Avant-Garde at the D.C. Jazz Festival

From Washington City Paper, the D.C. Jazz Festival takes place in early June and features a handful of avant performances.

Then there’s the festival’s avant-garde contingent, which only came into being two years ago after a long spell of resistance—Washington audiences, after all, aren’t known for their experimental tastes. But CapitalBop’s 2011 entry into DCJF signaled outreach to the newer, younger, hipper District, and the offerings have only deepened since. This year they include a duet between free-jazz saxophonists Peter Brötzmann and Joe McPhee (June 8), as well as Black Host, a noisy, uniquely textured ensemble led by drummer Gerald Cleaver (June 9). This year, though, other wings of the festival are getting in on the avant act: Bassist Michael Formanek leads an edgy quartet (featuring Cleaver) at the Atlas (June 12), and Bohemian Caverns presents one of the titans of the music in saxophone great Pharoah Sanders (June 14-16), whose anthem “The Creator Has a Master Plan” inevitably will provide the closing theme for the entire festival.