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David Weiner

Free-lance writer and federal government retiree who has lived in Washington DC since 1988.

About Me

I found my way to jazz starting at 17, when a high school friend on Long Island told me about WRVR- FM, a long-gone station that, as I now recall, played more fusion than mainstream jazz. It was on WRVR that I first heard and embraced -- and started purchasing, and borrowing from the library -- recordings by Chuck Mangione, Stanley Clarke, Eric Gale, Maynard Ferguson, Keith Jarret, Bob James, and others. My first two live jazz experiences were performances in concert venues by Ferguson and James. Those early encounters with fusion, music I still often enjoy, were a gateway to more straight-ahead sounds. During the decade after I left home for college, I was fortunate to be mentored in my listening by two friends who introduced me to iconic jazz musicians, bandleaders, and scenes. A sophomore year housemate treated me to many LPs in his wonderful collection, offering me my first opportunities to hear Monk, Coltrane, Rollins, Ella, and Anita O'Day. A few years later, now in Washington DC for my first job, a photographer with whom I collaborated, whose father had recorded as a jazz organist decades before, introduced me to numerous extraordinary musicians, including recordings by Bird, Gillespie, more Monk, McGee, Gaillard, Eckstine, MJQ, Evans, and others. But perhaps most valuably for me, this friend also gave me cassettes with all of Duke's Blanton-Webster recordings, and others with all of the Armstrong Hot 5s and 7s. Every year in the decades since then, as I pursued a career in international relations, my awe at the abundance and scope of Armstrong's and Ellington's genius has been renewed. I am deeply grateful to my jazz mentors, and for the love of jazz they helped nurture in me. In the subsequent decades my listening interests have expanded, and I now enjoy live and recorded music in just about every jazz style, and from every era. I enhance and complement my listening and appreciation with a little study: Extensive reading of jazz journalism and history and reading or listening to dozens of musician interviews every year. I consider improvised jazz and adjacent music one of my life's greatest blessings.

My Favorite Local Jazz Venues & Festivals