5 D.C. jazz picks for October 2025
Some good and bad news for the scene as we head into the final three months of the year.
Bad news first: As many of you doubtless know, Kevin Struthers was fired from the Kennedy Center last month after serving the jazz community for 30 years at the nation’s performing arts center. His time spanned the tenures of both successive artistic directors for jazz — Dr. Billy Taylor and Jason Moran — and he helped bring countlessly valuable performances and experiences to our community. He was also the first member of the “Jazz Establishment” to treat me like a real part of it when I first met him 10 years ago. His loss is enormous.
Good news: As many of you may also know, the inimitable Professor Fred Irby III, who founded the Howard University Jazz Ensemble in 1975 and has led it in the 50 years since — mentoring generations of D.C.- and world-famous jazz musicians like Geri Allen and Wallace Roney – retired at the end of the last academic year. Now, his onetime student, respected veteran jazz educator Paul Carr, will lead the venerable ensemble and take up Irby’s mantle of educating Howard’s young lions. For more on Irby’s monumental impact, check out Carr’s reflections on his predecessor, which CapitalBop published at this time last year.
There’s also plenty of interesting music going on in the area this month. Consider this Friday, Oct. 3. You could hustle down to Southwest to hear the venerable trumpeter and Peabody jazz studies chair Sean Jones swing some tunes with a fierce local band at Westminster Presbyterian; or head over to Capitol One Arena to behold a behemoth of a Black American Music vocal lineup, as Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, and Stephanie Mills present a special program entitled “The Queens.” There’s also the second day of the Home Rule Festival, featuring Junkyard Band and Brandon Woody, Saturday, Oct. 4. Woody then returns to D.C. on Oct. 30, when he will assemble a powerful big band of top local musicians to perform a set of Ellingtonia as the National Building Museum’s “Late Night: Art Deco Masquerade” party.
Blues Alley continues its celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month by presenting not to be missed music and musicians from across Latin America.On Oct. 11 and 12, there’s the spellbinding and finger-flying harpist Edmar Castañeda, who will perform with his trio. The next weekend (Oct. 18 and 19), the supremely melodic and fun duo of pianist Alfredo Rodríguez and percussionist Pedrito Martinez take over the club for a set that could range from Afro-Cuban standards to the “Super Mario Bros 3” theme.
Elsewhere, D.C. native and experimental guitarist Joel Harrison also makes a (much too infrequent) return home on Oct. 18 to bring his singular vision of six-string sonics to Takoma Station.
On a final, personal note, I am writing this on Sept. 29 – my first byline in CapitalBop was published 10 years ago this day. It has been the honor of my life to cover and support the D.C. jazz scene with, and for, all of you.
For all other jazz needs, consult the full D.C. jazz calendar.
CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE AND BRAD MEHLDAU
Thursday, Oct. 2, 8 p.m.
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (tickets)
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Bassist Christian McBride is something of the standard-bearer for the four-string, upright bass in jazz these days. His tone is hammering but not overpowering, precise but loose and his name has been on countless recordings by some of the greatest practitioners of the tradition for the last 30 years.
Pianist Brad Mehldau has also been a standard-bearer of another kind, coming into his own in the 1990s with his series of The Art of the Trio albums. In those records, Mehldau sought to break the piano jazz trio away from the Bill Evans model and weave in more of the extended, extemporaneous nature of contemporary post-bop. He also expanded the songbook, turning songs by The Verve, Radiohead and Nick Drake into new templates for melodic exploration. Mehldau’s work today encompasses electronic music, Biblical-inspired explorations of faith and a dedicated study of Bach.
The two team up here for what will be an undoubtedly dynamic duo.
Disclosure: The Clarice is a frequent CapitalBop media partner, and purchased advertisements for this concert. This listing was picked, written and edited without any input from the venue.
AKUA ALLRICH AND THE TRIBE
Saturday, Oct. 11, 7 p.m.
Takoma Station (tickets)
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Whether singing an original, a classic jazz standard or something from the Miriam Makeba songbook, there is a deep spiritual fervor in Akua Allrich’s music. At times, her voice well up from the chest to unleash powerful statements of resistance and change; at others, she sighs sweetly in tender ballads. She calls the musicians she performs with “The Tribe,” and no matter who is in it, there is deep chemistry.
Disclosure: Allrich is a CapitalBop board member. This listing was picked, written and edited without any input from Allrich.
SAUL WILLIAM MEETS CARLOS NIÑO AND FRIENDS
Thursday, Oct. 16, 8 p.m.
Black Cat (tickets)
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To refer to Saul Williams as a “poet” would be an act of both accuracy and understatement. The artist has had a lengthy and varying career via his command of the word: as a New York Times-published writer; an actor known for portraying Tupac Shakur; a performer blurring rap and spoken word; and a foil to musicians as wide ranging as Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, David Murray, Nine Inch Nails and Janelle Monae.
Watch his 2016 Tiny Desk Concert to get an idea of his singular vision of Black performance traditions: Form and genre evaporate as the fire of his word and performance synthesizes the heritage of Black American music and letters.
He joins up with Carlos Niño, an artist deeply tied to the Chicago-based International Anthem label. The drummer and producer is known for making meditative soundscapes with his rotating collective Carlos Niño and Friends. Notably, Niño helped helm the sound and served behind the kit for Andre 3000’s spiritual jazz and new age album New Blue Sun.
The duo visit Black Cat fresh off the heels of a new LP for International Anthem, Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople.
DONALD HARRISON JR.
Friday, Oct. 24, 12:30 p.m.
McNeir Auditorium – Georgetown University (free tickets)
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Saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr. is one of the more underrated influences on contemporary jazz. A Big Chief of the Congo Square tribe of New Orleans Black Indians (sometimes known as Mardi Gras Indians — a term Harrison rejects), he cut his teeth in the “finishing school” of bop known as Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. During the mid-’80s, he sought to unify strands of modern jazz with the grooves of hip-hop and the Black Indian rhythms of New Orleans, in a kind of music he called “nouveau swing.”
In recent decades, Harrison has served as a mentor to some of the leading musicians of the new generation: visionary bassist Esparanza Spaldng, jazz-rock star Trombone Shorty, Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste and the genre-bending musician Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott), who is also Harrison’s nephew.
He returns to Georgetown University to perform as part of a symposium on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (after playing a similar set for such an occasion for the 10th anniversary in 2015).
THUNDERCAT
Tuesday, Oct. 28, 8 p.m.
The Anthem (tickets)
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Bassist and vocalist Thundercat (Stephen Bruner) came out of the same melting pot of 1980s Los Angeles that produced other pioneering jazz fusionists of his generation: saxophonists Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin, producer Flying Lotus, and the rest of the West Coast Get Down crew. He even completed a stint as a member of legendary L.A. thrash punk group Suicidal Tendencies, where he played alongside his brother Ronald Bruner Jr. (himself an accomplished drummer).
Thundercat’s music somehow recontextualizes entire threads of popular music, from the late ‘70s jazz fusion of Herbie Hancock to the sun-drenched yacht rock of the ‘80s, while deepening an Afrofuturist vision of funk reminiscent of George Clinton’s most daring moments. Despite its experimentation, the music remains accessible, beloved on the pop charts whether bubbly and euphoric or dark and synthy.
A virtuosic bassist, Thundercat often accompanies his own falsetto crooning alongside slippery and relentless six-string grooves. Once he solos, it’s a stream of rapid-fire, bouncy notes.
Some text based on previous calendar listings by Giovanni Russonello.
DC, DC jazz, jazz, Washington
