Jazz In The District: Week of September 30, 2019

Tuesday, October 1

This column will never stop talking up Dwayne Adell, at any gig he might play, because there will never stop being more brilliance to extol. Dwayne Adell is a profound virtuoso, a true genius of the instrument. He plays piano sonatas from memory. (He doesn’t read.) More to the point, however, he is a bebopper, and he maintains a small set of bebop and Great American Songbook standards that he chooses from when he puts a set together. As well, while it doesn’t happen often, there’s a chance you might hear one of his intriguing and quite bluesy original tunes (and if not, he’ll likely have some copies of his CD, The Periodic Table of Tonal Elements, on sale). What you will absolutely hear—and this is a Jazz in the District Guarantee—is amazing playing, capped off with stunning ornamentation and improvised lines like you never imagined you could encounter in person. More than that, even, because you’ll also hear the stellar rhythm section Adell has on the bill with him: bassist Kris Funn and drummer Quincy Phillips. Dwayne Adell performs at 8 and 10 p.m. at Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Avenue NW. $22

Wednesday, October 2

Neither alto saxophonist Sarah Hughes nor bassist Luke Stewart is headlining the bill at Rhizome. They’re both on the bill, however, and that’s enough. They’re also both uninterested in being defined by genres, even one as open as jazz. Hughes, for example, refers to herself as a free improviser, with the emphasis on “free.” Stewart doesn’t really refer to himself as anything but a bassist, though it’s certainly fair to call him an experimenter, one with an extraordinarily wide range of ideas and applications. Suitably, then, the two of them are (separately, mind you) the opening acts for Feast of the Epiphany, a drone-based, angular, once again experimental ensemble. It will make for a mind-expanding (let’s say that instead of psychedelic, lest we run into that labeling problem we alluded to before) evening of idiosyncratic, interesting music. Sarah Hughes, Luke Stewart, and Fest of the Epiphany perform beginning at 8 p.m. at Rhizome, 6950 Maple Street NW. $12-$15

Thursday, October 3

Try as you might, you cannot imagine a better illustration of jazz’s “not ready for the museum” vitality and currency than the JoGo Project. That’s the hallmark of tenor saxophonist Elijah Jamal Balbed, the king of D.C. jazz hustle, who also did time in the last band led by go-go godfather Chuck Brown. The band comprises other like-minded and like-skilled individuals, musicians from the Chuck Brown band who also have jazz chops. Jazz, go-go…JoGo. It fits. It’s hip, it’s groovin’, it’s party music. Which makes it hilariously ironic to me that this band, this epitome of how jazz is not ready to be penned behind glass at a museum, is this night in a museum. Phillips After 5, the happy hour music series sponsored by the Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle, is placing the band..ahem…on display, as it were, in their music room. Enjoy the music and the amusing juxtaposition. It begins at (duh) 5 p.m. at The Phillips Collection, 1800 21st Street NW. $10-$12

Saturday, October 5

It’s entirely possible that this writer is imagining things, but I swear I hear Woody Shaw’s influence in the playing of Thaddeus Lamar Wilson, one of the city’s long-running trumpet gurus. He’s definitely got his own sound, that’s for sure, a gorgeous and rich and highly dexterous one. One can also hear the standard list of trumpet influences (Clifford, Lee, Freddie, Miles) in his sound if one listens for it. But every time I mention Woody Shaw someone looks at me as if I were speaking Urdu. “Huh?” Suffice it to say, Wilson is a highly talented trumpeter with a talent for fluid lines and melodic sounds. He’ll also shake things up on a dime and go into a free improv, or something spacey and fusion-y. You never quite know for sure, and it’s fun to keep guessing, whether it’s in his big band (the Twins Jazz Orchestra) or this small-band format that he also loves. The Thad Wilson Quintet performs at 9 and 11 p.m. at Twins, 1344 U Street NW. $15