Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
Steve Coleman (left) and Jonathan Finlayson perform at the historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C., as part of the DC Jazz Festival on June 14.
(Photo: Michael Wilderman)The 2016 DC Jazz Festival climaxed with a rousing set by tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington on June 19, a fitting culmination to more than two weeks of numerous performances at venues all around the District.
Coordinated by Executive Director Sunny Sumter and Artistic Director Willard Jenkins, the festival included concerts at The Hamilton Live (featuring violinist Regina Carter, vocalist Kurt Elling, saxophonist Maceo Parker and pianist Harold Mabern), the CapitalBop Loft (with pianists Michele Rosewoman and Orrin Evans), the Kennedy Center (featuring an all-star salute to Howard University Jazz), the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue (with Steve Coleman & Five Elements), and the extensive Jazz In The Hoods presentations.
More than 90 bands and 300 emerging and veteran artists performed during the fest. One unique event was the DC Alley Museum Live Mural Project by artist Bill Warrell, in which visitors young and old were invited to pick up a paintbrush and add to a montage of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, commemorating the group’s 1982 Washington, D.C. concert.
That mural—as well as many other moments from throughout the fest—is captured in the photo album below, which was constructed by photographer and D.C. resident Michael Wilderman.
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.
Dec 12, 2024 1:58 AM
Cuban-American jazz trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval and Harlem’s Apollo Theater were among the honorees at the 2024…
“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
Jan 2, 2025 10:50 AM
On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
