Tag Archives: U Street

Interview | Brandee Younger: From Handel to R Kelly to Alice Coltrane – and now, something totally new

Posted on May 30, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Brandee Younger brings her fresh take on the jazz harp to Bohemian Caverns this weekend. Courtesy lightofmine.blogspot.com

by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

The jazz harpist Brandee Younger knows the strengths of her instrument: its trembling, watery consistency, the way it easily fills vast harmonic space. And she knows the limits – namely the way that its pedal system can keep things frustratingly diatonic, and make jazz harmonies tough. Oh, and good luck lugging a harp to a jam session. (Younger’s done it — not a pleasant trip.)

But Younger, who started out taking classical lessons as a child but almost immediately started transposing R Kelly songs onto the harp, has a way of making things work. In the past few years, she’s moved a few steps further: Modern jazz picks up a lot from welding outside musics with its own history — particularly a sensitivity to tonal range, and ideas about how polyrhythms can team up with textures to make a rugged thatch. Younger embodies all that, and puts the harp right up there as an addition to the palette of freeform, hip-hop-infused modern jazz.

She’ll appear with an expert band this weekend at her Bohemian Caverns debut, performing Friday and Saturday nights. We caught up this week to discuss how she made the transition to jazz on an uncommon instrument, the legacy of figures like Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, and the way that bucking expectations has helped her find her voice.

CapitalBop: Did you always start out wanting to do jazz? What was the path you took to the music?

Brandee Younger: There was a woman who worked with my parents, who played harp…. They would bring me over to her house. I played flute so we played some duets. The interest was there…. I was about 12 years old… They were thinking ahead to what I could do to get a scholarship to [college]…. Continue reading →

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Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra celebrates three years of swing, and looks to the future

Posted on April 4, 2013 by | 3 Comments

     

Sriram Gopal
Swing District

 

Three years ago this month, the District’s jazz scene received a true gift. The Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra made its debut, giving the city its only regularly performing big band. Every Monday, 17 of the area’s most talented musicians hold court in the historic club, playing two sets of music and sometimes pulling in the occasional guest band or invited soloist. The audience, often standing-room-only, hears an eclectic book of music that includes classics by Count Basie and Duke Ellington alongside compositions by orchestra members. Not a bad deal for $10.

Pulling this off is no small feat, especially considering the previous big band that performed at the Caverns crumbled under less-than-amicable circumstances. BCJO co-directors and co-founders Brad Linde and Joe Herrera deserve a great deal of credit. First off, the gig is on an off-night, by necessity. These are working musicians, so finding a time slot between Thursday and Sunday would be all but impossible. Even on a Monday, putting together a roster of skilled musicians, and finding acceptable substitutes, takes effort. Nonetheless, a number of top-flight musicians such as Elijah Jamal Balbed, Sarah Hughes, Shannon Gunn and Brent Birckhead appear regularly with the band, despite the fact that it’s not a big money-maker.

“In a very short time, the BCJO has become like a family and an institution for those that come to listen and to play,” Linde said. “That means so much, to have everyone want to show up and play together each week, to work on our group sound, our reading, and to enjoy improvising and exploring new music together.” Continue reading →

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News | CapitalBop will host free NEA Jazz Masters awards concert viewing party Monday at Twins Jazz

Posted on January 12, 2013 by | Leave a comment

CapitalBop is hosting an NEA Jazz Masters awards viewing party at Twins Jazz this Monday.

by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

Every year, the National Endowment for the Arts inducts a new crop of NEA Jazz Masters; the ceremony is always an amazing opportunity to celebrate some of jazz’s greatest heroes, and to hear performances from a wealth of other Jazz Masters. If you’re not in New York City you usually wouldn’t get to experience the concert and ceremony — but this Monday, CapitalBop is hosting a live webcast of the festivities at Twins Jazz. It’s free and open to the public. Come out to U Street, grab a drink, and hang out in a relaxed atmosphere with other D.C. jazz fans, musicians, journalists and aficionados.

 
The 2013 crop of jazz masters includes the Latin jazz piano revolutionary Eddie Palmieri, the soulful hard-bop saxophonist Lou Donaldson, the pianist and vocalist Mose Allison, and the Village Vanguard’s owner/manager, Lorraine Gordon. The ceremony’s concert will include performances from a redoubtable cast of past-inducted NEA Jazz Masters: Kenny Barron (2010), Ron Carter (1998), Jimmy Cobb (2009), Paquito D’Rivera (2005), Sheila Jordan (2012), Dave Liebman (2011), and Randy Weston (2001). Allison, Donaldson and Palmieri will also perform.

More info on this year’s awards is available at the NEA’s website. Don’t miss this opportunity to come hear some amazing music, witness a bright moment in jazz history, and hang with a group of fellow music lovers.

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Interview | Todd Marcus on his many inheritances, from Egyptian music to Eric Dolphy

Posted on November 14, 2012 by | 2 Comments

At Twins Jazz this weekend, Todd Marcus performs music from his recently released album, Inheritance. Courtesy allaboutjazz.com

by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

The Baltimorean bass clarinetist Todd Marcus, who will perform this Friday and Saturday at Twins Jazz with his quartet, named his newly released sophomore record Inheritance. On the album, which finds Marcus at the helm of two different quartets, you can feel him letting a lot of forces run through him. It’s a grappling with history and identity, creativity and the promise of transcendence. The album’s conceit – something that so many jazz records these days seem to have, but so few live up to as well as Inheritance does – goes something like this: Marcus has always been curious about the way that his father’s Egyptian identity helped shape him, both as a person and as a musician. So this record is his direct consultation on that question. It plays with minor, Middle Eastern modes that have a glinting darkness to them, and it gives him room to test the possibilities of long-form jazz improvising in that context.

But the album’s inheritances reach well beyond that.

As a composer, Marcus doesn’t just look abroad. His music seems closely linked to the mid-1960s, the most fertile era of post-bop composing and recording. Back then, the country’s hardest-swinging jazz players were making albums for Blue Note Records with a bold experimentalism fed by larger, non-musical concerns: discrimination, poverty, police brutality, pandemic drug addiction. (In addition to playing music, Marcus runs an organization addressing the lack of community services in Baltimore. He knows the connection between hardship and need and creative expression.) Also, on three tracks, Marcus brings in the renowned clarinetist Don Byron as a special guest. Byron is the man who originally inspired Marcus to play his uncommon instrument in a modern-jazz context, so his presence speaks to a direct kind of inheritance.

“Herod (Part II),” by the Todd Marcus Quartet, featuring Don Byron

And finally, Marcus is interested in the musical legacy of his adopted hometown. The two quartets on Inheritance include some of the strongest rising musicians from Baltimore and its surrounding areas. In that way, it’s a sort of state-of-the-lineage for a city that’s given us greats like Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway and Gary Bartz.

CapitalBop was fortunate enough to have Marcus perform with his nine-piece orchestra at our D.C. Jazz Loft Series at the DC Jazz Festival this past June. He recorded an excellent and lushly arranged 2006 album with the nonet; listening to Inheritance, it’s remarkable how strongly the arrangements hold up by comparison, even with just a quartet. Not to mention that the album shines a much brighter spotlight on Marcus’s improvising – hard-nosed and rhythmic and almost always revelatory. He and I spoke earlier this week about the new record, his development as a clarinetist, and his upcoming gig at Twins. Continue reading →

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Interview | Don Byron on taking jazz to church, and this Sunday’s show at Bohemian Caverns

Posted on October 20, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Don Byron will perform at Bohemian Caverns on Sunday. Courtesy marcmonaghan/flickr

by Luke Stewart
Editorial board

The clarinetist and saxophonist Don Byron is a leading member of a generation of jazz musicians who began living and working in New York City in the 1980s and early ’90s. This group of performers came up well-schooled in both collegiate institutions and the bands and jam sessions of the scene — where they learned from the music’s mid-century masters, many of whom were still around and active.

For Byron, his unique perspective and interest in the music allowed him the opportunity to learn a wide array of musical approaches. Throughout his career, he has paid tribute to musics ranging from klezmer to reggae, exploring the traditions while fueling his own creative concept. His latest project is the New Gospel Quintet, which explores the African-American religious and spiritual tradition as developed and made popular by Thomas Dorsey.

We in the D.C. area were unfortunately unable to catch a full performance from this dynamic quintet, since a thunderstorm cut short his set at the Rosslyn Jazz Festival. On Sunday, he will bring a different band — his quartet — to Bohemian Caverns. I caught up with Don Byron this week to discuss the New Gospel Quintet and the quartet that he will bring tomorrow. Continue reading →

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Just try it, you might like it

Posted on September 5, 2012 by | 1 Comment

     

Sriram Gopal
Swing District

 

Editor’s note: Today we’re thrilled to introduce Sriram Gopal as CapitalBop’s first columnist. Over the past five years, he’s written regularly for DCist, shining a light on all sorts of local musicians and world-famous artists who pass through town. Here at CapitalBop, we’re offering him a platform to explore more theoretical, in-depth terrain, which he’ll do in his new, monthly column: Swing District. It will appear from now forward, on the first Thursday of every month.

“I don’t get jazz.”

“But, it doesn’t sound like anything.” 

“There are no words I can sing along to!”

These are trepidations that jazz lovers often hear expressed by folks who find this music intimidating. This being my first column for CapitalBop, I’d like to offer the hesitant listener some guidance on forging a connection with improvised music. After all, while jazz may appear to be opaque from the “outside,” the notion that one needs to have a formal understanding of music in order to appreciate it is completely false. There is a lot of inspiration to be garnered, even for people who don’t know the difference between a Lydian or Phrygian mode, or can’t count out a 7/8 time signature. So if understanding the intricacies of music theory isn’t necessary, why do so many listeners shy away from jazz?

Forests have been razed trying to answer this question, but here are some thoughts, summed in a few sentences. First, jazz doesn’t get the exposure of commercial music, so it’s not going to fall into the listener’s lap. To a certain extent, the audience must go to it. Jazz also places demands on its audience, the central of which is patience. Just getting through your average tune will likely take far more time than the typical three- or four-minute pop song (although back in the 1940s, Charlie Parker could say a whole lot in three minutes – but that’s for another column). And just making it through a performance isn’t enough. Jazz requires active listening. Unfortunately, the attention jazz demands is totally contradictory to how creative expression is presented and consumed in 21st-century America. Finally, let’s face it: Some of the blame has to go to jazzers themselves. I’ve been to far too many shows where the musicians hardly acknowledge the audience, let alone actively engage with them, so it’s no surprise that the casual observer might believe the music to be pretentious.

So admittedly, listening to jazz poses some challenge. But overcoming the initial hesitation yields great rewards. Use fast food as an analogy. Sure, it’s predictable, tastes good – at least to many – and is cheap, but it’s so much more rewarding to sit at a table with a knife, fork and well-prepared food. One requires more effort than the other, but we all know which undertaking is more fulfilling. Likewise, scatological humor has its place, but clever satire always outlasts the average fart joke.

Fortunately, D.C. offers a uniquely welcoming environment to the nascent jazz consumer. Continue reading →

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News | CapitalBop’s debut at Montserrat House features Michael Bowie’s Siné Qua Non

Posted on August 30, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Click for hi-res version of flyer


by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

CapitalBop is coming to the U Street Corridor. Starting on Sep. 9, our monthly D.C. Jazz Lofts will resettle at Montserrat House, on 9th Street just around the corner from U. (Be advised, it looks a little different from the digs on the flyer.) At our first show there, one of the city’s most ambitious, enriching acts will take the stage: Siné Qua Non. Led by the versatile and energizing bassist Michael Bowie, the quintet offers singular arrangements of everything from classic rock to Western classical. Montserrat House is a one-floor walkup with a stellar sound system and a top-rate bar; Bowie’s set will add another textural element to the room: projected videos to accompany the music, by area videographer Michael Pino.

The evening will also feature Howard “Kingfish” Franklin’s quintet and the Pete Muldoon Project. As always, admission is free, but we strongly suggest donations of $10 or more to the musicians. Read on for more info on the night’s musicians. Continue reading →

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Interview | Christian aTunde Adjuah, a.k.a. Christian Scott: “It has to sound like struggle”

Posted on August 15, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Christian aTunde Adjuah, a.k.a. Christian Scott, performs this weekend with his quintet at Bohemian Caverns. Carlyle V. Smith/CapitalBop

by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

This weekend, Bohemian Caverns hosts its first four-night run by a single artist in recent memory. The man under the spotlight is Christian aTunde Adjuah, whom you probably know as Christian Scott but who altered his name recently in an embrace of his West African heritage. (He’s calling it a “name completion,” rather than a change, since he isn’t fully abandoning Scott.) The trumpeter’s new record, Christian aTunde Adjuah, released at the end of last month, debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s Jazz Albums chart.

Those who know aTunde Adjuah’s work will be unsurprised to learn that the latest album is packed with ambition and brio, a two-disc set that spans almost two full hours. It’s also to be anticipated that much of the record’s music — 23 tracks in all — is driven by his strong humanitarian interests. (There are tunes motivated by the Danziger Bridge killings, and Trayvon Martin’s slaying, for instance.)

Christian aTunde Adjuah is also an album of conscientious musical alchemy. The trumpeter was raised by a musical family in New Orleans, where his grandfather was the renowned Black Indian chief Donald Harrison, Sr. Like aTunde Adjuah’s identity, the music of the Black Indian tradition derives from West Africa, and the new album is held together by West African rhythmic patterns, adapted for the drum kit by his quintet’s masterful Jamire Williams. (It makes a lot of sense that these patterns scan as slightly tweaked hip-hop to our American ears.) Some other obvious touchstones are Radiohead and Miles Davis’s late-1960s work.

I sat down with aTunde Adjuah recently in New York City, where he now lives. Here’s a bit of what he had to say about the new album, his childhood in New Orleans and what led him to augment his name. Continue reading →

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Musician profile | Tarus Mateen’s never-ending journey

Posted on July 17, 2012 by | 6 Comments

Tarus Mateen is shown here performing at Bohemian Caverns on July 3. Courtesy Timothy Forbes Photography

Editor’s note: Tarus Mateen performs this Wednesday at Club 2147. More information on that show is available here, and you can purchase tickets here. We are reposting this article, originally published last year, in advance of that show.

by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

It’s a little before 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, and Bohemian Caverns is just about half full. A dingy darkness hangs about the basement club, but Tarus Mateen – seated on a stool onstage, with a hollow-body electric bass lolling in his lap – is glowing. He’s close to the end of the show, the first of five Tuesday-night performances he’ll give this month as part of a month-long residency at the Caverns. You can tell he isn’t ready to wrap things up. In between songs, Mateen, 44, shares a story of childhood jam sessions, rhapsodizes about the power of music, and extends an invitation – an ultimatum, really – to audience members: dive in with him, and get immersed in the music.

Mateen has just finished playing another one of his compositions, which are dominating the show this evening. Most of them are trenchantly grooving things, with harmonic structures extracted from West Africa and points east. Over the years, he has recorded them with some of the top names in jazz, but Mateen hardly ever leads his own band, so his originals rarely find their way to the stage.

Which is not to say he is short of work. On the D.C. jazz scene, Mateen is ubiquitous: On a given weekend, you might find him playing an experimental set on Friday night with saxophonist Brian Settles, soul-jazz at trumpeter Donvonte McCoy’s regular Eighteenth Street Lounge gig on Saturday evening, and a straight-ahead brunch gig with saxophonist Marshall Keys on Sunday. Thanks to a giddy blend of malleability and autonomy, Mateen is the definitive force in almost every band he joins.

If someone tells you Tarus Mateen isn’t the most important bass player living in D.C., it’s likely that they either haven’t heard him perform or they prefer bassists to remain submerged in a group’s aesthetic, serving as a pedestal rather than a principal. His most famous work is with the New York-based pianist Jason Moran’s trio. During an interview with DownBeat, conducted after the group’s latest record won Album of the Year in the magazine’s 2011 critics’ poll, Moran spoke about Mateen’s strong pull in the trio. “Tarus is the major protagonist who pushes the music, and we work at intersecting with each other to have conversations,” Moran said. Continue reading →

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Interview | David Murray on the roots of his music, and the budding talents of today

Posted on July 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

David Murray will perform with his Black Music Infininity Quartet this weekend. Courtesy volume12/flickr

by Luke Stewart
Editorial board

Protean, prolific and quietly iconic, David Murray is one of the most discussed and written about figures in his generation of jazz. He developed alongside his friend, the infamous writer and scholar Stanley Crouch. In the Los Angeles area, Crouch — trying his hand as an avant-garde drummer — founded a group called Black Music Infinity, which featured some of the top musicians in the area at the time, including the legendary trumpeter Bobby Bradford and the soon-to-be-legendary Arthur Blythe, among many others. The name and the sentiment behind Black Music Infinity have stuck with David Murray throughout a career spanning more than three decades, with appearances on over 150 recordings.

Now he feels it’s time to reignite the ensemble and its radical message – only this time, with some of today’s finest firebrands. This weekend at Bohemian Caverns, he is joined by drummer Nasheet Waits, pianist Marc Cary and bassist Charnett Moffett. Continue reading →

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