Click for a hi-res version of the updated flyer
by Giovanni Russonello
Amy K. Bormet’s Washington Women in Jazz Festival has benefited from a great concept, a killer lineup and pitch-perfect execution. Scheduled for almost every Wednesday in the month of March, the festival has drawn solid, enthusiastic crowds to its home base of Twins Jazz while spotlighting top local talent.
There was one gaping hole in the operation: No show was scheduled for this coming Wednesday, Mar. 16. So when Bormet approached Luke Stewart, CapitalBop’s avant music editor, and me about doing a show at Red Door that day, we didn’t hesitate.
– RSVP to the Facebook event! –
So clear your schedule for this Wednesday at 8 p.m., when we’ll be hosting a top-notch band at the studio space that has housed CapitalBop’s two highly successful D.C. Jazz Lofts, plus countless other shows. Oh, and did I mention there’ll be a tap dancer?! The group will feature Bormet on piano and vocals, Integriti Reeves on vocals, Karine Chapdelaine (recently recovered from a bout with pneumonia that kept her sidelined for the first two WWJF shows) on bass and Melissa Frakman tap dancing, plus Andrew Hare on drums.
Bormet supplies the lowdown on the toe-tapping talent: “Melissa Frakman’s work as a choreographer, performer and instructor has been featured throughout North America and Asia, including by Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian Institution, Corcoran Gallery, Broadway Dance Center, Steps, Brooklyn School of Music, Performing Arts Center of Connecticut, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DC Hip Hop Theater Festival and Georgetown, Howard and New York Universities. She’s a member of DC Casineros, Washington’s leading Afro-Cuban Salsa company and Just Tap, directed by Quynn Johnson. Director of ‘The Blue Riff Project,’ a full-length live music and dance show and Rehearsal Assistant to Master Choreographer Derrick Grant for the hit show ‘Imagine Tap,’ Frakman teaches at Bloombars, a community arts space in DC’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, and is involved in other arts and social entrepreneurship projects, both local and international.”
The show will go down from 8 to 10 p.m., at which point things will branch out into an open jam session. Updated: There’s a $10 suggested donation, and the event is BYOB. We hope to see you there!
You best be putting that on your calendar with a BIG check next to it, because there will be a jazz explosion. BAM. JAZZ. WOMEN. It’s going to be wild.