Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra Plays Ella

The American Museum of Art recently hosted a special "Ella at 95" concert series, featuring DC's own Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra.

Christmas at the 930 Club

Over the weekend, I went to a City and Colour show at the legendary 930 Club.  While waiting outside, I took a few shots of the 930's trademark antenna, now string with Christmas lights for the holiday season. 

Fleet Foxes at Merriweather Post Pavilion

Here's a couple of shots from Fleet Foxes (click for this post's soundtrack) recent show at the Merriweather Post Pavilion (click here for the venue's really impressive place in music history) a great outdoor concert venue in Columbia, Maryland. If you're lucky, your seats are under the covered pavilion. If not, you perch on the sloping lawn behind the seats. And if you're really unlucky, it'll probably rain most of the day, like it did for this show.

Music for a Rainy Day

I few weeks ago, I spent a blustery day wondering around Penn Quarter. It was one of those days where it couldn't decide if it wanted to rain. There'd be maybe a half hour of grey skies and heavy winds, followed immediately by half an hour of torrential rain. You could mark time by raining-not-raining cycles. I was taking a rare day off, so when I heard a trumpet echoing over the cutting wind, I just followed the sound until I found it. I went over between songs and spoke to the man, as he sat on his bucket, graciously thanking whomever dropped a few coins into his bag. It didn't really matter to him if some people dropped change or a dollar bill or two, while others passed by. He knew he was performing for the whole neighborhood. His lips were raw and blistered from hours spent playing his trumpet, even in inclement weather. "I just want to share my music," he said, in a husky voice reminiscent of Satchmo himself.

For the past few days, it's been raining so hard that most of the Mid-Atlantic to North East coast is just a sea. There's so much devastating flooding all around DC, and my heart goes out to everyone who has lost their homes, after several weeks of pounding from earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and now flooding. Thankfully, my area of DC doesn't flood, but I could use a break from the rain. So I thought it might be appropriate to share a few mournful brass notes to get us all through the day.

DC Jazz Fest

The DC Jazz Fest is in, seriously, no pun intended, full swing. I found this out by accident when I went to my usual Office of the Day in Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian's Reynolds Center. You might remember this place from before, if not, here's another reminder. I didn't get much work done, but I did get a free show from Nasar Abadey & Supernova. (That's Abadey kickin' it on the drums.) And though they're really not my kind of jazz, it's still a great reminder of one of my favorite things about DC: Summer always means free music.

Her Face is a Map of the World: KT Tunstall at the Sixth and I

One of the first things KT Tunstall did when she took the stage Wednesday night at the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue was thank the audience for selling out in roughly 35 minutes. We all cheered to congratulate ourselves on such a tremendous feat and to show our enthusiasm for the performance we'd been waiting so long to see. So long. The doors opened at 7, and it was about 9:50 before KT finally went on. For the first 2 hours or so, we sat through mediocre man-band Miggs and angstful and unkempt Robert Francis. I think we gave them all a fair shot. But after the first song didn't see ladies' underwear flying towards the stage, the Miggs lead singer said, "After the show, we're just going to play in the RV because we like an audience that pays attention." We stopped paying attention. Robert Francis had a few teens of both sexes squealing from the first couple of rows, but the show turned very emo very fast. There were lots of songs about fire and darkness and burning and pain. Then I may or may not have broken his loop pedal with my sheer mental will.

The second thing KT did after she took the stage was start up her own loop tracks, full of human beat boxes and back-up doo-wops. You may have caught on that I'm not the world's foremost loop pedal enthusiast, but that didn't prevent KT from KILLING it. Every song was equal parts energy and talent, as she worked her way through a setlist that covered her greatest hits like "Big Black Horse and a Cherry Tree" all the way to her recent EP Scarlett Tulip, which is only available at shows and her merch site.

whiskey barrel guitar

Did I mention the talent? During the course of the night, KT played numerous guitars, including one above whose body is made entirely of whiskey barrels, the piano, drums, um, how do you say?...oral percussions, and the kazoo. And the whole show was laced with witty banter in her irresistibly Scottish accent.

Out to the Birchmere and Over the Rhine

DC has a lot of great music venues, but one of the things that make The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA so great is the food. The Birchmere is modeled after a Mississippi blues club, and in Mississippi, we don't do anything without a plate of food in front of us. (You're probably seen something about that on Oprah.) When we end up in distant and exotic locales like DC, it gets hard to find decent fried catfish or our mama's red beans and rice. Throw in a cornbread muffin and rocka-bluesy music like Over the Rhine, and you've got yourself a night.

I was supposed to be taking concert photos, but due to a series of unfortunate and convoluted situations that wouldn't even interest my mother (Hi, Mom.), I wasn't able to bring my camera, so I was stuck with a few blurry pics from my iPhone. So here's one, in all its cheesy phone-cam glory, of the entrance to the main dining hall, which, I promise you, was filled with just as many men as women, despite evidence to the contrary. From the songs, to the banter, to the Garrison Keillor-esqe storytelling, the band brought 100% entertainment from start to finish. I could try to describe it in words, from the scorching vocals to the throbbing bass line, but, as you can see, it would start to sound pornographic. Instead I'm going to leave it to the professional. My buddy over at District Noise has done a much better job.

Rah-Rah-Ahah-Ah.

Why wouldn't she be on my blog? She's everywhere else. Frankly, I'm surprised she's not on your blog.

I came across the picture the other night while reorganizing my photo archive. Admittedly, it's a little old now. I took it in front of the Capitol at the National Equality March in October of '09, but it's particularly topical because DC is all a-frenzy with the return of Gaga. Tickets to next Thursday's sold out show at the Verizon Center are still available on Stub Hub for anywhere from $210 to $8225.00 per ticket. No, that's not a typo.