Saturday, April 28, 2012

DC Jazz Festival Brings 10 Days of Jazz To The Nation's Capital

Ron Carter
The 2012 DC Jazz Festival takes place in the Nation’s Capital June 1 and runs through June 10. The Festival this year will have a variety of signature programs including Jazz Meets the Classics at the Kennedy Center; Jazz in the ‘Hoods at a variety of clubs and museums, presented by Events DC; Jazz’‘n’ Families Fun Days at The Phillips Collection; Jazz at the Hamilton presented by The Washington Post; and Jazz at the Howard.

Jazz Meets the Classics, co-presented by the Kennedy Center on June 4th, will feature an all-star lineup performing unique and exciting jazz interpretations of works by Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. Headlining the concert is the Classical Jazz Quartet, with NEA Jazz Masters bassist Ron Carter and pianist Kenny Barron, vibraphonist Stefon Harris and drummer Lewis Nash. Also headlining is NEA Jazz Master and 10-time Grammy Award-winner Paquito D’Rivera, joined by Spain’s Pepe Rivero Trio, Michael Phillip Mossman and Pernell Saturnino.

Lena Seikaly
The Jazz in the ‘Hoods program highlights the innovative CapitalBop D.C. Jazz Loft, Bohemian Caverns, and more than 80 performances at over 40 museums, clubs, restaurants, hotels, and galleries across the city with performers like Loide, Michael Thomas, Mark Prince, and Rodney Richardson with Lena Seikaly. The D.C. Jazz Loft Series, presented by Capital Bop, returns to spotlight some cutting edge music and will span 3 days including an all day manifest on June 9. Performers include Marc Cary’s Cosmic Indigenous; Tarbaby, featuring Orrin Evans, Nasheet Waits. Eric Revis; and the Todd Marcus Nonet. I will hopefully have a separate post on Capital Bop’s DC Jazz Loft Series separately.

Elijah Balbed
The free annual Jazz ‘n’ Families Fun Days at The Phillips Collection on Saturday, June 2nd and Sunday, June 3rd will treat families to performances from some of the finest musicians from around the region, including Marianne Solivan, Victor Provost, the Herman Burney Trio, and the Elijah Balbed Quartet. Jazz at the Hamilton, the Festival’s main venue, will feature 10 nights of performances with such noted artists as Randy Weston, Monty Alexander, Roy Hargrove, Jimmy Heath, David Sanchez, Les Nubians, Antonio Hart, Cyrus Chestnut, Jonathan Batiste, Ben Williams, Etienne Charles, John Scofield, Roberta Gambarini, and Marshall Keys.

Jimmy Heath
Jazz at the Howard celebrates the tradition of jazz in D.C. at the newly restored and reopened historic Howard Theatre. Headline artists include multiple Grammy Award-winning vocalist Dianne Reeves and famed Italian guitarist Pino Daniele. The Festival also hosts a performance by the dazzling clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, and six concerts co-presented by the Kennedy Center at the Millennium Stage featuring artists such as Malika Zara, the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra, and Origem.  There is plenty of terrific jazz in a variety of musical flavors for the casual and discerning music lover at the 2012 DC Jazz Festival.

Roy Hargrove
The DC Jazz Festival (DCJF) is the largest music festival in Washington, D.C. A project of Festivals DC, Ltd., a 501 © (3) non-profit organization, the DCJF is one of the most highly-anticipated cultural events in the nation’s capital. The DC Jazz Festival is sponsored in part with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information about the DC Jazz Festival and upcoming programs, visit www.dcjazzfest.org.

All photos © by Ron Weinstock


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