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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
Wednesday, October 23
It is almost—almost—a cheat to call Pedrito Martinez a jazz musician. His technique at the bata drum, congas, and other percussion, as well as his knowledge of Afro-Cuban musical repertoire from folk to street to popular, is awesome. Like, Art Tatum on the hand drums awesome. That he should come by such knowledge isn’t so surprising: Martinez was born and raised in Havana, in a neighborhood renowned for its Afro-Cuban musical traditions and musicians. He began performing himself at the age of eleven. Perhaps his arrival in America at 24 found him going into the jazz world simply because it was the closest we came to the rhumba, timba, and bata (Santeria) lineage of home. But enter it he did, going so far as to win the only (so far) edition of the Thelonious Monk/Herbie Hancock International Jazz Competition to focus on hand percussion. None of what’s been said above, though, gives a sense of the pure electricity that comes into the air when he performs. Seriously—stick a finger in the air and you’ll get shocked. Pedrito Martinez performs at 8 and 10 p.m. at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Avenue NW. $35
Friday, October 25
Go to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and like any national capital you’ll find it studded with monuments to great moments, events, and people, including the statues on Parliament Hill of the great Prime Ministers. Off the hill, though, you’ll find remarkably few human statues…which makes it that much more remarkable when you find the one of Oscar Peterson. Peterson was an unquestionable piano virtuoso, with a bouncy swing and a clanging chord style that he offset with a crowded, perpetually happy melodic sound that derived from both the swing and bebop eras and stunned everyone who heard it. Among the scores of pianists who has followed in his wake is Charles Covington, who made his name as an organist on the Hammond B-3 before becoming the (now retired) chair of the music department at Howard University. But Covington is also a fine piano player, and he has a tribute to pay to the legendary O.P.—along with some other greats, including saxophonist Charlie Young, bassist James King, and drummer Nasar Abadey. They perform at 6 p.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 400 I Street SW. $5
Saturday, October 26
As has been mentioned a couple of times ‘round these parts—we can’t mention it enough, honestly—the great drummer/bandleader Art Blakey would have turned 100 years old on October 11. His influence and place in the pantheon has been the subject of ongoing celebrations in the jazz world overall, and the District of Columbia in particular. Knowing that that’s the case, how could the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra (whose executive producer, Ken Kimery, is also the band’s drummer of all things) do otherwise? The nation’s resident big band, directed by the great Charlie Young, has to take on the thunderous legacy of Blakey, whose contributions to the art are incalculable. Among other things, his protégés range from Wayne Shorter to Wynton Marsalis, and he was known at times to expand into a big band format of his own. It’s a pretty good bet that at least a few of the charts you’ll hear from the SJMO will be from that format, though they have a pretty damn good arranger component of their own. The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra performs at 7:30 p.m. at the American History Museum’s Nicholas F. and Eugenia Taubman Hall of Music, 1300 Constitution Avenue NW. Free
Sunday, October 27
Did you hear? They’re bringing jazz back to Takoma Station! For roughly a decade, between the mid-‘80s and the mid-‘90s, the tavern just a few blocks up from the Maryland border was the hotbed of local jazz in Washington, where artists like saxophonists Paul Carr or Marshall Keys, or drummer Keith Killgo would pack them in every week. The music moved on with the times, but Takoma Station itself has endured for years. Now it’s returning to its roots with a new monthly Sunday series of great D.C. jazz. Carr and Keys held down the first stand last month. This time out, it’s trombonist Reginald Cyntje, as killer a horn player as those sax men and newly named as the director of jazz studies at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Accompanying him is a quartet of pure gold: Brian Settles on tenor saxophone, Herman “Uh Oh” Burney on bass, and Lenny Robinson on drums. Whether you missed Takoma Station in its golden age or not, don’t miss this. The Reginald Cyntje Quartet performs at 6 p.m. at Takoma Station, 6914 Fourth Street NW.
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.
