Silver Spring Jazz Festival

About the Event

20th Anniversary with Chucho Valdés Quartet

The Silver Spring Jazz Festival's headliner is Cuban pianist and composer Chucho Valdés.  He is a winner of seven Grammy and six Latin Grammy Awards, and is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz.

This is the 20th year for the free Silver Spring Jazz festival, which along with headliner Chucho Valdés, will include a full lineup of diverse local talent including Feedel Band, The Eric Byrd Trio, Todd Marcus Quintet, Dupont Brass, Paul Carr and the Real Jazz Ambassadors and hometown favorite, Marcus Johnson.

Schedule:

Two Stages of Entertainment!

3:00pm - Second Stage: Feedel Band
3:30pm - Mainstage: Dupont Brass
4:15pm - Second Stage: Eric Byrd Trio
5:00pm - Mainstage: Paul Carr and the Jazz Collective
6:00pm - Second Stage: Todd Marcus Quintet
7:00pm - Mainstage: Marcus Johnson presents Crank + Flo
8:30pm - Mainstage: Chucho Valdés Quartet

Feedel Band

Feedel Band is an Ethiopian Jazz Band which is based out of DC but has played all over the world. Feedel Band’s sound can best be described as an East African jazz, a merging of 1960s R&B and funk grooves with traditional Ethiopian minor key scales. The band is led by Araya Woldemichael on keys, Moges Habte on tenor sax, Panda Manurung on drums, and Derrick Cooper on bass.

Dupont Brass

DuPont Brass brass-driven rhythm group from the heart of DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Born out of the musical halls of Howard University, this once humble quintet of music scholars has blossomed into a dynamic 10-piece force, featuring brass, a rhythm section, and vocal prowess. Their journey began with humble origins, as they busked in Metro stations to fund their education, but has since catapulted them onto prestigious stages across the nation.

Eric Byrd Trio

For over twenty years, The Eric Byrd Trio have traveled the world as enthusiastic ambassadors of jazz. Rooted in swing and bebop, The Trio also embraces gospel and the blues as core elements of their expansive performance style. The trio take a rigorous, modern approach to standards as well as original compositions, playing with great acuity within the broad and rich jazz tradition.

Paul Carr and the Jazz Collective

Paul Carr is an award winning saxophonist, Educator and Founder of the Jazz Academy of Music, and Director of the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival. Paul is passionately committed to the education of children and young adults, particularly as it relates to the preservation of jazz. As founder of the Jazz Academy of Music, he hosts summer camps and jazz ensembles for kids throughout the year.  The Houston native has made himself indispensable to the DC jazz education and concert scene.  Paul has toured Russia, Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Central and South America and has shared the stage with many of the greatest names in jazz. Paul has appeared frequently as guests of Presidents at the White House.

Todd Marcus Quintet

Todd Marcus is one of the few artists worldwide to focus on the bass clarinet as a main instrument in modern jazz with his small and large ensembles. His straight-ahead playing and compositions swing with fiery intensity balanced with delicate introspection. His music offers a strong melodic sensibility, draws from elements of his community work, and often incorporate the Middle Eastern influences of his Egyptian-American heritage.

Marcus Johson Presents Crank + Flo.

Crank + Flo is a Jazz and Gogo mesh, for those who love a different sophisticated Gogo experience. Internationally famous, homegrown star Marcus Johnson will lead the energetic performance.  Marcus plays a blend of contemporary jazz stylings and hip-hop and rhythms.  He describes his music as “instrumental R&B with a D.C. bounce.”  Marcus began playing the piano at age nine and, from that point, he wanted to “create classics, not just hit songs.”  Marcus is a founding member of the Silver Spring Jazz Festival and FLO wine.  

Chucho Valdés Quartet

Latin Jazz legend, Chucho Valdés'  career has spanned more than sixty years. Chucho has pushed boundaries in pursuit of new expressions in Afro-Cuban music. His influence in the genre is immeasurable, his work establishing the standard by which younger generations set out to create their own interpretation of Afro-Cuban jazz.

Chucho’s musical education included formal studies and countless nights on the best stages in Cuba as the pianist with his father Bebo Valdés and his orchestra Sabor de Cuba, and with the seminal Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna. Chucho is perhaps best known as the founder, pianist, and main composer and arranger of Irakere, a landmark ensemble in Cuban music. Chucho led Irakere for more than 30 years, but since 2005 he has focused more on his personal career, highlighting his work as a pianist and leading small ensembles.

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