NEA Jazz Masters played beautiful music at the Wharf: notes about the 2023 DC Jazz Festival
This past weekend (September 2-3, 2023) the DC Jazz Festival, now in its nineteenth year, hosted some of jazz music’s most celebrated performers for two full days of music and “Meet the Artist” interviews down at The Wharf situated right in the heart of the District. Performers included 2023 Grammy Award winning Best New Artist and Best Vocal Jazz winner Samara Joy (whose performance was arguably the most anticipated and most celebrated performance of the entire weekend); pianist/educator/bandleader and 2022 Artist in Residence for the DC Jazz Festival, Orrin Evans (whose band members included jazz heavyweights such as trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Robert Hurst, saxophonist Gary Thomas, drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, and guitarist Kevin Eubanks); uber-talented multi-instrumentalist and educator, Warren Wolf; 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, educator, and multi-award-winning trumpeter Etienne Charles; pianist/vocalist/songwriter Mark Meadows; and multi-award-winning, Afro-Cuban (and Mexican) pianist and leader of the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble, Arturo O’Farrill. While each of the featured performers who graced one of the Festival’s four stages this past weekend all put on dynamic performances, it was the NEA Jazz Masters that truly set the weekend ablaze!
From the outside looking in, saxophonists Charles Lloyd, Donald Harrison, and Kenny Garrett, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, and bassist Dave Holland couldn’t be more different. Born in different eras and as part of different communities and cultures, each of these global talents came to jazz in their own way and in their own time yet somehow, they all managed to excel to the highest pinnacle in jazz. With all that’s seemingly different about them, this past weekend, they all delivered performances that were technically proficient and effortlessly beautiful. While that is likely true of all of this year’s Festival performers (this year’s performers were stellar), what was special about the Jazz Masters is that watching them perform felt like history meeting ingenuity. It felt like more than just hearing good musicians play. It felt like a nod to our ancestors and a warm embrace to those who are still trying to find their way. They didn’t sound the same, but their music offered the same deep knowing; that knowing that we were listening to what we came to hear while also being exposed to what our souls needed. The gift these legends shared this past weekend is not something that can be taught or explained, but we should all be grateful that it exists. It made for a beautiful weekend.
Packed with a history as rich and diverse as the fabric of our nation, there are few places in the United States better suited to host such a festival than Washington, DC. Jazz music is Black American music. It is the music of our African ancestors who toiled on American soil, but it belongs to all of us. It has passed through the hands, mouths, and horns of those brave enough to foster its growth and it has found a home in many lands. It’s jazz, and this past weekend (and for at least a few Festival weekends of DC Jazz Festivals’ past), that music rang loudly from a location that likely served as the site of “the largest slave escape attempt in the United States.”
A touch of history found at the pier nearest the District Stage at the Wharf (photo by Bridget Arnwine)
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
See you next year, DC Jazz Festival!
