This year, the DC Jazz Festival marked 20 years of service and the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival hit 15 — two indications, among many, of how robust the D.C. jazz scene remains as we approach the halfway mark of the 2020s. This list is another measure of that.
Dozens of quality recordings were released by DMV improvisers this year. Of those, even just the five albums on our list do a good job of capturing the great breadth of music falling under the umbrella of “jazz” in the D.C. area today. These albums range from swinging straight-ahead to Portishead-influenced indie pop; ’70s soul throwbacks to raucous syntheses of punk, dub and the avant-garde. Some albums that barely missed our top five share a few of these sonic dynamics, like Ensemble Volcanic Ash’s resolute To March Is To Love or jazz-punk quartet ¡FIASCO!’s ruminative, electrified Remember Your Flowers. There was also trombonist Reginald Cyntje’s latest album – released all the way back in January – Gentle Touch, a collection replete with his signature lush arrangements and warm, enveloping tone. These and a number of other remarkable 2024 releases are included in the “Honorable Mentions” section underneath the main list.
Certainly, all of the albums below are worth a listen. But to our panel of judges, the following five stood out as particularly exemplary documents of the vitality and imagination of the artists who continue to make D.C. one of the best places in the world for lovers of this music.
The nine-person panel that voted on the albums represented a strong cross-section from the ranks of journalists, critics and broadcasters that have covered the city’s music for CapitalBop of late. The largest voting body we’ve yet assembled also kept the process lively, with records falling on and off the list as final votes were tallied.
Happy listening.
5. CECILY, ‘AWAKENING PT. II’
Maryland-based vocalist Cecily’s music can feel like a callback to much of what was precious about the 1970s — when the barriers between genres of Black music (jazz, soul, funk, etc.) briefly came down. It’s oddly fitting, then, that Cecily would pay homage to bell hooks on her latest record. hooks’s first book didn’t arrive till 1981, and All About Love, the work that directly inspired Awakening Pt. II, came in 1999 — but hooks too was something of a throwback. Even as her ideas lived on the cutting edge, she insisted on structural critique and on renegotiating society’s fundamental distributions of power: all-but-outdated notions, by the Reagan era.
The closest point of reference for Cecily’s sweet, chiffony singing voice — which can nearly flit into the whistle register — is Minnie Riperton. Instrumentally, the eight tracks on Awakening can recall the D.C.-rooted duo of Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack (the clean brushstrokes of guitar and gentle drums of “Come Home,” a remembrance of Cecily’s late father) or the headtrips of Funkadelic (the creamy, clawing guitar of “‘Cause I Love You”) or the gentle funk of a Terry Callier production (“I Am Love”). On “Domination (Love Is Free),” Cecily honors hooks’s legacy by allowing the song’s message to sprawl gracefully from the personal out into the political: “Domination is disease,” she sings on the chorus. “A sickness only love can ease.”
4. LUKE STEWART SILT TRIO, ‘UNKNOWN RIVERS’ **
Unknown Rivers is a collection of recordings that together offer a coherent statement on the relationship between ground and stability, between memory and promise. The album’s title is a poetic reminder of what guides these relationships — some notion of cosmic order. What makes a river flow? The job of the musician is to discover that, to play under and in alignment with those forces. This live record often feels like a working-out of that notion in real time.
Through the interplay between bassist Luke Stewart, saxophonist Brian Settles and drummer Warren “Trae” Crudup (who shares the chair with Chicagoan Chad Taylor), we get a glimpse of how the D.C. scene has produced a unique variation of the saxophone trio tradition, one that finds Stewart bringing the sonic language and nuances of spirituality along with ever-present chops. It is easy to think of this trio’s mastery of the tradition in sound that runs from the blues to the avant-garde, but one comes away with so much more. Like silt, their collaborative energy offers a kind of sediment to established soils, a constant remaking of the expectations we have.
3. JANEL & ANTHONY, ‘NEW MOON IN THE EVIL AGE’
It’s two mints in one!
Cellist Janel Leppin and guitarist Anthony Pirog would probably not appreciate my use of corporate marketing slogans to describe New Moon in the Evil Age. Nevertheless, their double-album possesses a distinct dichotomy. Its first half comprises gorgeous, cinematic instrumental work that variously echoes psych-folk (“New Moon”), post-rock (“Rain Falls in San Francisco”), chamber music (“Pacific Grove Monarch”) and ‘80s sci-fi films (“Crystal Wish”). The second disc holds a collection of catchy, electronica-drenched indie-pop songs. Leppin surprises with a richly expressive lead vocal that both animates (the motorik “Surf the Dead”) and soothes (the affecting “Dreams Come Alive”) — so much that one could be forgiven for wondering if it was packaged with the first part by mistake.
What do these contrasting sections say to us when presented in tandem like this? It’s left to the listener to make that reconciliation. The sky’s the limit on those possibilities, of course; the real pleasure is in the process of working it out.
2. ALLYN JOHNSON, THE BIG COMEBACK
Allyn Johnson’s The Big Comeback — one of two albums released in 2024 by this standard-bearing pianist, who rarely records as a bandleader — is a refreshing journey highlighting the magnificence of the piano as a leading voice on the bandstand. Supported by Eric Kennedy on drums and Romeir Mendez on upright bass, Johnson’s conversational phrasing and melodies shine across the nine-track album. The Big Comeback’s well-balanced instrumental tunes give listeners a way to honor Johnson’s playing and improvisational strengths across the keys.
The many gems here each present a compelling melody, and demonstrate Johnson’s remarkable range as a pianist. “Family Photo Album” opens with Johnson fluttering across the ivories, seemingly to signify reflection about life and family memories. While “Solace” is contemplative, with gentle percussion and bass support, “Tippin’ with Tain” steps forward with majestic percussive and bass accents. Each song builds to the next and encourages repeated listening and further study.
Johnson’s album delivers impressive compositions with expert piano playing, and reflections of heartfelt memories, at its core.
1. THE MESSTHETICS AND JAMES BRANDON LEWIS, ‘S/T’
In our 2022 interview, Messthetics drummer Brendan Canty declared that he sees the group as “20 percent” a jazz trio. How much does the addition of tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis change the calculus?
Listeners of a certain age will certainly hear throughout the album – especially on “Boatly” and “That Thang” – a callback to Fugazi. Canty and bassist Joe Lally fall easily back into a similar heavily dub- and funk-influenced groove, which often creates a nicely contrasting pair with the guitar and saxophone (as they once did with Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto’s guitar and vocal) melodies.. On “Emergence,” the second track on The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, the four musicians oscillate between pockets of funky breakdown and driving moments of blistering interplay between Lewis’s sax and Anthony Pirog’s guitar.
On “That Thang,” a clear stand-out, Lally’s heavily distorted bass plays a rumbling counter-line to the main melody carried by Pirog and Lewis. The contrasting currents pull the listener deeper into the mix, allowing one to better appreciate Pirog’s Wayne Kramer-by-way-of-Danny Gatton twists along the fretboard and Lewis’ hybrid energy of Johns Coltrane and Zorn.
As the band noted in conversation earlier this year, this formation was an organic process and natural melding of all parties’ artistic senses. Their music cannot nor should not be defined as “jazz” or “post-hardcore” or “jazz punk,” but rather purely as their own. It is a singular offering in this “every song ever” world – a clear indication of why it topped this poll.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
- Joe Brotherton, Here to Hear
- Reginald Cyntje, Gentle Touch
- Dream Feeder, Everything at Once **
- Ensemble Volcanic Ash, To March Is To Love **
- Fiasco, Remember Your Flowers **
- Howard University Jazz Ensemble, A Return to Glory: A Tribute to Chadwick Boseman
- John Lamkin II & The Favorites Jazz Quintet, Movin’
- Abe Mamet (EP), Spa Day **
- Leigh Pilzer’s Seven Pointed Star, Beatin’ the Odds
- Nate Scheible, or valleys and **
- Silt Remembrance Ensemble (EP), ATTENTION !?!?! **
** Disclosure: Luke Stewart is CapitalBop’s co-founder and director of presenting; Keith Butler is a staff photographer for CapitalBop; and Abe Mamet is CapitalBop’s assistant editor. None of them played any part in selecting these albums, nor in writing or editing these reviews.
The list above was compiled using a ranked-choice voting system by a panel of nine CapitalBop contributors and close observers of the D.C. jazz scene, all of whom voted by secret ballot: Keanna Faircloth, Majeedah Johnson, Lyla Maisto, Joshua Myers, Kaila Philo, Mathew Schumer, Jackson Sinnenberg, Giovanni Russonello and Michael J. West. The ranking is an exact reflection of the tallied vote. Each album in the “honorable mentions” category received at least one vote from at least one panelist. The members of CapitalBop’s core staff who double as working musicians did not participate in the voting process.
Cover image by Jamie Sandel
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