Since the demise of the One Step Down, Twins Jazz, along with its sister club Twins Lounge, remains one of the few active jazz clubs in the Washington DC area, and the main alternative to the considerably pricier Georgetown establishment Blues Alley. Founded in 1986 by Ethiopian twin sisters, the club is still run in the most hands-on style, with owner Kelley Tesfaye in the kitchen supervising the menu of American, Ethiopian and Carribean dishes (I am particularly fond of th

Since its dedication in January of 2004, the John Birks Gillespie Auditorium at the New York Bahá'í Center located at 53 East 11th Street (between University Place and Broadway)-- has featured a series of jazz performances every Tuesday evening. Organized by former Gillespie pianist Mike Longo himself a follower of the Bahá'í faith and dubbed "Jazz Tuesdays," these regular concerts offer high-quality performances in a pleasing space at very reasonable ticket prices $15 or $10 for student

Well, Ronnie Wells and her dedicated band of helpers have pulled it off again. For the 14th year in a row they have put together the East Coast Jazz Festival, a kaleidoscope of events including twenty-three ticketed performances on the main stage, eighty-six free, open to the public concerts, workshops and jam sessions, and forty high-quality exhibitors and vendors. Attendance exceeded expectations with an estimated three-thousand people participating in one way or another, including many comple

The Nyumburu Cultural Center has been a part of the University of Maryland College Park for 27 years, providing a program of "black social, cultural and intellectual interaction," including lectures, seminars, art exhibits, workshops in the dramatic arts, dance, music and creative writing. Academic courses in blues, jazz, gospel music performance and creative writing are also offered. Nyumburu, ("freedom house" in Swahili) produces the Black Explosion Newspaper and is also home to

Those who love big band jazz have slim pickins these days. Other than the excellent Dave Holland Big Band that had graced the Kennedy Center stage a couple of weeks earlier, since Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin called it quits last year, there is not much going on apart from the ghost orchestras (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie), the retro experiments at Lincoln Center, occasional recordings by such as Gerald Wilson, and local groups such as Carol Sudhalter's Astor