DMV
Witty Banter is One for the Books
Recent Articles March 21st. A day that I will always think of amazing album releases. DC-based musician, producer, and singer-songwriter, Rachel Levitin, released Witty Banter
March 23, 2024
by Michael J. West
Thursday, October 17
The simple fact is that you need only hear three of the names in trumpeter Eddie Henderson’s quintet—Henderson, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, and drummer Mike Clark—to know that this is not a band to either be missed or be sneered at. Throw in that the bassist is Essiet Okon Essiet and the pianist is Peter Zak (at 54, easily the baby of the group) and the deal is sealed. Henderson, Harrison, and Essiet are all veterans of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, an instant pedigree in the minds of the jazz-conscious, and they earn every bit of it. (Harrison’s got the pedigree anyway: He’s Big Chief of the Congo Nation Mardi Gras Indians. Do not fuck with him.) But Henderson is the most germane here, being the leader of the band. He is an incredibly able, fiercely underrated trumpet player, a bad dude, and also a lyrical wonder whose energy never seems to fade even now, a week before his 79th birthday. Go and wish him a happy one and listen as he provides many happy returns. The Eddie Henderson Quintet with Donald Harrison and Mike Clark performs at 7 and 9 p.m. at Keystone Korner, 1350 Lancaster Street. $20-$35
Saturday, October 19
For those of us who know the DMV, and jazz in the DMV in particular, Dr. John Lamkin II is rightly a revered figure. He is a trumpeter, composer, teacher, and bandleader who works around D.C. and Baltimore at the head of his “Favorites” Quintet. As both a teacher and a presenter, he lives to bring the music to the people, and the Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture’s “Jazz in Cool Places” program is just about as perfect a forum for that message as anything is. The personnel in the Favorites Quintet can vary somewhat—indeed, on their recent album Transitions (their first in 35 years), there are at least two of every instrument except Lamkin’s—but this writer has never seen them work without Bob Butta on piano. Regardless of who’s on the saxophone, bass, or drums (which is sometimes Lamkin’s son, John III), however, it’s the leader’s supple, silvery trumpet sound that is clearly front and center. They perform at 2 p.m. at The Carroll Mansion, 800 East Lombard Street. Free (but registration required through Eventbrite)
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Ledisi resides in a unique, not always comfortable niche between the realms of jazz and contemporary R&B. The questioning of its comfort level has to do with the longstanding practice of pedants like myself attempting to nail the staggeringly talented singer down into one or the other of those categories, and Ledisi’s equally longstanding tradition of resisting those attempts. In maintaining that tradition, she has already inherited a great deal from the iconic and iconoclastic Nina Simone, whose refusal to be pigeonholed in jazz makes her one of the most influential vocalists in that music—and in R&B, and in the blues, and in whatever else she happened to touch with her singular style of songwriting and of piano and vocal performance. How, then, could there be a more fitting program than the one Ledisi is currently headlining, called (brace yourself) “Nina and Me”? I know a way to find out. She performs at 8 p.m. at Patricia & Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric, 140 Mt. Royal Avenue. $41.50-$61.50
Sunday, October 20
Tenor saxophonist Ernest Khabeer Dawkins and pianist Adegoke Steve Colson are both highly experimental jazz musicians from Chicago and are both members of that city’s fabled Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). They are not, however, generally of the same artistic character—not only has this writer never seen them perform together, it frankly never occurred to him that he would. But it shouldn’t be as surprising as all that. Members of the AACM are specifically charged with supporting each other in realizing individual visions—and besides, a solid professional musician of any stripe has to learn to be ready to play anything. That’s certainly the case for Baltimore drummer Eric Kennedy, one of the city’s best and top-call musicians who has a history of excelling in every format you put him into. (And in his case, every format certainly seems to include every format.) And since the whole thing is by its nature improvisational and experimental anyway, well, what you’ve got here is a cauldron of excitement. Dawson, Colson, and Kennedy perform at 5 p.m. at An Die Musik, 409 North Charles Street. $10-$25
Michael J. West is a freelance writer, editor, and jazz journalist who has been covering the Washington, D.C. jazz scene since 2009. He spends most days either hunkered down in the clubs or in his very big headphones. He lives in Washington with his wife and two children.
Recent Articles March 21st. A day that I will always think of amazing album releases. DC-based musician, producer, and singer-songwriter, Rachel Levitin, released Witty Banter
Alchemical Records is a Washington, D.C. based music publication. We cover the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond, VA metro area music scenes, including band interviews, articles about your favorite musicians, new music and concert dates.
