Jazz

In the 1960s, the D.C. area's most exclusive music scene may not have been in the city's downtown clubs. It may have been behind prison walls at Lorton Reformatory. Year after year, jazz royalty including Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and others came to Lorton and gave free concerts for inmates. The brainchild of two prison chaplains, the Lorton Jazz Festival was more than just entertainment. As co-organizer, Father Carl Breitfeller put it, “Jazz is a definite art form and an aid to rehabilitation...it is a reminder to the inmate that he is a human being.”

Shock rippled through the steamy streets of Washington, DC, in early August 1979. The source of the buzz was not the result of back-to-back testing of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union. It was not even the sale of the nearby Baltimore Orioles to D.C. lawyer Edward Bennett Williams for the grand sum of $12.3 million. The source of the city’s consternation involved the smooth timbre of a DMV staple – or the lack thereof. Felix Grant – one of Washington’s most beloved radio deejays for a generation – was being pulled from the airwaves.

While visiting Moscow, a group of American tourists had encountered a flurry of questions from curious Russians, “what was the price of an American automobile, what did Americans think of ‘beat generation’ writers, how many Americans were unemployed?” When the interrogation broached the subject of music, one American boasted familiarity with Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and Prokofiev. “And,” one Russian chimed in, “is Willis Conover highly regarded in the United States?” Russian eyes widened, American brows furrowed, and a puzzled silence ensued.

On Nov. 13, 1945, the National Press Club hosted a dinner honoring President Harry Truman at Hotel Statler. The 1,000 person guest list featured a virtual who’s who of Washington’s political elite, but more than anything, attendees looked forward to a performance by Glenn Miller’s famous Army Air Force Band. While festive, the evening was also bittersweet, for the band was without its leader. Nearly a year earlier, Major Glenn Miller, famous bandleader and trombonist, had gone missing over the English Channel, while traveling from England to France to give concerts to the troops liberating Europe. 

In 1910, the Howard Theater was founded in Washington's Shaw neighborhood, and it soon became the premier black theater in the country, helping launch the careers of many African American performers. But for Duke Ellington, who was a fixture in the neighborhood as a kid, the pool hall next door to the theatre did more to shape his musical sensibilities.

Bohemian Caverns recently closed, but for 90 years, the U Street nightclub provided a local showcase for some of the greatest players in jazz, including John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Before she topped the charts and won Grammys, Roberta Flack was a humble music teacher from Arlington, Virginia with a velvet voice and fierce perfectionism. Discover how Capitol Hill nightclub Mr. Henry’s became the launchpad for her legendary career.

On July 23, 1942, Washingtonians packed Griffith Stadium to the gills for a special “Battle of Music” between African American jazz legend Louis Armstrong and white saxophonist Charlie Barnet. In segregated Washington of the 1940s, such an organized interracial competition was a big event and few people — especially in the black community that surrounded the stadium — wanted to miss the “musical fisticuffs.”

Is this bear enjoying the music? Or is it just waiting for a chance to take a swipe at the musicians through the bars.