The Duke Jazz Fest Returns Bigger and Better for Second Year

By Steve Monroe
Special to the Informer
Thursday, September 28, 2006

Back for its second year with a wider and more diverse cast of artists and venues is the Duke Ellington Festival Oct. 4-8. Once more the city of the Duke’s birth enjoys it’s only real live, real jazz festival for five days rich with the music’s many flavors and colors – including the Festival’s first concert at THEARC in Anacostia.
  
This year’s DEJF features headliners Roy Hargrove, Paquito D’Rivera , Randy Weston, Billy Taylor, Poncho Sanchez, Geri Allen and many more. It also will include a free concert on the mall at the Sylvan Theatre Saturday, Oct. 7 with Hargrove, Sanchez, Nasar Abadey and SuperNova, Mavis Staples and Dr. John.

Along with performances – many of them free - at various venues, including the Lincoln Theatre and clubs along U Street Northwest, the Kennedy Center and elsewhere, festival producer Charlie Fishman says he’s pleased to extend the festival east of the river with a concert at THE ARC, a beautiful new venue in Anacostia.

New Orleans songstress Stephanie Jordan is the performer Friday Oct. 5 at the Arc, the new community and cultural center on Mississippi Avenue.
  
Jordan’s most recent recording is “You Don't Know What Love Is.” She also has appeared with the New Orleans Ladies of Jazz, and has opened for NaJee, Roy Ayers, and Howard Hewitt. She collaborated with her sister Rachel in a fully staged concert with strings from the Louisiana Philharmonic and with her jazz quintet, Stephanie with Strings.
  
The opening night gala Oct. 4 at the Lincoln Theatre honors the legendary Paquito D’Rivera, in a concert that also serves to mark the festival’s observance and celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, observed Sept. 15-Oct. 15.
  
D’Rivera, a child prodigy on the clarinet in Cuba, has gone on to worldwide acclaim as a musician on clarinet and saxophone and as a composer in jazz and classical music. Among his awards are an honorary doctorate from Berklee School of Music, a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to Latin Music and six Grammy awards, including in 1996 for “Portraits of Cuba,” in 2000 for “Tropicana Nights” and in 2001 for the recording “Live at the Blue Note.”
  
The festival will continue a heritage theme with a tribute to Dr. Billy Taylor, pianist, jazz impresario and educator extraordinaire on Oct. 5; an evening concert at the Lincoln Theatre the same night featuring Randy Weston, one of the pre-eminent living pianists and trendsetters of the music; a D’Rivera-Roy Haynes concert Oct. 6 at the Lincoln; and a final night concert Oct. 8 featuring Duke Ellington School of the Arts musical maestro and saxophonist Davey Yarborough with guest artists D’Rivera and trumpet master Roy Hargrove performing for “A Recreation of the Legendary Cotton Club” at the Willard Hotel.
  
The brainchild of Fishman, former manager of Dizzy Gillespie and current manager of Hugh Masekela, the festival still has its connection to D.C. club venues.
  
From Spoken Word and D.C. Bass Choir at Busboys & Poets to Thad Wilson and the W.E.S. Group at the Bohemian Caverns to Wallace Roney at Blues Alley to Jason Marshall at Twins, DEJF is alive all week at traditional nightspots too.
  
A bonus is a Geri Allen appearance on Oct.6. A Howard University product, Allen returns to D.C. with Jimmy Cobb and Ron Carter. Talk about heritage. Allen has made her own place in the legacy of the music by fashioning a superb career playing uniquely innovative blends of traditional and free jazz, world music and jazz with funk, rock and soul flavorings.
  
Cobb and Carter, of course, need no introductions in any piece about heritage. On a personal note, this writer had an early introduction to the classics by virtue of a special opportunity to interview and critique Carter when the all-star bassist played with the V.S.O.P group that had Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter touring in the ‘70s. And this writer was fortunate to catch Cobb, veteran of vintage Miles Davis groups among other classic ensembles, playing a gig at the Iridium in New York earlier this year with saxophonist legend George Coleman, Buster Williams and Mike Stern during their music of Miles Davis tour.
  
For details on all the artists and performances, check out dejazzfest.org.