Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Fest Returns In May

  I   The 14th annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival will be held May 14–16 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Dee Dee Bridgewater will host the event, which will also include performances from Esperanza Spalding, Anat Cohen, Janis Siegel, Anne Drummond, Carmen Lundy and the Maria Scheinder Orchestra. Along with ticketed events at the Terrace Theater, the festival will include free performances on the Millennium Stage, including the winners of this year’s Mary Lou Williams Competition, which focused on pianists. Williams’ biographer Tammy Kernodle and pianist and pianist Deanna Witkowski present a program of discussion devoted to the her sacred jazz works.

More info: kennedy-center.org



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    A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.

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    “It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”

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    Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.

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    Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.

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