This Mother’s Day, bring the family out to Union Arts for a wide-ranging musical feast. (Alternate plan: After mom’s day dinner, use the jazz loft as a “classy-sounding” excuse to run off and spend the rest of the night hearing great music in a warehouse.)

Bobby Muncy and Bobby Jasinski are both explorative composers and master instrumentalists who don’t get enough recognition on their hometown scene. Muncy will bring a big band to the loft to perform some of his own rock-infused tunes, as well as some by his close collaborator, guitarist extraordinaire Anthony Pirog. Jasinski will be playing selections from his brand new CD, the swinging Retrospection. And right in between them, we’ll hear a set from spoken-word poet Karega Bailey, who performs with a live jazz band.

Click for hi-res version

As usual, the jazz loft takes place at Union Arts—our home at 411 New York Ave. NE. Admission is open to everyone, no matter your age or your ability to pay, though we strongly suggest a $15 donation to the musicians. See you Sunday night!

Lineup

7:00 doors
7:30 Bobby Jasinski
8:30 Karega Bailey
9:30 Bobby Muncy’s Big Bastard Big Band

BOBBY MUNCY’S BIG BASTARD BIG BAND

Bobby Muncy is a saxophonist and composer with chops and conviction. He harnesses the rhythmic dynamism of jazz and the roughshod attack of indie rock. At the very first DC Jazz Loft, back in the days when he was still playing a weekly gig at Utopia (back when Utopia still existed), Muncy brought a quintet to play modern-jazz tunes. A couple years later, we invited him back to perform with Kung Fu Bastard, the metal-jazz mashup quartet that he co-leads with Anthony Pirog. This time, Muncy’s rolling deep: He’ll arrive with an 18-piece, even more bastardly band. It’s called the Big Bastard Big Band, and it too includes Pirog on guitar. The group will play a combination of Muncy’s and Pirog’s originals, and word on the street is that there might be a bit of Pink Floyd in there. That is, if the prog crowd pipes up with enough popular demand. We’re looking at you, guy-who-never-took-the-Dark Side of the Moon-poster-off-his-wall guy.

KAREGA BAILEY

At the divide between art and action, poetry and music, lies the talented and inspirational local artist Karega Bailey. Last Sunday, at an event at the historic home of Sterling Brown, Luke Stewart and I gave a brief talk about Kendrick Lamar and his relationship to the Los Angeles’ new jazz scene. Then Bailey performed a brief set of fabulous spoken-word poetry, with accompaniment from Malcolm Stokes on trumpet (find him in the video below), and everything Luke and I had been saying—about the importance of music working together with words to create a climate for change, about poetry’s role in the continuum of Black reclamation—was manifest. We’re thrilled to present Bailey here with backing from a small band.

BOBBY JASINSKI

Pianist and composer Bobby Jasinski plays with gentle authority, conjuring warmth and depth. Jasinski’s newest album, Retrospection, features a handful of catchy and dynamic new compositions, and draws on influences from his own diverse heritage—Colombian, Polish and Italian. At the loft, Jasinski will perform tunes from the disc, bringing out their rich textures with the help of a seven-piece band.

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