What makes for a world-class jazz festival?
The obvious answer is world-class performers. The DC Jazz Festival, now in its 11th season — running June 10 to 16, with a special preview night June 5 — has plenty of those. But that’s just for starters.
It’s become a national and international festival, to be sure, but it is truly rooted in Washington — and spreading to every nook and cranny of it. The festival is a sublime testament to the multifaceted city that hosts it: capital of the nation, gathering place of world leaders, but also fundamentally a city of neighborhoods, with a rich jazz history of home-grown stars and venues of its own.
Certainly, everyone has their eyes on two venues that have recently become a major part of the festival: Jazz at the Yards, presented by the DCJF and Events DC at the Capitol Riverfront; and Jazz at the Hamilton Live, presented by the DCJF and the Washington Post at one of the city’s top nightlife and dining spots.
With jazz-flavored programs of all sorts, the festival seeds a very receptive city landscape, 125 performances in all, across 40 venues. The hugely popular and effective Jazz in the ’Hoods, which includes the Capital/Bop DC Jazz Loft Series and the East River Jazz Series; Jazz ’N Families Fun Days at the Phillips Collection; and new jazz artists presented in conjunction with the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage are just but a few examples.
The Yards will welcome a host of big, and rising, stars. On June 12, the New Orleans brass-funk band the Soul Rebels will perform along with vocalist Sharon Clark in a free concert. On June 13, the line-up includes the hip hop, rap star and composer Common, who won an Oscar for “Selma”; the amazingly original young bassist-singer-composer Esperanza Spalding, who will be presenting her new project, “Emily D+ Evolution”; Nigerian Afrobeat star Femi Kuti and the Positive Force; and one of D.C.’s finest jazz stars, the brilliant saxophonist Marshall Keys.
The Yards is a total, full-flavored jazz experience, set in a beautiful, green urban park overlooking the Anacostia River, with beverage tastings, chef demonstrations, cabanas, a marketplace and family friendly activities.
The Live at the Hamilton series, June 10 to 16, includes such stars as the Bad Plus Joshua Redman, the scintillating edgy group Snarky Puppy, the Jack DeJohnette Trio, featuring Ravi Coltrane and Matthew Garrison, the John Scofield Überjam Band, the Stanton Moore Trio and the Charlie Hunter Trio. Latin jazz pioneer and superstar Paquito D’Rivera and his Quintet will open the series with Edmar Castaneda.
In terms of the city, the gem of the festival may turn out to be the all-pervasive Jazz in the ’Hoods series. Varying in size and style as well as in location, the venues include restaurants, straight-up jazz clubs, libraries, museums and galleries.
The shows will range from the jazzy, classy Bohemian Caverns club off of U Street, where you can also find the atmospheric Twins, the Rumba Café in Adams Morgan, the Atlas Performing Arts Center along the bustling H Street Corridor, the Anacostia Arts Center, the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in the bustling downtown areas, Bistro Lepic on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, the Dorothy I. Height/Benning Neighborhood Library, Dukem Jazz on U Street, the Phillips Collection, the UDC Recital Hall, Tudor Place in Georgetown, the Honfleur Gallery, to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens.
At a special annual awards reception at the residence of the Japanese ambassador on June 4, the DC Jazz Festival Board of Directors will present its annual awards: the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award to jazz drummer and educator Billy Hart; and the 2015 John Conyers Advocacy Award to Amy Austin, former publisher of the Washington City Paper.
If you don’t know where to start, given the sheer volume of quality programming, DC Jazz Festival Artistic Director Willard Jenkins has some suggestions:
June 5
The DCJF Preview Night at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Lenny Robinson and Friends, including saxophonist Elijah Jamal Balbed, pianist Mark Meadows, bassist Herman Burney and vocalist Alison Crockett, perform at the church, known for its weekly Southwest Jazz Nights.
June 10
The James King Duo at Tudor Place. D.C.’s own first-call bassist and international touring artist perform in the beautiful setting of Georgetown’s Tudor Place.
June 11
Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke at Bohemian Caverns. The thoroughly idiosyncratic, unprecedented voice-guitar duo performs at the legendary U Street club.
June 8, 10, 12, 13 and 14
Emerging artists on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Saxman Elijah Jamal Balbed, vocalist “Sweet Lu” Olutosin, vocalist Alison Crockett, the worldly ensemble Sine Qua Non and the groove active brass band Crush Funk Brass.
June 13
AACM@50 at the Hecht Warehouse. To celebrate the AACM’s 50th birthday, CapitalBop presents the Ernest Khabeer Dawkins Orchestra, performing Dawkins’s new Nelson Mandela Afro opera and the Organix Trio with flutist Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reed. Honorable mention: Thundercat at the Hecht Warehouse June 12.
June 12
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman at Hamilton Live. The genre-defying acoustic trio the Bad Plus welcomes into its laboratory one of the great tenor saxophonists of our time, Joshua Redman.
June 14
The Cookers at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. The Cookers is one of the most spiritually soulful, most explosive acoustic units in all of jazz. The band consists of seven bona fide bandleaders, including saxophonists Billy Harper and Donald Harrison, trumpeters Eddie Henderson and David Weiss, pianist George Cables, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Billy Hart, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
June 15
JazzAlive at UDC. One of the surefire artists on this program is D.C. native and fiery alto saxophonist Bruce Williams, backed by a UDC Jazztet led by the director of the UDC jazz program Allyn Johnson.
