The word – the troubling, discouraging word – didn’t come from their landlord, remembers Layne Garrett. Sometime late in the summer of 2020, while the world was still discovering what it means to be ill-prepared for a global pandemic, someone was perusing a website that tracks development projects in D.C., and noticed a proposal for affordable housing to be built in the Takoma neighborhood. The proposal was already ploughing its way through the approval process. The address was 6950 Maple Street: the address of Rhizome DC. The information hovered around a while, a rumor waiting to be confirmed ..read more

Happy New Year! I hope you all – readers, musicians and other D.C. jazz movers and shakers – got to take some time to rest, recharge and relax over the holiday period.  January is, perhaps expectedly, a rather slow month, shows-wise. The scene is resetting and adjusting, and touring artists are not quite back on the road yet after the holidays. The calendar is still full of great local music every week, but it will not be as fully “filled” out as usual, and some venues are taking a week or two off early this month to pursue the same kind of rebalancing that we all should. You’ll ..read more

The late saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist and polymath Andrew White was a D.C. jazz legend. At once a musician ahead of his time and an authoritative scholar on the music of John Coltrane, he also played bass for Stevie Wonder, the 5th Dimension and Weather Report (with whom he also featured on French horn); earned accolades from Trane and Cannonball Adderley; and built and independent jazz and publishing label with a prolificacy that may have been dwarfed only by Sun Ra’s El Saturn Music. Still, though he was respected by fellow musicians, neither national jazz critics nor the general publi ..read more

It has been a difficult year, by all accounts, but on the D.C. music scene it’s also been a hopeful one. The list you see below is only the tip of the iceberg: This was one of the strongest crops of recordings that CapitalBop has seen since our team started doing year-end recaps a dozen years ago. Back then, our staff was just two people. This year we had our broadest base of voters ever, with a nine-person panel weighing in, consisting of CapitalBop staffers, confidantes and well-known contributors to the DMV music-journalism world. There are some significant notes attached to this year’s lis ..read more

The Afro-Bop Alliance is known for combining the swaying, dance floor-ready rhythms of Latin America – Cuba, in particular – with the harmonic and melodic intricacies of a sharp, heady bebop sound. The DMV-based group had its reputation cemented in 2008, when its Caribbean Jazz Project won the Latin Grammy for Jazz Album of the Year. Under the direction of drummer Joe McCarthy, the Afro-Bop Alliance has morphed and grown over the past decade-and-a-half, and has racked up a total of four Wammie Awards from the Washington Area Music Association. Today McCarthy has altered and expanded the ensemb ..read more

We’re excited to announce that CapitalBop will present Joel Ross’ Good Vibes, one of the most acclaimed and cutting-edge groups in jazz today, in a special “CB Presents” concert at NYU Washington DC, on Saturday, Jan. 7. This group has taken the jazz world by storm, but has somehow not made it to D.C. yet. This show will be Good Vibes’ DMV-area debut. Ross’ set will be preceded by an opening performance by Baltimore-based trumpet phenom Brandon Woody and UPENDO. Good Vibes is composed of bandleader Joel Ross on the vibraphone, Jeremy Corren on piano, Or Bareket on bass and Jeremy Dutton on dru ..read more

The Catalytic Sound Festival will bring together creative musicians from D.C., Baltimore and beyond, to Rhizome DC this Saturday and Sunday. The lineup will include well-known performers like Dave Ballou, Nate Wooley, Brian Settles and Janel & Anthony, among many others. The area hasn’t seen such a significant gathering of free improvisers and imaginative jazz performers since before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The two-day program is only one part of a larger, international festival occurring this month in seven cities across the United States, Norway and Holland. All these events are org ..read more

Dominique Bianco featuring Julius Rodriguez Blues Alley Friday, November 8, 2022 For decades, critics, musicians and fans alike have claimed to hear the looming death knell of jazz, but at every turn there’s still been a little bit of rhythm on the EKG. The young, DMV-based vocalist Dominique Bianco’s performance on Friday night — celebrating her new EP, “I’m All Smiles” — was a sign of life for straight-ahead jazz.  Bianco took the stage at Blues Alley with a confidence that comes from years of well-received performances and accolades. To her right sat Julius Rodriguez, a rising star pia ..read more

Whether she’s putting her spin on a Burt Bacharach number or an old American folk standard — or performing one of her own keenly perceptive songs — Cécile McLorin Salvant draws out the human drama of the words she sings in exquisite detail, delivering with the narrative command you’d expect on a Broadway theater or an opera house stage. Salvant’s folk opera-esque song cycle, The Ogresse, which returns to the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater on Saturday, almost a full four years after its area debut there in 2018, represents the height of her fully immersive style.  CapitalBop was there in ..read more

Blues Alley is already back to presenting live music, less than a week after the club’s attic caught on fire. It resumes its previously scheduled programming on Tuesday, with violinist Dave Kline’s month-long residency kicking things off. Kline is one of a few local favorites playing the storied Georgetown club this month. Some others include pianist Benito Gonzalez – a longtime fixture at the now-shuttered Twins, and before that at the erstwhile HR-57 (sensing a pattern here?) – the weekend of Nov. 19, pianist Joshua Espinoza on Nov. 7, and the instrumental post-rock and jazz trio Messthetics ..read more