Hailed by the Washington City Paper as “D.C.’s Best Trombonist 2015” and the DistrictNow Blog as “Best Trombonist 2017,” DC based Shannon Gunn is known for her exceptional tone and her grandiose project-du-jour. She released “Gunn’s Ablazin,” her freshman solo project, in August 2019 to critical acclaim. Her organ trio, Firebird, was named “DC’s Best Small Ensemble 2016” by the Washington City Paper. She also runs DC’s premiere all-women jazz orchestra, “Shannon Gunn and the Bullettes,” including successful performances at the Kennedy Center, Castleton Theatre House, DC Jazz Festival, Blues Alley, Washington Women in Jazz Festival, Takoma Park Jazz Festival, Jazz on Jackson Place, Westminster Jazz Night, Great Gatsby Inaugural Ball, Goethe Institute, National Jazz Workshop, Gallery O on H, Bohemian Caverns, and Dardanella. She has self produced six albums (five Bullettes, and one solo album) and mixes and masters all of her own music.

Keanna Faircloth is entering her 20th year as a radio personality, writer, and artist advocate. From 2019-2022, she served as the host of Afternoon Jazz on WBGO 88.3 FM in Newark, NJ. While at WBGO, Keanna created and produced the widely acclaimed interview series, The Pulse. Most recently, she has signed on with Yamaha as the Artist and Media Relations Representative for jazz and classical piano.

Keanna got her start in jazz radio during her Sophomore at Howard University as an intern at WPFW, where she quickly became a regular on-air host. She would remain a fixture on the air there for 16 years.
In 2018, she created the podcast Artimacy where she has interviewed artists like Robert Glasper, Dionne Warwick, Wynton Marsalis, Melba Moore, and countless others.

The culmination of her radio work led to being named a “Future African American Leader in Radio” by Radio Ink Magazine in 2019. She has amassed literally hundreds of interviews and hosts festivals both
nationally and internationally-- from the DC Jazz Festival to the NYC Winter JazzFest, to JazzFest Berlin. Keanna has been featured in national publications, and has been published by WBGO, WRTI, The
New York Times, and NPR Music. Keanna is also a contributor on NPR’s New Music Friday edition of All Songs Considered, and a music contributor on NPR’s Here and Now.

Adam Narimatsu is a writer and musician living in DC.

Joshua Myers teaches Africana Studies at Howard University and edits A Gathering Together: Literary Journal. His most recent book is Of Black Study (Pluto, 2023).

Levi Dayan is a freelance writer and occasional musician. Born in DC but currently based in Chicago, their writing has appeared in Bandcamp Daily. They began writing about improvised and experimental music for The Grape, an Oberlin student paper of which they later became Editor-in-Chief. They graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in art history. They can be reached at [email protected].

Thomas Stanley is the author of The Execution of Sun Ra (2014) and co-author of George Clinton and P-Funk: An Oral History (1998). His doctoral work (2009) examines Butch Morris’s Conduction methodology. Dr. Stanley is currently an associate professor of Sound Art and Sound Studies at George Mason University, Fairfax.

John Murph is a Washington, D.C.-based music journalist and DJ. He's written for TIDAL Music, NPR Music, JazzTimes, Down Beat, Washington Post, and The Root.