First, I will start by apologizing for the lack of a preview for last week’s program, which featured a preview of jazz performances in the first handful of months of 2020. Between the New Year’s Day special programing & posting about that and pitching the WPFW Year-End Mini-Drive, both on air and online, I just did not get it done. Sorry! By the way, we raised over 120% of our goal. Thank you to all who gave.
2020 Preview Continued
Last week, we began a preview of the Jazz Year 2020, by looking at some of the artists who will be appearing from January through May of this year. These mostly included those who will be playing in performing arts venues like the Kennedy-Center, https://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/genre/JAZ; 6th & I, https://www.washingtonperformingarts.org/genre/index?k=jazz; and Milk Boy Art House, https://theclarice.umd.edu/series/2017-2018-milkboy-arthouse, in the DMV. We also heard from Rhiannon Giddens, Spike Wilner, and a cut from Porgy & Bess, which I will be seeing farther afield. This coming week, we will here from some of the musicians, who will be performing the next couple-few months at various clubs, including Blue Alley, http://www.bluesalley.com, and Keystone Korner Baltimore, https://www.keystonekornerbaltimore.com/.
Spoleto Festival USA
Last week we played a tune by Rhiannon Giddens, whose opera, Omar, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/arts/music/rhiannon-giddens-opera.html, will debut at the 2020 Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC. Spoleto has now announced the entire lineup for this year’s festival, including the Jazz series. The series schedule can be seen here: https://spoletousa.org/current-season/shows/. The series includes Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration with pianist Jason Moran and his wife, mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran. This performance will be at the Charles Gaillard Center, https://www.dmsas.com/project/gaillard-center/, which my architectural firm designed. Mr. Moran was also featured in a nice article on the front page of yesterday’s Washington Post, Arts and Style section, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/jason-moran-is-making-jazz-history-dont-miss-it/2020/01/01/923747b8-25bb-11ea-ad73-2fd294520e97_story.html. Thus, I will be featuring a few more tunes by Mr. Moran to celebrate.
Porgy and Bess
As I stated last week on air, I am heading to NYC on Saturday to see the Opera, Porgy and Bess, at the Metropolitan Opera. I cannot wait. It has gotten rave reviews, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/arts/music/porgy-bess-met-opera-review.html . For those of you who might be interested, I know they added shows, but I do not know if they have all been sold out yet.
I also had the opportunity to see a very different staging of Porgy and Bess, in May of 2016 for the first Spoleto Festival back in the Gaillard. That Spoleto production, aimed to right the unconscious racism of the original production through the contributions of “visual designer” Jonathan Green (a product of the local Gullah culture) by celebrating that culture. It was a visually stunning performance. So, for part of the show, I will play some Jazz renditions of tunes from the opera.
It’s another somewhat eclectic program on tap. Please give a listen.
