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Announcing...

Christie Dashiell’s voice has been heard on records around the world. Hear it in person at CapitalBop’s next show.

The last time Christie Dashiell sang at a CapitalBop presentation was Feburary 2020, at a special Valentine’s Day show featuring trumpet star Marquis Hill’s Love Tape band. Her voice left a powerful impression on every listener, from the first phrase on— as it always does. At CB shows, we often present DMV artists in double-bills […]

May 13, 2022 0

Interviews

The Messthetics’ Brendan Canty is punk royalty, but jazz runs through his bloodstream

If you ask legendary D.C. post-punk drummer Brendan Canty to name the greatest band of all time, the answer will not be the seminal early hardcore bands like Black Flag or D.C.’s own Bad Brains. Nor is it a titanic, stadium-rock band like Led Zeppelin or Queen. It’s Miles Davis’ so-called Second Great Quintet, featuring […]

May 13, 2022 0

The Month in Shows

5 live jazz picks for May in D.C.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, it was pretty easy to predict what venue a band might be playing at, and many jazz musicians had long-established allegiances to certain rooms. That’s still true, but so far it’s looking like one exciting post-lockdown development is that the formulas are getting scrambled a bit. Many acts — both local […]

April 29, 2022 0

Be in the room for CapitalBop’s next live taping, featuring steel pan master Victor Provost

If you’ve been following the D.C. jazz scene for long enough — or if you made it out to our 2022 Jazz and Freedom Festival in February — you’re familiar with Victor Provost’s singular sound on the steel pan. The St. John native’s distinctive fusion of Caribbean music, bebop and modern jazz is a powerful […]

April 26, 2022 0

Interviews

‘Just sound:’ Guitarist John Lee on prog-rock, world tours and making his Blues Alley debut

Guitarist John Lee is everywhere on the D.C. jazz scene. Well, really anywhere there’s a gig up and down our section of I-95, between Northern Virginia and Baltimore. Pre-pandemic, you could often find him at the side of Nicole Saphos — the Fiona Apple-adjacent jazz singer-songwriter and bassist — adding rich texture and detail to […]

April 11, 2022 0

Interviews

‘Cherishing this shared legacy:’ Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn on being back together for the first time in years

The last time Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn played together was at the Wigmore Hall in London, in September 2019. They were wrapping up a tour celebrating their first duo album, The Transitory Poems, recorded live at the Liszt Academy of Budapest the year before. It had received high praise from across the jazz and […]

March 31, 2022 0

The Month in Shows

5 live jazz picks for April (a.k.a. Jazz Appreciation Month) in D.C.

Happy Jazz Appreciation Month, DMV! The Cherry Blossoms are in bloom and so is the D.C. jazz scene. Things have not been this active since before the pandemic; it is a wonderful thing to see the city’s clubs, bars and other performance venues so filled with the sounds of standards ringing out and original music […]

March 30, 2022 0

News

What to see at this week’s 12th annual Washington Women in Jazz Festival

The Washington Women in Jazz Festival was one of the first major cancellations to hit the D.C. jazz scene in March 2020, starting what became a tidal wave of silence across the District and the country. Last year, the WWJF went all-virtual, helping to prove that large-scale, grassroots music events could pull off the transition […]

March 23, 2022 0

The Month in Shows

5 live jazz picks for (the rest of) March in D.C.

This month marks two years since the COVID-19 pandemic hit full-bore in the District. But looking at the amount of great music being made in all sorts of venues around the city this March, it’s remarkable how strongly the D.C. jazz scene has rebounded. We’re late getting this month’s five-jazz-picks column posted, but there’s still plenty […]

March 15, 2022 0

Announcing...

CapitalBop presents Simone Baron’s “genre-fluid” chamber ensemble, Arco Belo, in two shows this Sunday and Monday

occupy our dreamscapes!resist oppressive specificity !free the space on the margins! Those three lines from Simone Baron’s “ruin manifesto” provide some insight into the strikingly unique sound of her chamber ensemble, Arco Belo. The format of the group is a blend of traditional Western classical piano quartet with a jazz combo, but more unusual still […]

March 7, 2022 0