SMV, (l-r) Victor Wooten, Stanley Clarke, and Marcus Miller Assembling a supergroup always seems like a good idea -- in theory. Practice proves otherwise, often leading to disappointment in the form of terrible music. The trepidation associated with SMV, a group co-led by groundbreaking bassists Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten, and their new release, Thunder, came in several forms. Would this album be a chops-fest for these master technicians? How do you......

Drop Electric vocalist Padma Soundararajan and bassist Neel Singh performing earlier this year at the Rock and Roll Hotel Drop Electric was no different from many a local band. They played the occasional festival, headlined local clubs, and were on their way to garnering a decent local following. But their story took a tragic turn last month, and the band is still trying to recover. The family of vocalist Padma Soundararajan — her father,......

Karsh Kale We last heard from Karsh Kale (pronounced Kursh Kah-lay) with the release of Breathing Under Water, the talented producer/composer/percussionist's genre blending collaboration with Hindustani music's heir apparent, sitarist Anoushka Shankar. But apart from that recording, and a DJ set here and there at Science Club or Bossa, the District has not seen Kale perform in concert since 2003's Asian Massive tour. That will change on July 4, when the fireworks on the......

"I wanted to do a tribute to Shirley Scott, my mentor and a good friend who was very generous with me in my younger years." That is how powerhouse saxophonist Tim Warfield describes his latest recording, One for Shirley, a warm and loving tribute to the organist who passed away in 2002 due to heart failure brought about by her use of the diet medication, Fen-Phen. Warfield, who is based out of the Philadelphia area,......

Most of us have made, or will make, a major career change at some point, but it must have been a shock to those close to her when, in 1997, Vijai Nathan decided to abandon her career in journalism for the dog-eat-dog world of stand-up comedy. Since then, she has appeared on ABC News’ 20/20, PBS, The Oxygen Network, the BBC, and in 2003 was named one of the country's top ten comics by Backstage......

Trumpeter Nicholas Payton emerged in the early 1990s as part of a new wave of young lions who picked up the trail left by the likes of Wynton Marsalis in the 1980s. The Crescent City native, who will be performing tonight and tomorrow at Blues Alley, is the son of respected bassist Walter Payton. Growing up, he studied and performed with some of the finest jazzers New Orleans had to offer. This upbringing has had......

Dr. Leonard Brown (pictured) is far from a typical academic. An ethnomusicology and music professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Brown holds joint appointments with the school's Music and African American Studies Departments, specializing in the study of African music as it has developed in the western hemisphere. He has also branched out to study the role and function of music in human life. But it is his role outside of the university that brings......

Very few jazz musicians have attained the same stature and respect as Sonny Rollins, and even fewer of his generation are still around to endow us with their knowledge and experience. Rollins's resume reads like a "Who's Who" of the modern jazz era. He cut his teeth as a teenager, recording with trombonist J.J. Johnson and Bud Powell, an archetype for jazz pianists. Rollins later had stints with the one and only Miles Davis, as......

Winard Harper is a local boy done good, and it's always a pleasure to see musicians come back to perform to a hometown crowd. The 46 year-old drummer will be doing just that as he leads his wonderful sextet through two sets tomorrow night at the Kennedy Center. A son of Baltimore, Harper made his way to the District, where he cut his teeth with studies at Howard University, and by playing with some of......

Many artists have claimed to merge jazz with hip-hop and R&B, but most often this music ends up being little more than an MC rapping over a drum machine layered with sampled acoustic bass and horn lines (think Us3's "Cantaloop", or "Rebirth of Slick" by Digable Planets). While these efforts maintain the solid groove of hip-hop, they ignore the improvisational elements and harmonic sophistication that is the essence of jazz. However, there seems to be......

Twins Jazz has never been afraid to book acts that are willing to push the boundaries of music and challenge an audience. One such group is coming to the club on Wednesday night in the form of New York's Prana Trio, an ensemble that melds the contemporary and ancient, combining the influences of modern new music, free-form improvisation, and ancient literature. "Being tough to pigeon hole can make it difficult to find the right place......

Living in the Nation's Capital, with so many free events going on year-round, it might seem silly to spend a princely sum of money for the privilege of becoming a Member of a local arts organization. But there are a number of good reasons to think about becoming a member -- maybe you're interested in a particular subject that's only shown at a pay-for museum, maybe you're an artist looking to grab a foothold in......

It's not over yet folks: April is about to culminate with the biggest art weekend in recent memory. Artomatic and ColorField.remix continue to bring us a healthy helping of visual and performance art, and now we get one big, fat cherry of an art fair to top it all off this weekend, sprinkled with about a billion other shows placed to coincide with it, including one at a particular venue that deserves your attention. >>......

[Editor's Note: With the Nationals readying to begin their third season in D.C., change is constant and questions abound. Last week, we took a look at this year's lineup in our Season Preview. Today, we discuss this year’s most pressing questions with some of the Nats' best bloggers: Chris from Capitol Punishment, Basil from Federal Baseball, and Brian from Nationals Farm Authority.] DCist: Since the Lerner/Kasten team took over the team, every move is justified......

Many years ago, the Kansas City Star’s community "Preview" section included a calendar item on the events of a forthcoming "National Clown Week." The layout editor was looking for a nice image to anchor the text, and, looking through file photos found a wonderful shot of a clown that they thought was the perfect image. The calendar ran with that image, and no one thought anything of it until some astute readers took a closer......

Drawing 2004" src="http://www.dcist.com/archives/2005_2The-Gates.jpg" width="181" height="300" align="right" hspace="5"/>New York City is buzzing with the imminent opening of Christo & Jeanne-Claude's public art project, "The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005," this Saturday (weather permitting). The Corcoran, capitalizing on this buzz, is offering a "Preview" program of the project tonight at 7 p.m. Michael S. Cullen, Christo historian and sometime project director, will speak about previous projects on which he worked with the artists, including......