More News

On Saturday, the Lake Arbor Jazz Festival will take place at the Lake Arbor Community Center and Grounds located at 10100 Lake Arbor Way in Mitchellville.

This one-day, free event, which is being promoted under the moniker "Where Music Meets Community," is being held from 3 to 9 p.m.

The educational value of this event will be significant. Debates in the jazz community have long festered, analytically, critically and sometimes emotionally, over the definition and the boundaries of "jazz." Although transformation and moldings of jazz by new and seemingly "non-jazz" influences have often been initially criticized as almost sacrilegious, music historian Andrew Gilbert argues that jazz has the "ability to absorb and transform influences" from diverse musical styles. So it shall be at Lake Arbor Jazz Festival 2010.

Paying homage to jazz history, Saturday's Lake Arbor Jazz festival will feature fidelity, influences, mixtures and blends of classical/traditional and contemporary/modern jazz music. All are encouraged to attend because it surely will not disappoint!

This new jazz festival promises to put Prince George's County on the map of major cities, states and areas in the United States [that] hold annual jazz festivals to celebrate music and community; inspire new musicians and encourage their entrance into this most fabled of American music genres; pay homage to jazz musical greats and showcase local musical talents, young and not so young.

The 2010 Lake Arbor Jazz Festival, co-sponsored by the Lake Arbor Jazz Promotions Group, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission's Department of Parks and Recreation and Outback Steakhouse Restaurants Inc. promises to be an ever-growing annual event of immense cultural and historical significance to Prince George's County and the state of Maryland.

Each and every year, jazz aficionados can feed their musical tastes and senses at several jazz festivals throughout the United States. Louisiana hosts the Ark-La-Tex Jazz & Gumbo Music Festival of Shreveport, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the Satchmo SummerFest of New Orleans. California puts on no less than a dozen jazz festivals including Sacramento Traditional Jazz Festival, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Santa Barbara Jazz Festival, the Sweet & Hot Music Festival of Los Angeles, the Dixieland Jazz By The Festival of San Clemente, the Monterey Jazz Festival and, of course, the one and only Playboy Jazz Festival of Los Angeles. New York boasts the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Manhattan and the Syracuse JazzFest upstate.

Here in the greater Washington metropolitan area, the famed Kennedy Center hosts several jazz concerts each year. Virginia has its Town Point Jazz & Blues Festival of Norfolk. Nearby Delaware has its Rehoboth Beach Autumn Jazz Festival in Rehoboth and the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington. Maryland has the Capital Jazz Fest of Columbia.

In addition to its Free Jazz Concerts on Fridays, National Harbor in Prince George's County has Timothy Dean Bistro. Timothy Dean, the famous chef, has opened a jazz lounge called Timothy Dean Bistro, in the heart of National Harbor.

Entering the scene Saturday is Maryland's newest jazzfest-on-the-block, the Lake Arbor Jazz Festival.

The organizers have put together a promising lineup of area musicians, acts and talents. Keith Killgo, drummer and vocalist and one of the founding members of the jazz-fusion group, the Blackbyrds, attended Howard University, where he met Donald Byrd and became a founding member of the Blackbyrds. He played with George Duke, Herbie Hancock, Bobby Humphrey and Sonny Rollins. They received an array of awards including three gold albums and a Grammy nomination for "Walking in Rhythm."

Also performing this Saturday is the Washington, D.C., jazz ensemble, PHAZE II who brings a unique style that bridges the gap between traditional and contemporary jazz. The group won the 2005 Capital Jazz Fest Challenge. The ensemble now includes six artists who fuse familiar sounds of some of the well known fathers of jazz like Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane with contemporary rhythmic styles like Pieces of a Dream and Spyro Gyra.

Trumpeter Freddie Dunn Jr., who cut his teeth in the frenetic music scenes of New York and New Jersey in the late '80s, is also featured. Since returning to Maryland in 1992 to finish work on his degree in classical trumpet, he has become a fixture in the Baltimore-Washington music circuit. Lake Arbor Jazz Promotions Group states that "his trumpet and flugelhorn work can be heard on diverse musical projects from dance to hip hop Jazz to straight ahead jazz to jazz funk fusion."

High school and college student musicians will also be featured at Lake Arbor Jazz Festival 2010. Primary Element, a versatile jazz group of seven multi-talented young musicians who are all products of the music program at Flowers High School, will be featured.  The members include freshmen lead guitarist Jordan Houz, junior percussionist Malcolm Jackson, senior trombonist Bathal Edwards, senior sax player Malik Carter and 2009 graduates Joshua King (alto sax), Dannel Daley (keyboards) and Kwesi Andoh (bass).

So say Park and Planning officials and representatives from the Lake Arbor Jazz Promotions Group: Come and enjoy delicious food from a variety of food vendors. Enjoy arts and crafts merchandise from an array of vendors offering art, jewelry, clothing and more. Bring your blankets, lawn chairs, family and friends for a wonderful day and evening of Jazz.

So say I: Lake Arbor Jazz festival — Hear it! See it! Feel it! Live it! Love it! Be it! And — be there!

Jacob Andoh is founder and chairman of Lake Arbor Education Tutors, Volunteers and Advocates and co-chairman of the Mitchellville-Largo-Kettering Education Coalition. He can be reached at jyandoh@yahoo.com.