PITTSBURGH, PA – Living in New York, where on any given night there are more than 50 clubs showcasing live jazz, it’s easy to have a myopic view of jazz in other cities. But jazz does thrive elsewhere in America, even in places you might not expect. Take Pittsburgh, the former industrial powerhouse at the confluence of the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers which has long punched well above it’s weight in terms of arts and culture. Specific to jazz, Pittsburgh has a proud history with many jazz luminaries hailing from the Steel City, including Earl “Fatha” Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Roy Eldridge, Art Blakey, Billy Strayhorn, Erroll Garner, Billy Eckstine, Stanley Turrentine, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Brown and Geri Allen, not to mention living legends Jeff “Tain” Watts, George Benson, Roger Humphries and James “Blood” Ulmer.
Many of those players hailed from the Hill District, the historically Black neighborhood just east of downtown where clubs such as the Crawford Grill regularly hosted not only local players, but touring acts such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus, taking advantage of Pittsburgh’s location halfway between New York and Chicago. Sadly, none of those early clubs have survived – the Hill District has struggled ever since a 1950’s redevelopment displaced thousands of residents – but their legacy lives on at venues around town such as the Manchester Craftsman’s Guild and downtown’s Con Alma.
For the past 15 years, Pittsburgh has also hosted the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival, which has brought some of jazz’ biggest names to the city. A successor to the long-running Mellon Jazz Festival, the PIJF is co-presented (with Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield) by the August Wilson African American Cultural Center: a capacious home for Black culture in the heart of downtown, named after the renowned playwright and Pittsburgh-native August Wilson. (A 3,600 square foot exhibition of Wilson-related artifacts opened at the center in 2022.)
The PIJF returned this past weekend to downtown Pittsburgh, directly outside the August Wilson Center (a.k.a. AWAACC). Over two days, the festival hosted some 20 acts, alternating between two outdoor stages at opposite ends of Liberty Avenue. Unfortunately, this meant having to navigate a bottleneck between chairs, concessions and merch tents, and unless you had access to the 10 rows of VIP seats up front, you had to watch from behind dozens of additional rows of camping chairs, most of which had been staked out by early afternoon. (Because of the layout, those patrons essentially heard only half of the festival, loath to give up their hard-fought spot.)
It took some getting used to, but eventually I came to appreciate the efficiency of the two-stage solution (natch), which allowed one act to perform while another sound checked, albeit with some occasional sound bleed. In addition, there were plenty of food options, including food trucks, an adjacent food festival, and several nearby bars and restaurants for when you needed a break from the music. And, did I mention it was all free? (A weekend VIP pass cost $260.)
In the end, a jazz festival is measured by its performances, and over my two days at the PIJF, I was impressed by the breadth and quality of the music, from both new and familiar faces. Here’s a wrap-up of what I heard.
Saturday afternoon kicked off with a pair of young vocalists, both full of positive energy and enthusiasm. “It’s my first time in Pittsburgh!” exclaimed the LA-based Michael Mayo, who performed in a pliable high tenor that leaned towards R&B. Performing tracks from his 2024 release Fly, Mayo, Downbeat’s Rising Star Male Vocalist of the Year, brought an upbeat approach to standards such as “Smiling”, “I Didn’t Know What Time it Was” and “Just Friends” as well as his own originals “Bag of Bones” and “I Wish.” I especially enjoyed Mayo’s fluid rendition of Miles Davis’ “Four”, in the vocal arrangement made famous by Jon Hendricks.
Nashville-based vocalist Kandace Springs has been on the scene for more than a decade, having signed to Blue Note back in 2014 and sold out Carnegie’s Zankel Hall last year. Equal parts jazz and soul, Springs, 36, showed she’s equally talented as both singer and pianist, switching back and forth between Steinway and Rhodes. Springs, Downbeat’s Rising Star Female Vocalist of the Year performed several tracks from her 2024 release Run Your Race: a deeply personal tribute to her late father Kanneth “Scat” Springs, who performed alongside Aretha Franklin and Garth Brooks and was a major influence on Kandace’s career. Kandace even showed she had classical chops with an arrangement of “I Put a Spell on You” that incorporated Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata.
I missed sets by veteran actor Keith David and D.C.’s all-female Be’la Dona Go-Go Band, but had a front row seat for the irrepressible trumpeter Etienne Charles. New Yorkers may best know the Trinidadian as the creator of “San Juan Hill: A New York Story,” commissioned by Lincoln Center for the New York Philharmonic in 2022 to reopen David Geffen Hall and commemorate the musical legacy of the neighborhood, which was razed – just like Pittsburgh’s Hill District – in the 1950’s to make way for Lincoln Center. (“San Juan Hill” will be revived next month as part of Lincoln Center’s Legacies of San Juan Hill festival.)
Charles’ set was like a Caribbean carnival, with tracks from 2024’s Creole Orchestra and his latest release Gullah Roots. Charles switched between trumpet, bongos and tambourine, backed by his longtime band Creole Soul (Godwin Louis, alto sax; Axel Tosca, piano/keyboard; Alex Wintz – guitar; Russell Hall, bass; Harvel Nakundi, drums.) For the Gospel-influenced “Watch Light”, Charles asked us to close our eyes and imagine sitting in a southern church at midnight, on the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation. The music started softly in darkness, slowly building to an ecstatic crescendo. Later, Charles paid tribute to his own Trinidadian heritage with “Love in the Cemetery,” a gothically humorous jam by the “grand master of Calypso”, Lord Kitchener before ending with an arrangement of Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison.” (Charles opens a four night stand at Jazz at Lincoln Center tonight, paying tribute to the late pianist Kenny Kirkland on what would have been his 70th birthday.)
All-star piano trio Tarbaby – pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Nasheet Waits – changed things up with a set of angular post-bop that wasn’t afraid to push harmonic and rhythmic boundaries, all while remaining sharp and on point. If the music made some of the audience felt uncomfortable, that was intentional.
“There are aspects of American history that are intertwined with the music that we play that most people don’t want to touch,” Waits says of the folk tale that the band is named after. “That’s the function the Tar Baby plays in that story: initially Br’er Rabbit doesn’t want to touch the Tar Baby, and when he finally does he can’t shake it off.”
After they were done, Revis had to high-tail it over to the other stage to play in his main band, the Branford Marsalis Quartet. For 40 years now, the saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master has consistently maintained his quartet (which also includes pianist Joey Calderazzo and drummer Justin Faulkner) despite forays into late night TV, Broadway, and writing for and playing with orchestras. Branford’s set largely stuck to selections from his latest release, Belonging: a more-or-less faithful interpretation of Keith Jarrett’s 1974 album of the same name, which he recorded with his European Quartet. The thrilling centerpiece of the set was “The Windup”: a 13 minute uptempo romp that was also included on Branford’s last release in 2019. As Hank Shteamer wrote in the Times earlier this year, “it suggests boogie-woogie gone prog, conjuring a mood of infectious delight.” The music starts out conventionally, veers into near-free jazz before returning to conventional swing. In other words, it had a bit of everything. Not a bad way to close out the night. (I couldn’t stick around to hear R&B vet Eric Benét.)
It’s hard to compete with the Steelers on a fall Sunday in Pittsburgh, but the PIJF offered plenty of reasons to put down the remote. First up on the unseasonably warm afternoon was vocalist Ekep Nkwelle, another Pittsburgh first-timer, along with pianist Julius Rodriguez, bassist Jonathan Muir-Cotton and drummer Nazir Ebo. Nkwelle, a 2023 Juillard graduate, has a powerful voice and dynamic presence, influenced by the distinctive stylings of Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln. During the set of standards, she belted out a medley of “His Eye is On the Sparrow” and “Caged Bird” – impressive, but a bit too close to Lincoln’s own sound. Once Nkwelle finds her own voice, she’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
Obed Calvaire, a Miami native of Haitian descent and drummer for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, released his debut album last year, 150 million Gold Francs: a reference to the amount Haitians were forced to pay the French government in return for recognizing their freedom, a debt from which Haiti has still not recovered. Alongside saxophonist Godwin Louis (Etienne Charles), keyboardist Harold St. Louis, guitarist Dener Ceide and bassist Addi Lafosse, Calvaire served up a torrent of wild Caribbean rhythms while singing in Haitian creole; it wasn’t long before you could see straight through his shirt.
When vocalist Jazzmeia Horn steps on a stage, she isn’t there to merely sing. She’s there to preach. Dressed regally in a golden head wrap and flowing magenta gown, the Dallas native displayed elegant swing and sheer vocal power, running through tracks from her most recent release, Messages and 2019’s Love and Liberation, including standards and originals such as “Green Eyes” and “Free Your Mind”, a paean to tuning out social media and advertising and “letting your thoughts expand.”
Venezuela native Ella Bric (aka Linda Briceño) has won Latin Grammys as a producer, but lately has been stepping out on the other side of the microphone, both as vocalist and talented trumpeter. A product of the same El Sistema program that mentored a young Gustavo Dudamel, Briceño spoke at length about how it isn’t easy being a Latina – especially a Venezuelan – in Donald Trump’s America. “What Venezuela is really about is art, culture, music.” Backed by traditional instruments as well as the Colombian cuatro and Venezuelan bandola, Briceño expressed wonder and humility about being on the same bill as singers such like Jazzmeia Horn and…
Sunday’s star attraction, Dee Dee Bridgewater is an NEA Jazz Master and multiple Grammy and Tony winner, and at 75 has shown absolutely no signs of slowing down. Unlike the duo set she performed with pianist Bill Charlap at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival last month, here Dee Dee brought her all-female “We Exist” band – Carmen Staaf, piano; Hannah Marks, bass; Shirazette Tinnin, drums – which she said is “dedicated to raising the visibility of female jazz players.” After receiving the festival’s Jazz Luminary Award, Bridgewater made a point of thanking AWAACC President and PIJF Artistic Director Janis Burley Wilson for booking “so many women artists.” It was hardly surprising that both Jazzmeia and Ekep watched Dee Dee’s set from the side of the stage.
Beyond speaking up for women’s advocacy, Bridgewater sounded just plain pissed off. “We need to preserve our democracy!” she shouted, in a not-so-oblique reference to the current occupant of the White House and his heavy-handed approach to governance. Her set list seemed to reflect her sense of agitation: Roberta Flack’s “Trying Times”, Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam“, and Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” (popularized by Simone). Dee Dee was so fired up that she was the only act of the weekend to come back out for an encore – a cover of “Compared to What” – long after most of the crowd had already migrated to the other end of Liberty Ave. for Bilal’s set.
Not me: I know when to quit when you’re ahead. Not to mention I had an early morning flight to catch. But, I hope to be back in Pittsburgh for another PIJF soon, be it on Liberty Ave. or perhaps somewhere with a bit more space?
More pics below: