looks like any other restaurant in town: fairly empty and quiet. Step inside, though, and you’ll hear the magic coming from above. This isn’t a speakeasy — it’s something much better. Welcome to the Sonic Lifeline’s Jam Session at Whitlow’s DC, tucked discreetly […]
Willard Jenkins has been connecting jazz with listeners for more than 50 years. Now, he’s an N.E.A. Jazz Master.
Willard Jenkins wasn’t a jazz fan first. Growing up in 1960s Cleveland, naturally he loved the sounds of Motown and Stax and other soul records more than anything. But he heard that music a little differently — at least, differently from how it’s usually talked about. “I was this odd kid,” Jenkins said in a […]
5 D.C. jazz picks for April 2024
Happy Jazz Appreciation Month! A key moment on the nation’s capital’s jazz calendar, JAM gives D.C. the chance to connect with its rich history of jazz and creative music, which have survived and eked out a strange, vital existence in the shadows of the halls of power for more than 100 years. This April, if […]
Rhizome DC announces plans to purchase a building, launches community financing push
Rhizome DC, home base for the city’s DIY arts community, has announced plans to purchase an empty storefront in Shepherd Park, thanks in part to a large city grant. The news seemed to answer longstanding questions about the future of this precarious Takoma Park venue — but it comes with uncertainties of its own: namely, […]
The 14th Washington Women in Jazz Festival packs music, community and celebration into one overflowing weekend
Jazz has always tended to be an unfortunately dude-centric vocation. Although women often appeared prominently as instrumentalists in New Orleans during the music’s early years, and while there have been standouts in the decades since — like Alice Coltrane, Mary Lou Williams and Esperanza Spalding — too few women have achieved success as jazz bandleaders […]
What do Duke and Dilla have in common? The Kennedy Center’s Hip Hop & … Festival offers its own answers
The Kennedy Center’s Hip Hop & … Festival arrives this week with a series of remarkable sessions and concerts exploring the multifaceted intersections between hip-hop and jazz. Created in honor of the late Meghan Stabile, the genre-blurring impresario who founded and ran the influential Revive Music Group in New York, this new festival continues in […]
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis are ‘chasing energy,’ not genre, on powerful new LP
For the members of D.C.-based pyrotechnic rock trio the Messthetics and luminary tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, the question was not “will” or “can” we collaborate, but “when?” As bassist Joe Lally put it in a recent conversation, “How could we not?” Made up of Lally and drummer Brendan Canty — both alumni of the […]
CB Presents: KOKAYI + Konjur Collective hit Songbyrd Music House on Sunday, April 28
Artist. Producer. Educator. Author. Connector of dots. One man encompasses all this and more: KOKAYI, a virtuoso emcee who came up on D.C.’s underground hip-hop scene, collaborated with jazz royalty as far back as the ’90s, and has become one of the District’s standard-bearing creative voices. The CapitalBop team is psyched to announce that this […]