Sullivan Fortner greets the challenge of tradition
Sullivan Fortner TrioBlues AlleyTuesday, Jan. 14, 2025 Throughout the second set of Sullivan Fortner’s recent appearance at Blues Alley, the one word that kept returning to me was “inventive.” The New Orleans-born pianist has been one of the most consistent voices in the “straight-ahead” idiom for well over a decade. Though he first came to […]
5 D.C. jazz picks for January 2025
Happy New Year! Twenty twenty-five gets off to a strong start at Takoma Station, where Jazz Kitchen Productions has booked a five-star line-up for the month of January. One of their shows is in the main list below, but each Saturday of the month features a first-rate D.C. artist: Akua Allrich and the Tribe on Jan. […]
After years of debate, D.C. Council passes new regulations on sound in public space
Amid a flurry of year-end legislative activity, the D.C. Council last week passed a pair of measures that seek to regulate sound in public spaces. These bills are the product of a years-long debate over managing public sound in D.C., one that has often pitted real-estate developers and residents of gentrifying neighborhoods against artists, venues […]
The top 5 D.C. jazz albums of 2024
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 […]
How Cuneiform Records has remained a label ‘in opposition’ for the past 40 years
When Steve Feigenbaum started Cuneiform Records in 1984, he had no expectation that it would become his life’s work for 40 years to come. His mission was — and remains — a humble one, he said: to simply make the most interesting record label possible, without going bankrupt. Well, “interesting” may be an understatement. Over […]
5 D.C. jazz picks for December 2024
As I write this column on Thanksgiving Day, I just want to say: I am thankful. For all of you that read this column every month (or whenever you can), all of you that support CapitalBop’s work, and especially all of you whose artistic and personal contributions help make the D.C. jazz scene the remarkable […]
‘Can I make this register in your body?’ Samora Pinderhughes on how music can reflect an ethic of care
Samora Pinderhughes has always been tuned in. In 2016 the vocalist and composer released The Transformations Suite, which housed both the poetic and the lyrical within a “jazz” idiom and showed how that idiom could be adept at providing a radical response to the anti-Black violence that defined the era leading into the Black Lives […]
Charlie Fishman: An appreciation
On Tuesday, Nov. 12, Charles Fishman – known far and wide by friends and intimates alike simply as “Charlie” – passed on to the next realm to join the ancestors at age 82, depriving humanity of yet another true jazz champion. Not a big guy in the strictly physical sense, Charlie was a wiry-built man […]
‘He’s still here among us:’ Tyshawn Sorey celebrates Max Roach at the Library of Congress
Tyshawn Sorey Trio with Sandbox PercussionCoolidge Auditorium at the Library of CongressFriday, Nov. 22, 2024 There are many ways to celebrate Max Roach’s centenary, and D.C. has been host to several of these homages. On Friday, composer Tyshawn Sorey marshaled the memory of Roach in yet another night to remember, paying tribute to the iconic […]
Simple, honest, beautiful: On Brandon Woody’s sonic journey
To feel love is to be vulnerable and not have it held against you. This is one way that Brandon Woody’s philosophy of sound comes across. From the first note, you are not only touched, you are held. The music becomes a way to release the thing holding you back, in order to be bound […]