Downtown Washington was eerily quiet this Saturday evening, the streets almost deserted following an earlier snowstorm. Moving around was still difficult and most people were smart and stayed home. But the lure of seeing an artist who had swept five Down Beat polls (bass, arranger, small group, big band, CD of the year) was too much and I managed to make it to the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center to hear Dave Holland's Big Band play selections from their most recent CDs, What Goes

Dave Valentin- flute; Dr. Saïs Kamalidiin - flute, alto flute, director; Shyesha Osler, Stacey Winningham, Maya Colemon - flute; Dr. Thomas Korth - piano; Prof. Gerard Kunkel - guitar; Hamilton Hayes - bass; Clyde Adams - drums; "Killer" Joe Falero, Ivan Navas - Latin percussion Guest artists: Arch Thompson, Dr. Peter Westbrook, Dr. Ronald Ziegler - flutes; Byron Vickers - sound technician With the new year Washington DC welcomes what has become an annual event - the Flute Fête at Howard Univ

Every Sunday evening, at the Tabard Inn in downtown Washington DC, bassist Victor Dvoskin provides one of the great bargains of the Washington DC jazz scene, an evening of free jazz. No, not three hours of avant-garde expression, three hours of fine jazz music with no cover and no minimum. For the price of a glass of wine or, in my case, a cup of tea, one can sit in the Tabard Inn's lounge and hear Victor, a top-quality bassist, working with a duo with the best local guitarists and/or keyboard p

Friday evening at the Kennedy Center saw another performance in their Beyond Category series. The group in question was the Joe Lovano Nonet presenting their Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool" Suite. It turned out to be a highly enjoyable evening, although it was not exactly what I was expecting from the concert's title. The Birth of the Cool refers to trumpeter Miles Davis' nine piece ensemble that made a series of historic recordings in 1949, while appearing briefly at Ne

During the first fifty years of its development, the vast majority of women performers who broke into jazz were either singers or pianists. It was only with the onset of World War II that women started to make major inroads into brass and reed sections. Like Rosy the Rivetter they were replacing men who had been drafted into military service. Post 1945, women retained many of their gains but, as in other fields, they have been engaged in an uphill struggle and, while there are many fine female m