DC Jazz Loft Series photo recap: When old meets new, fresh sounds emerge

CapitalBop

By Giovanni Russonello July 3, 2014

CapitalBop’s DC Jazz Loft Series at the DC Jazz Festival was the old meeting the new—and on each of its three mind-bending nights, freshness and experimentation were the end result. Things got going on Thursday with a Three-Piano Cutting Contest, featuring some of the music’s greatest: Orrin Evans, Lafayette Gilchrist and Allyn Johnson. The cutting contest has a storied history in jazz, but it hasn’t enjoyed much of a life since the mid-20th century. This show, which was more of a collective invention than a sparring match, updated the all-piano format for the present day. Held at the Union Arts loft, things got started with all three pianists tinkling a soft drizzle of high notes onto the keyboard, feeling their way — three people working together to get the lantern lit — and the night ended with a burning workout: a couple dazzling, swinging solos brought the climax before one pianist threw up his hands in good-natured resignation.

The next evening, Marc Cary’s Rhodes Ahead, Butcher Brown and the Braxton Cook Quartet played to a relaxed but energized audience at the Atlantic Plumbing parking lot, just off U Street. On a perfectly crisp summer evening, with delicious food and drink provided by Union Kitchen, you could see conversations starting up spontaneously, and new fans being made during each band’s set. On the final night, Tarus Mateen’s fabulous new band, West Afro East, performed an opening set for Matana Roberts’ COIN COIN, which was making its D.C. debut. Playing to an enraptured crowd at the intimate Fridge art gallery in Barracks Row, both bands mined wells of folklore and healing traditions to make stirring, upward-circling wreaths of sound. The City Paper’s Michael J. West called Roberts’ set “perhaps the best thing in the festival.”

Photos of all the shows are below, courtesy of CapitalBop contributors Paul Bothwell and Jati Lindsay. And don’t forget that CapitalBop’s outside-the-box programming continues year-round. Our D.C. Jazz Lofts at Union Arts are always on the second Sunday of the month, so mark your calendar for July 13.