The Jazz Age may be referring to the 1920s, but the music certainly didn’t get left behind as time moved forward. Genuine, unaltered jazz is alive and well all over the country, especially in Northern Virginia. The scene in Northern Virginia is thriving with supper clubs that are reminiscent of Fitzgerald’s famous Jazz Age. –Sophia Rutti and Victoria Gaffney
So What’s the Jazz Scene in NoVA?
“The trend is more groove oriented, ‘jam based’ type of groups. There’s traditional jazz to be found as well but groove oriented is the trend … Today’s musicians, especially the younger folks, are including popular songs made big by Michael Jackson and even Nirvana. We just play them in a jazz style.” —Dr. Adrien Re, jazz musician and music faculty at LCPS
“[Northern Virginia] is a great place to live for a musician. I have many friends that are musicians who have moved here from all over the East Coast because on any given night there are hundreds of musicians working in the DC area.” —Caleb Nei, jazz pianist
“My goal is to make this town, I mean Duke Ellington was born here for goodness sake, and Billie Holiday was out of Baltimore. I want to make this area, this greater metropolitan area; I want to be instrumental in putting jazz back on that mainstream. You know it’s such a political town, which side of the aisle you’re on, are you a lawyer, are you this or that … it’s been a political town for years and years and years, but it was also a music and arts town. I would like to bring a little bit more of that back, get some respect again.” —Sharon Clark, jazz vocalist
“Jazz is always there, it’s always present … May not be as big as pop, but it never goes away. It’s always there in its various forms.” —Michael Jaworek, The Birchmere
(April 2015)
