Best DC jazz presenter: Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center presents more jazz in 2009-10 than all the other US government cultural institutions combined — some 40 concerts of new and established talent in all styles. No surprise, public performance being the Center’s reason for being, while the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution are mandated for research and archival activities. But who supports the KenCen’s jazz?
McLaughlin-Corea Five Peace Band and a fan’s disappointment
The Five Peace Band — guitarist John McLaughlin, keyboardist Chick Corea, alto saxist Kenny Garrett, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade — opened the last leg of a multi-month tour with a three-night stand at Jazz at Lincoln Center last night. The players’ musicianship can’t be faulted, their energy was high and they looked like they were deeply engaged in having fun. So are my expectations and/or standards disproportionate, unfulfillable? Why at concert end did I feel more enervated than invigorated?Â
Eddie Palmieri sets Jazz at Lincoln Center afire
Eddie Palmieri, the genius and prophet of Afro-Caribbean jazz, showed Herbie Hancock, maybe Wynton Marsalis and certainly the roaring audience at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall a thing or three last weekend. His band La Perfecta II, reconstituting the instrumentation and compositions for mambo, cha-cha and pachanga dancing Palmieri introduced in 1961, blew the lid off the joint as I’ve heard no other band do since it opened in 2004, establishing Latin music’s clavé rhythm for all time at the core of what Marsalis likes to call “the house that swing built.”Â
Classic Monk, classical Jazz at Lincoln Center
The jazziest scene at the second night of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Monk Festival was in the fifth floor atrium, during intermission of simultaneous concerts by pianist Danilo Perez’s trio (reprising his cd Panamonk, in the Allen Room) and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra performing members’ arrangements of Monk’s music in big band settings led by Wynton Marsalis, with featured pianist Marcus Roberts (in more formal Rose Hall).Â