The 20th Anniversary DC JazzFest

2024 DC JazzFest
Potomac Riverfront
Washington, DC
August 31 to September 1, 2024

Being the birthplace of Duke Ellington among other things, Washington, DC has had a long tradition as a hotbed for jazz, and been the site of several ambitious jazz festivals over the years. The most prominent one currently is the DC JazzFest which held its 20th anniversary edition over Labor Day weekend.

The entire festival ran from August 28th thru September 1st, with events held at embassies, clubs and concert halls during the week, but the bulk of the festival took place on Saturday, August 31st and Sunday, September 1st, at the Potomac Riverfront, a long strip of restaurants, shops, and hotels that run alongside the Potomac River in Southwest DC. Here performances were held on three outdoor stages at the edge of the river, amidst a throng of moored boats and nearby bridges, as well as at the Union Stage theater in the middle of the crowded restaurant corridor and the Arena Stage theater complex across the street.

The festival presented a wide range of artists from both the national and local scenes, such as Dianne Reeves, Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, and Bobby Sanabria and his Multiverse Big Band. There was so much happening during the weekend it was impossible to experience it all. What follows are impressions of some of the music and events that took place over the festival.

The local DC jazz scene was represented by several acts. Trombonist Reginald Cyntje's quintet took to one of the outdoor stages Saturday afternoon with a strong set of New Orleans and reggae flavored grooves that balanced the lush sounds of his trombone with the fiery blast of Brian Settles' tenor saxophone and the jangling dazzle of Janelle Gill's piano. Sunday afternoon, in one of the Afrena Stage auditoriums, trumpeter Muneer Nasser's quintet of veteran DC musicians reminded his audience of the beauty of jazz fundamentals as they explored standard fare like "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" and "All Blues" with grace and care. Elijah Easton 's tenor struck hard and deep in contrast to the soulful sweetness of Nasser's sound. The rhythm section of pianist Allyn Johnson, bassist James King Jr., and drummer John Lamkin III contributed lively support and the occasional tersely grooving solo.

Tenor master David Murray brought his current quartet to the party on Saturday afternoon in a set mostly derived from their current album, Francesca, (Intakt, 2024). Murray, as usual, was a force of nature, his sound rolling from growling depths to splintering freak tones effortlessly. Marta Sanchez was also very strong on piano while Luke Stewart's bass and Russell Carter's drums added a layer of swirling support.

One of the festival's annual features is the DCJazzPrix, a competition where up and coming musicians vie for a $15,000 prize and a featured spot at the following year's festival. Entrants send in tapes for evaluation and the four finalists played at Union Stage on Saturday with winner determined by judging and audience approval. The finalists were the Micah Thomas Trio, the Alex Weitz Group, the Hiruy Tirfe Quartet, and the Dabin Ryu Band. All four bands worked through some variation of the more aggressive "fire music" end of the spectrum. Alex Weitz balanced the cool sound of his tenor playing against the relentless charging of his rhythm section. In a 20 minute set, pianist Dabin Ryu moved from an interestingly baroque trio setting with twitchy, Monk-ish lines to a quintet with two saxophones that deftly changed tempo and volume along classical foundations. Micah Thomas, a pianist who has worked with John Coltrane tradition. His entire group was intense but its real star was the drummer, Lionel Forrester Jr, whose incessant, knockabout bashing had the crowd screaming even when it bore little relation to what the rest of the quartet was playing.

The Arena Stage seemed to be the unofficial headquarters of the festival as concerts and most non-musical activities took place there. It was the place for various panel discussions and interview sessions with the artists, merchandise tables, and a special exhibition curated by Terri Lyne Carrington called New Standards Exhibit: Shifting the Narrative. This was a collection of artifacts celebrating the history of female jazz composers, something Carrington has been championing in recent years, through recording and performing the works of female composers. This was also the focus of a special all-star concert she gave at Arena Stage on Saturday night. This began with a basic group that had Carrington on drums, Ben Williams on bass, Marta Sanchez on piano, and Brandon Woody and Josh Evans on trumpet. After the first couple of numbers, other musicians who had their own gigs at the festival began to come on and off the stage to play. By the concert's end, the band had, at some point, included Bill Frisell on guitar, Gerald Clayton and Kris Davis on piano, Dianne Reeves and Christie Dashiell on vocals, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, Brandee Younger on harp, and Greg Osby on alto saxophone, plus Christiana Hunte doing interpretive dance and recitations.

The assembly played pieces by Marilyn Crispell, Eliane Elias, Alice Coltrane, as well as Reeves and Sanchez themselves among others. Many singular elements like Frisell's guitar whines, Reeves' scatting and Carrington's drumbeats served to enhance the whole. Highlights included Dashiell's beautiful singing of Abbey Lincoln's "Throw It Away" and a version of Carla Bley's "Lawns" with Carrington's own lyrics called "Two Hearts" that featured Younger and Clayton.

Sunday night, Davis and Carrington were together again as part of the pianist's Diatom Ribbons group, along with Val Jeanty on turntables and Noah Garabedian on bass. This band went even deeper into the realm of space age funk than on their albums with Garabedian's bass mixing with Carrington's drums to create a backbeat worthy of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society. Davis was excellent on both acoustic and electric piano and the creaks, whooshes and vocal sounds Jeanty dropped in added to the deliriously spacey nature of the music. There was a feel of prog rock menace in some of the set, but it ended on a note of calm with a piece called "Sunflower" that had soft waves of tropical exotica and the voice of Sun Ra discussing his beliefs.

The DC JazzFest is a bonanza of wonders from all realms of the jazz world and something to definitely look forward to every Labor Day.

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