Jazz – Bandwidth

On The First Album From D.C.’s Feedel Band, The Future Of Ethio-Jazz Is Now

Steve Kiviat — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 10:00:47 +0000

Ethio-jazz combo the The Feedel Band is best known for evoking the funky, minor-chord, ’70s-era East African music collected on the Ethiopiques compilation series — but on its self-released debut album, Ethiopian Ocean, the D.C. ensemble reaches beyond its core sound.

“[W]e’re trying to take that whole Ethio-jazz concept and move it forward into this century,” trombonist Ben Hall says about the album. “We’re trying to put a spin on the older dance styles that we love, and still have it danceable but with our own twist to it.”

Most of the compositions are instrumentals that were penned by Feedel’s keyboardist and leader, Araya Woldemichael, with two songs from other members. Some have a relaxed feel more appropriate for listening than dancing — “Behelme,” for example, starts off smooth before transforming into a more straight-ahead jazz number.

Other cuts are more vibrant: The title track starts off with a guest playing the Ethiopian masenqo, a one-string violin, and then a rough-edged male voice comes in, using the pentatonic scale identified with Ethiopian church music. Eventually, the song adds psychedelic horn riffs. Album closer “Araya’s Mood” has a repeating James Brown-in-Addis modal structure along with fuzzy, psychedelic guitar lines and clever keyboard fingerwork.

Hall says the six-year-old Feedel Band has wanted to do an album since the beginning but “we weren’t able to finance it till now.” They self-financed the release and Hall says they have bought Facebook ads that have spurred interest in Ethiopia. The band recorded Ethiopian Ocean from May through August at Cue Recording Studios in Falls Church, Virginia, with engineer Blaine Misner, and then sent it to veteran mastering engineer Charlie Pilzer, who put together the finished product at Airshow Mastering in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Friday, the band is scheduled to perform with veteran Ethiopian pianist Girma Beyene at D.C.’s Atlas Performing Arts Center. Beyene — who worked as a gas station attendant in D.C. before moving back to Ethiopia — is best known for his rhythmic jazz standard “Muziqawi Silt,” and playing with legendary group the Walias Band.

“The project with Girma Beyene is to recreate his songs with a Feedel Band sound,” Hall says. “We’ve been transcribing the recordings and rehearsing them to put forward the best product for Girma.”

Feedel Band and Girma Beyene perform Oct. 14 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

Review: Allen Toussaint, ‘American Tunes’

Patrick Jarenwattananon — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Note: NPR’s First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you can still listen with the Spotify playlist at the bottom of the page.

In the last decade or so of his life, the record producer, composer, songwriter and arranger Allen Toussaint started playing a lot more live shows. The root cause was sad — a consequence of relocating from his native New Orleans after hurricane-related flooding — but the performances were everyday magic. Often it would be just him at the piano as he played a broad selection of his hits, his non-hits, songs he had a hand in, songs he just liked. He would sing without affectation, tell stories as one would at the dinner table, and deviate frequently. It was obvious that he was a master musician, able to play Romantic classical masterpieces and Professor Longhair rhumba riffs in the same breath. He was also hosting you at his salon, with a genuine gentlemanly manner and a wink of vast experience.

American Tunes, released posthumously following his death last November, isn’t designed to capture or simulate a live concert experience. But it does present a side of Toussaint he seemed to emphasize at those shows — an almost retrospective, autumnal focus on the ideas which made him and his music. This is a program of largely all-time-classic songs from jazz and pop history, emphasizing his hometown and personal hero Professor Longhair. Ellingtonia staples “Come Sunday” and “Lotus Blossom” are in the mix with “Big Chief” and “Mardi Gras In New Orleans”; equally on the level are tunes by fellow pianist-composer-virtuosi Fats Waller, Bill Evans, Earl Hines and even New Orleans’ own Louis Moreau Gottschalk. It’s hard not to read a subtext here: that all these songs belonged in the canon which gave rise to Toussaint and his city, and thus to the bigger picture of important American tunes.

This project was recorded with producer Joe Henry in two parts: one a solo session and the other with a rhythm section (bassist David Piltch and drummer Jay Bellerose) joined by special guests with their own slanted Americana: Bill Frisell, Charles Lloyd, Greg Leisz, Rhiannon Giddens, Van Dyke Parks. The delivery is generally elegant, as expected, with little mess around the edges, and taken alone the acoustic politeness could grow frustrating from a central architect of R&B and funk. (Toussaint’s digressive, legato reading of “Big Chief” stands out.) But dapper and refined were his personal aesthetic guidelines in life as in music; this is his tribute, after all.

Toward the end, Toussaint selects “Southern Nights,” a signature song and also a 1977 hit for country singer Glen Campbell. It’s one of the few songs Toussaint ever wrote specifically for himself to perform (apparently inspired by fellow behind-the-scenester Van Dyke Parks’ directive to “consider that you were going to die in two weeks”), and he initially saw little commercial potential for the languid pentatonic melody. He would play it toward the end of concerts, taking a long time to tell the story behind it, and the imagery of his unhurried porch-sits felt transportive. But here, it’s just a florid instrumental, and only the penultimate song Toussaint chose. The record actually ends on a spare arrangement of Paul Simon‘s “American Tune,” a poetic sketch of world-weariness and hoping against hope. Is that another cheeky wink? The bridge, after all, does include these lines:

And I dreamed I was dying
And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly

A Chat With The Creator Of ‘Black Broadway On U,’ A Trove Of D.C. Cultural History

Ally Schweitzer and Paulette Mensah — Fri, 06 May 2016 00:08:32 +0000

On U Street in 2016, it’s easy to stumble across vestiges of the corridor’s African-American history. But that history is often presented through a foggy lens.

Take the Lincoln Theatre, the legendary music venue at 1215 U St. NW. Owned by the District but booked by 9:30 Club operator I.M.P., it’s no longer the epicenter of black music it once was. Then there’s the high-end apartment building at 1301 U St. NW. Called the Ellington, the residence pays homage to a music giant born in Washington, but costs far more than many jazz musicians could afford.

Shellée Haynesworth doesn’t want U Street’s black cultural history to be washed away in the undertow of development. That’s why in 2013 the multimedia producer — who’s also a third generation Washingtonian — started “Black Broadway on U,” a sweeping, grant- and donation-funded digital project that remembers the black artists and innovators who made U Street as vital as New York during the Harlem Renaissance.

Saturday, Haynesworth co-presents the show “Black Broadway on U: Echoes of an Era” during the Funk Parade, the daylong music festival expected to shut down U Street for part of an afternoon. In advance of the event, Bandwidth contributor Paulette Mensah talked with Haynesworth about her research, the state of black hangouts on U Street NW and whether D.C. schoolchildren are being taught enough about U Street’s history. Here are snippets from their conversation. —Ally Schweitzer

This interview, conducted by Paulette Mensah, has been edited for length and clarity.

Bandwidth: What circumstances led to you starting the “Black Broadway on U” project?

Shellée Haynesworth: My grandparents both grew up in the U Street corridor. That’s where black D.C. [was] because of redistricting, segregation and housing laws. We got pushed out of Georgetown. So one day I was driving [my grandmother] on U Street, and she was like, ‘Oh my God,” and started telling the story of what was here and what they did. That influenced me to get out and do something because [the neighborhood] was changing rapidly.

Haynesworth’s grandmother (center, age 12) with her parents when they moved to 936 Westminister St. NW from Louisiana, circa July 1932 (Courtesy Shellée Haynesworth)

I feel like a lot of people in my age group — in their 20s and younger — don’t necessarily understand the history of U Street.

Exactly. And I don’t like to make blanket comments about African Americans, our people, but I just don’t think we care enough, you know? And I think it’s that institutional knowledge — that knowledge we just don’t pass down. Because it’s painful for some people. On this project journey, I’ve had older people tell me that it’s too sad, no one wants to talk about it. Well, we need to talk about it, and we need to celebrate it. That’s really my goal, and I’m trying to get more funding [to help tell a] deeper story… so I can create more content that supports and reflects why this community was significant to black America at large, not just D.C.

How do you do your research?

My goal is to tell the authentic story [from] people who lived through the history, so a lot of the information I’ve gotten from people I’ve interviewed. Historically, [black history] hasn’t been a priority when you look at these American institutions. They don’t document it unless it’s to their benefit. So I discover places that aren’t listed anywhere, people that live in the community by interviewing a lot of authentic voices. But of course I’ve done the traditional research by reading a lot of books and going down to [historical societies] and the Library of Congress.

What are your thoughts on the recent closure of jazz club Bohemian Caverns and the financial troubles plaguing the historically black Howard Theatre?

We’ve got to get back to understanding that in order for our businesses to survive and thrive, we have to support [them]. And I think by getting a better sense of the culture and history behind some of these places, maybe people will be more inclined to support [them]. I think we’re walking away from this cultural legacy instead of embracing it, you know?

How do you think we should continue to preserve black history on U Street?

We need to collaborate, the African-American community. I think what happens is there are so many things happening every day, there’s this issue, there’s crime, there’s this — so somehow, we’ve got to realize that everything is important. The people who want to preserve and revive and keep the history alive, somehow we have to collaborate.

[I hope] to get more people to understand why we’ve got to get this history out of the boxes and get people to understand that this was really a significant community, and I think more significant than Harlem. I mean, no disrespect to Harlem, but we didn’t own the Cotton Club and some of the major venues. They were owned by the external community.

“They’re teaching our students here in D.C. about the Harlem Renaissance, but they don’t teach them about the black renaissance in their own backyard.” — Shellée Haynesworth

I’ll just share this little story. I was doing some online research and came across this [image of] Ella Fitzgerald … at 18 years old, at Howard Theatre, performing with Chick Webb. So that just gives you a sense. This is 1935. The story is that Ella Fitzgerald actually won amateur night at 17 at Howard Theatre, and that’s how she hooked up with Billy Eckstine and Chick Webb. But all you hear about is her starting in Harlem. Well, she actually performed here before that — and won amateur night. They were doing amateur night years before they were doing it at the Apollo Theater. And you had folks like Billy Eckstine. He won. And he went to Armstrong High School here in D.C.

They’re teaching our students here in D.C. about the Harlem Renaissance, but they don’t teach them about the black renaissance in their own backyard. Just recently I went to Anacostia High School with Blair Ruble, who wrote a book about U Street. You should’ve seen the kids. They were blown away. Just blown away — because they had no idea.

All-American Insurance Company Parade on U Street (between Vermont and 9th streets), circa 1950. (Scurlock Studio via National Museum of American History)

And there were black [people] thriving in Georgetown long before white people lived there.

Yes, and Anacostia. So my goal is to show our people that even in the midst of this gentrification — which in my opinion is like the second coming of what we experienced in black Washington in the early 20th century — here’s what we did during that time, and we can do it again. That’s my goal. It’s to inspire, educate and elevate.

“Black Broadway on U: Echoes of an Area” takes place May 7 at Mulebone Restaurant. Explore the project on blackbroadwayonu.com. Top photo: Ave Marie Odell (center, DCPS educator) with family and friends at the Lincoln Colonnade Ballroom, formerly located underneath the Lincoln Theatre, circa 1940s. (Gina Strange Family via Black Broadway on U Archives)

Review: Gregory Porter, ‘Take Me To The Alley’

Patrick Jarenwattananon — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Note: NPR’s First Listen audio comes down after the album is released.

Last summer, the massively popular British electronic duo Disclosure released a new album, and chose a song called “Holding On” as its lead single. It performed well on the U.S. and U.K. dance charts and spawned no fewer than five official remixes. It also featured the vocals of Gregory Porter, which means it brought someone theretofore known as a jazz singer onto, for instance, the beaches of Ibiza.

Full Disclosure: You won’t get it here on Porter’s new album. You will get a slower, acoustic, reharmonized version of “Holding On,” arranged in the way Porter usually makes records. Other than a few supplemental musicians, Take Me To The Alley is driven by his working band of many years and the producer (Kamau Kenyatta) with whom he’s worked since the 1990s. This is good, for that crew has developed a winning and popular formula, a pleasing summation of groove traditions where Porter’s voice can overpower, manhandle, envelop and soothe, all at once.

You’d have to mention Porter’s songwriting in that equation, and that’s featured a bit more than usual here. He’s got a clever way with parable and metaphor, often to incite some kind of social comment, as with the compassion of the visiting dignitary in the title track or the pan-African call in “French African Queen.” There’s a song for Porter’s young son (“Don’t Lose Your Steam”) and one about his young son (“Day Dream”). Porter has roots in the black church — his mother (the inspiration for “More Than A Woman”) was a minister of the COGIC denomination — and “In Heaven” is a song his family sings to departed kin. Naturally, those gospel roots often transmutate into songs about various romances, and there’s more than a handful of those songs here, too.

Sonically, the band concocts a variety of pockets, both barnstorming and languid; there’s little concern about fashion or complexity, just execution. And, of course, there’s Porter’s voice, which — what’s left to say when the brawn/warmth dualism is so self-evident? Take Me To The Alley doesn’t break new frontiers for Porter, nor for the genre delimiter he’s said to represent, but those aren’t the aesthetic ideals it seeks to reach. If forced, you’d call it pop-jazz, except it’s the rare kind, with a simplicity unblemished by artistic compromise. Or maybe it’s just that the now-familiar sound of his own design has become genuinely popular, even before Disclosure entered the picture, and it’s a pleasure to see that sort of talent find its own way.
Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

The Harry Bells: A Strong Contender For Most Boisterous Band In D.C.

Michael J. West — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 20:45:33 +0000

Four members of D.C.’s The Harry Bells — saxophonists Matt Rippetoe and Jonathan Parker, trumpeter Joe Herrera and trombonist Ben Ford — are jazz cats. The third saxophonist, Chris Watling, comes out of R&B. Percussionist Nathan Graham tends toward rock, and his cohorts Mylie Durham IV and Josh Kay are funksters.

So what does this eclectic octet play when they all get together? The Harry Belafonte songbook.

Not to say that The Harry Bells are calypso, either, though that Afro-Caribbean style is the one most associated with Belafonte’s 50-year career.

“I’ve never claimed that we play calypso, per se, because we don’t necessarily play the rhythms associated with that,” says Rippetoe, the band’s founder and leader. “I don’t know how to categorize it — except that it’s an instrumental tribute to Harry Belafonte and the music he made famous.”

It could also be categorized as boisterous. The five tracks on The Harry Bells’ fifth release, The Roosevelt Island EP — which they fête Thursday at Boundary Stone — comprise Trinidadian calypso and Jamaican mento rhythms, and each one threatens to dance right out of the speakers. That sense of rhythmic fun is ultimately the link that binds its eight players.

Rippetoe fell in love with Belafonte’s music as a kid, when he first heard it in the 1988 Tim Burton movie Beetlejuice. (A pounding rendition of “Jump in the Line,” which concluded the movie, now concludes The Roosevelt Island EP.) He grew up with it and even passed on to his now 4-year-old son, born when Rippetoe was living in Brooklyn, via a ritual the saxophonist called “Belafonte Bath Time.”

“Joe Herrera was visiting me in Brooklyn one of those bath nights,” Rippetoe recalls, “and we both agreed that this stuff was too good not to do something with it on the bandstand.” From there it was just a matter of rounding up the right people — the ones, says Rippetoe, who could handle the rhythms and were fun to play with.

Their Belafonte book is about three dozen songs deep and is growing all the time. So far, The Harry Bells have recorded around 20 of the tunes on their four EPs. (They’ve also recorded a full-length CD, last winter’s Holidays with the Harry Bells, featuring Christmas songs performed in Afro-Caribbean arrangements.)

Does Belafonte himself, now retired from music, know about The Harry Bells?

“He has heard about us,” Rippetoe confirms. “He and his wife apparently gave us the thumbs-up. And I hope to send him some of this stuff soon.”

The Harry Bells play an EP release show April 14 at Boundary Stone.

Bidding Farewell To Bohemian Caverns, A D.C. Jazz Institution

Ally Schweitzer — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 13:53:49 +0000

This weekend brings the final performances at legendary D.C. jazz venue Bohemian Caverns. An institution at 11th and U streets for 90 years, the club officially closes its doors March 31, as Washington City Paper first reported.

On today’s Morning Edition, I talked to some folks who have been intimately involved in the space since Omrao Brown and his partners took it over a decade ago. Listen to the story here.

This weekend’s gigs at the Caverns are mostly sold out — except for a just-announced Sunday night jam session with The Young Lions. Tickets are still available for both sets. If you want ’em, act quickly.

Have your own memories from the Caverns? Share them in the comments.

Pictured: The Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra on Monday, March 21, 2016 (Ally Schweitzer/WAMU)

The D.C. Music Salon Peels Back Layers Of D.C. Music History

Ally Schweitzer — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 17:23:40 +0000

Go-go clanging around the walls of D.C.’s historic Howard Theatre. Soul music and jazz, rising from this town’s hardest-knock neighborhoods. Working-class whites, long gone from D.C. proper, communing over bluegrass and rock ‘n’ roll. These are the stories that newcomers don’t often hear — unless they find themselves at the D.C. Music Salon.

A series of conversations about regional music history, the D.C. Music Salon began in autumn 2010 with a talk called “Go-Go: Not An Intro.” Since that evening, dozens of stories from D.C.’s musical past have found an audience at the Watha T. Daniel Library in Shaw, attracting folks directly involved — or just deeply interested — in local culture beyond the latest restaurant.

Series founder Marc Eisenberg says the salon, which kicks off its sixth season tonight, has always been about storytelling — nothing more, nothing less.

“No one’s trying to sell you a beer,” Eisenberg says. “No one’s trying to sell you anything.”

The folks who gather around to hear tales from the region’s folk-music scene, or the yesteryear of local punk, are probably OK with that. And the personalities who appear on the casual panels, held Wednesdays every two months in the Shaw library’s basement, are paid only attention.

“I really like that no one makes a nickel on this any which way,” Eisenberg says. “I get to look everybody in the eye and say, ‘Nope, there’s no money. There’s no honorarium. It’s just a fun thing if you want to do it.'”

Tonight, Eisenberg begins the series’ newest season with a conversation about guitarist Charlie Byrd, a Virginia native known for his bossa-nova chops. Byrd died in 1999. Tonight, his friends share stories from his musical life, with plenty of tunes to go around.

Later in the season, the salon casts the spotlight over two other significant guitarists from the area: American Primitivist John Fahey (Feb. 10) and eclectic guitar whiz Danny Gatton (Dec. 9). Next spring, it covers boogie rocker Root Boy Slim (April 13), and wraps in June with a chat about local documentary Feast Your Ears: The Story of WHFS 102.3.

“I think we’ve found our audience,” Eisenberg says, “and I think we’ve figured out what types of stuff works best.”

That doesn’t mean Eisenberg has perfected his formula, though. He’d like to make the D.C. Music Salon a nonprofit and apply for grants. Plus, he wants to recruit someone to record the events — he acknowledges that it’s odd a series about history seems so unconcerned with its own — and he wants to cover more diverse territory in the future.

It’s only a coincidence, Eisenberg says, that this season focuses on so many white men.

“We have many seasons’ worth of additional ideas,” he says. “There are many different types of D.C. There are many things that are quote-unquote ‘so D.C.’ We’ll get to all of it.”

The D.C. Music Salon’s sixth season begins at 7 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw D.C. Public Library. Free admission.

Photo by Flickr user Emilio Küffer used under a Creative Commons license.

Review: Cécile McLorin Salvant, ‘For One To Love’

Patrick Jarenwattananon — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 23:03:00 +0000

It’s 2015, and jazz singing is weird. Right? Its conventions seem almost antiquated: the smarmy stage presence thing, the scat improvisation thing, the singing 50-year-old songs from forgotten musicals thing. In an age when singing the blues has been so thoroughly subsumed and reconfigured within other American pop-music traditions, when a main stem has become an offshoot branch, how is a self-aware jazz vocalist supposed to sell out emotionally — and expect to sell it to a wide audience?

The answer offered by Cécile McLorin Salvant on For One To Love, the follow-up to her breakout album WomanChild, isn’t to incorporate more popular idioms. There’s nothing wrong with that; this just isn’t that merger. If anything, it’s a retreat toward older forms: to a program almost entirely about romance won, lost or in various states of seeking, scored with a traditional acoustic piano-bass-drums sound (courtesy of Aaron Diehl on piano, Paul Sikivie on bass and Lawrence Leathers on drums). It’s not running away from jazz singing, whatever that is — just trying to be very, very good at it.

Salvant’s aesthetic idiosyncrasies immediately mark her apart, even within the space of “jazz singing.” She’s long had a predilection for finding rowdy songs from the dawn of the music to grow into — not exactly common for a twentysomething jazz musician — and that continues here in “Growlin’ Dan” and “What’s The Matter Now.” There’s a Francophone streak (“Le Mal De Vivre”), perhaps inherited from her French mother and formative time spent in the south of France. There’s a sardonic tongue, too, as she calls Burt Bacharach‘s “Wives And Lovers,” a song so sexist it appears on Mad Men. Increasingly, there’s a clear aspiration toward establishing herself as more than an interpreter, but also a sort of singer-songwriter. Five originals chronicle romantic yearnings and successes (“Fog,” “Look At Me,” “Left Over,” “Monday,” “Underling”), and they’re all taken as ballads or barely above that, with a loose sense for verse and interesting chord movement. It has at least the beginnings of a writing style that’s her own.

But being different don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got the chops to pull it off. That’s really where Salvant classes up. Her toolbox contains anywhere from a rich, husky voice to one that tiptoes theatrically, girlishly. She can play it straight, articulating and pacing clearly, or straddle the bar line with growls and whispers. She hasn’t just picked up the band to do a session; it bends, crawls along, snaps into line at pace, trills, fills and overlaps her, and she’s right on top of it. (Check that 10-minute essay on “Something’s Coming,” from West Side Story.) Salvant possesses the sort of intuition that promises to kill in a live setting; she’s studied these songs and how to embody them under any circumstance. In a word, that’s talent. Jazz singing or no, that sort of thing will out.
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

First Listen: Arturo O’Farrill, ‘Cuba: The Conversation Continues’

Felix Contreras — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 23:03:00 +0000

Last December, the night before Barack Obama announced that he would seek to update U.S. relations with Cuba, Arturo O’Farrill and The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra played a gig at Havana’s U.S. Interest Section.

O’Farrill took the ALJO there to record an album in the hopes of illustrating that, in spite of the divide between the two countries, the musical conversation had never stopped. With Obama’s announcement, they immediately found themselves in the middle of a historic moment that infused the recording with the kind of jubilation that mixes laughter with tears of happiness. The perfectly timed result, Cuba: The Conversation Continues, captures that cross-cultural collaboration, with cutting-edge works written by a carefully selected group of U.S. and Cuban composers.

O’Farrill has deep roots in Cuba: His father, Chico O’Farrill, was born there, and was becoming a well-known musician there before he moved to the U.S. and became part of this country’s Latin jazz revolution. The younger O’Farrill was invited to the Havana Jazz Fest back in 2013, and that set off the deeper dive into Cuban music which ultimately resulted in this record.

We will no doubt hear more about Cuban music as politicians work out the details of improved U.S.-Cuban relations. Don’t be surprised if some of the news coverage is superficial, ignoring the two countries’ long musical history together. You’d do well to start your listening with Cuba: The Conversation Continues and its lesson on how a respectful collaboration can defy politics and dictators.
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Terence Blanchard Feat. The E-Collective: Tiny Desk Concert

Patrick Jarenwattananon — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 15:40:00 +0000

When he started to make the music that appears on his new album, trumpeter Terence Blanchard wasn’t thinking of Eric Garner, Michael Brown or any of the other recent high-profile police killings of African-Americans. He was thinking of desired collaborators: Donald Ramsey, a bassist and high-school classmate; Oscar Seaton, a drummer with whom he’d worked on film projects; Fabian Almazan, the pianist of his other band; and Charles Altura, a guitarist he’d encountered online. And he was thinking about a sound different from the left-center jazz quintet he leads: something overtly funky, with electric bass and guitar and processing and human voices and dance grooves.

As the E-Collective came together — both as a band and in terms of its repertoire — it took on another guiding light. Blanchard, no stranger to political statements, saw the music as an opportunity to speak out on current events he was unable to ignore, especially as a black man. The eventual recording came to be a commentary on the treatment of minorities by American law enforcement, in the vein of the #blacklivesmatter movement. The album’s title references Eric Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe”; it’s called Breathless.

The heavy and the party recently came together for a week-long run at a jazz club in D.C., though the mood was much more on the party side when the E-Collective stopped at NPR headquarters. The mood was relaxed and jovial from the time the group stepped into the lobby, with Englishman Chris Bailey supplying plenty of backbeats on our house drum set — though there was a moment toward the end of the set when Blanchard casually explained the project, setting up a lyrical, almost elegiac solo. This music was a modern update on jazz fusion, sure, but also one where we dance to ward off despair.

Set List

“Soldiers”

“Confident Selflessness”

“Breathless”

Credits

Producers: Patrick Jarenwattananon, Morgan Walker; Audio Engineer: Brian Jarboe; Videographers: Morgan Walker, Adam Wolffbrandt, Lani Milton; Assistant Producer: Elena Saavedra Buckley; photo by Lani Milton/NPR
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.