‘This is Black America standing up:’ a conversation with Katea Stitt about jazz and justice in D.C.
The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of law enforcement have prompted a watershed moment...
Category: Interviews
Ben Williams speaks up, and sings out, on ‘I Am a Man’
After the 2016 presidential election, bassist Ben Williams began a new project to address the changing social climate in...
Melissa Aldana has burgeoning ‘Visions’ for her quartet
Melissa Aldana’s 2019 album Visions represents a new horizon for the tenor saxophonist. The 31-year-old, winner of the 2013...
Ahmad Jamal on having a ‘spiritual anchor,’ remembering Jimmy Heath and the world beyond the piano
Ahmad Jamal first sat down at a piano at the age of 3; was playing Liszt and Ellington by...
‘Every time something happened I found myself at the piano’: Elijah Jamal Balbed takes ‘Karma Suite’ to Kennedy Center
When Elijah Jamal Balbed premiered the “The Karma Suite,” his first long-form composition, at the final Union Arts D.C....
Ken Avis isn’t a doctor, but he plays the ‘Antidote’ on the radio
Ken Avis is perhaps best known as a guitarist in the worldly jazz group Veronneau, but he has always...
Simone Baron is out to make ‘genre-fluid’ music
I first met Simone Baron just a few weeks ago, at the Wednesday night jam session at Mr. Henry’s...
How Braxton Cook found his voice (literally) and became a rising star in jazz
Saxophonist Braxton Cook seemed to be following the recognizable trajectory of a young D.C. jazz musician — then he...
Joe Chambers: From the JFK Quintet to the Kennedy Center, by way of M’Boom
[ai1ec post_id=”130035″ view=”agenda”] During the 1960s, a select group of masters helped redefine the traditions and artistic standards contained...
Robert Glasper previews his two-week residency at the Kennedy Center
For the last 15 years, Robert Glasper has been on a singular mission to reconnect jazz to the world...