By Richard Harrington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 6, 2006

This second Duke Ellington Jazz Festival is bigger and better than last year's inaugural event, says festival founder Charles Fishman. The five-day festival kicked off with a few events earlier this week but kicks into high gear Friday, capped by Saturday's free Sylvan Theater concert on the Mall featuring Roy Hargove, Dr. John, Poncho Sanchez, Mavis Staples, John Scofield (performing the music of Ray Charles) and Nasar Abadey & SuperNova . The music will run from noon to 7; last year's concert drew an estimated 20,000 people.

By Sunday's finish, there will have been 44 programs (13 free to the public) in 18 venues, including Sunday's matinee family concert at the Lincoln Theatre, where the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra will perform the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn jazz arrangement of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite."

For those with deep pockets, a Sunday dinner and concert fundraiser at the Willard Hotel will feature a re-creation of New York's legendary Cotton Club with music by the New Washingtonians, conducted by Davey Yarborough, director of jazz studies and chairman of the instrumental music department at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, with guests including Hargrove, Paquito D'Rivera and vocalists Esther Williams and Avery Brooks . Ellington's first large ensemble in 1924 was called the Washingtonians (though based in New York).

Fishman, working to create a world-class event in the composer's home town in the manner of the Newport, Montreux, North Sea and Playboy jazz festivals, says, "We've expanded it considerably," with new partners, including the Library of Congress, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the National Gallery of Art (whose Sculpture Garden will host a free jazz brunch Sunday). This year's festival is also showcasing artists from Cameroon, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, Colombia and Argentina. For a list of Duke Ellington Jazz Festival events, visit http://www.dejazzfest.org .

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Friday, the Lincoln Theatre hosts the NEA Jazz Masters concert, at which Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will introduce the 2007 Jazz Masters. The concert will feature saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera & the United Nation Orchestra -- D'Rivera was one of last year's Jazz Masters -- and drummer Roy Haynes and his Fountain of Youth Quartet . Haynes, 81, was a Jazz Master in 1995, but that's just the government making official what jazz aficionados have known for five decades.

For proof, just listen to his recent live album, "Whereas." It features John Coltrane's "Mr. P.C.," Thelonious Monk's "Bemsha Swing," Chick Corea's "Like This," Pat Metheny's "James" and Charlie Parker's "Segment." Good range, of course, but even more impressive: Haynes played with them all. He was Parker's drummer of choice from 1949 to 1953, played with Monk in the late '50s and with Coltrane in the early '60s, and has collaborated with Corea since the '60s and Metheny since the '80s (the guitarist calls Haynes "the father of modern drumming").

So Jazz Master sounds like a pretty good description for one of the most recorded drummers in jazz, a man whose unrelenting swing and expressive personal style earned him the nickname "Snap Crackle." Haynes jokes that "the guys in the band are young enough to be my grandchildren." As a working musician since 1942, he's not kidding, though drummers a third Haynes's age would have a hard time matching a powerhouse style that has remained consistent from the swing and bebop eras to the avant-garde and fusion movements. Haynes's CV contains a who's who of jazz, which is undoubtedly why in 1994, Denmark bestowed on him the Jazzpar Prize, the highest international award in jazz.

"This thing is very important to me -- it's my religion," says Haynes, who made his first album as a leader in 1954 and has averaged an album a year in the new millennium. "I'm very sincere about the music -- that's what I believe in. And we don't know what's going to happen in the next few minutes, so that makes it even more important. Listen, I never thought I would live this long," he adds with a hearty laugh.

Two weeks ago, Haynes played in Ann Arbor, Mich., with the Alice Coltrane Quartet on what would have been John Coltrane's 80th birthday (he died in 1967). The quartet featured John and Alice's son Ravi on saxophones with Haynes and bassist Charlie Haden in a tribute to one of the most towering and influential figures in jazz. Haynes earned a standing ovation for a breathtaking solo on the avant-garde excursion "Leo."

"I could do things with Coltrane that I couldn't do with anybody else," Haynes says, adding: "I'd thought the ultimate was playing with Charlie Parker. Funny, people ask what it was like playing with him, and I say I was in my twenties then and I probably would be more frightened now than when I was younger!"

Like Ellington, Haynes holds to one familiar principle: "It's a privilege to be on the bandstand just to be able to play with and create with people that really inspire you, to get into back and forth on the bandstand and give it to the audience and the audience gives it back to us. You can't really buy that."

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Sunday's family concert at the Lincoln Theatre will feature the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra performing the complete "Nutcracker Suite," the 1960 Ellington/Strayhorn take on Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." It has been performed in Washington before -- the Eric Felten Jazz Orchestra presents it annually at Blues Alley -- but orchestra Director Ken Kimery notes that this will be a first for this ensemble and that it will have the benefit of original arrangements that are part of the Smithsonian's massive Duke Ellington Archives.

Tchaikovsky composed two scores -- a full-length "Nutcracker" (for the ballet that's a holiday standard) and a shorter "Nutcracker Suite." The Ellington/Strayhorn arrangement is of the shorter "Suite," reimagined with American jazz flavor: Violins and violas were replaced by saxophones, flutes by clarinets. Waltzes became syncopated ("Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" was recast as "Sugar Rum Cherry," "March of the Toy Soldiers" as "Peanut Butter Brigade"). The results were faithful to Tchaikovsky's music while bringing out bright new colors and rhythms.

"What a wonderful way to take 'The Nutcracker' and give it with a different treatment," Kimery says. "It takes away that element of fear, which we've encountered with those who aren't familiar with jazz and automatically put up those walls or guards. That's always been a challenge in both the classical and jazz community." The family element is a boon here, Kimery says, because often "they've experienced ['Nutcracker'] in a concert setting or with a ballet and already have an understanding of the piece. It's still serious, but to me it's even that much more acceptable, just because of the nature of who rearranged it."

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Ellington would undoubtedly appreciate that so many festival events will be in and around the U Street corridor and Shaw community that so shaped him. When Ellington formed his first ensemble in 1917, the Duke's Serenaders, its first job was in the second-floor dance hall of True Reformers Hall across from the Lincoln; with a nickel cover, the night's pay was $5 -- total. The stately five-story brick building is a national historic landmark, marked by Byron Peck's iconic Ellington mural on the side overlooking a Metro stop.

Ellington could peer around the corner at Busboys and Poets at 2021 14th St. NW, down U to Twins Jazz (1344 U St.) and Cafe Nema (1334 U St.), and, squinting a bit, to Bohemian Caverns at 11th and U streets. Festival-connected performances at Busboys & Poets include harmonica virtuoso Frederic Yonnet on Friday; the Bass Choir with Michael Bowie, Herman Burney and James King on Saturday; and Gino Sitson and Cameroonian vocal group Vocal Deliria on Sunday. At Bohemian Caverns, the fare has Mexico's Eugenio Toussaint Trio on Friday and Israel's Eli Degibri Quartet on Saturday, an international spirit carried on at Cafe Nema with South African singer Thembi Mtshali-Jones on Friday and Argentina's Diego Urcola Quintet on Saturday. Twins features the Jason Marshall Quartet on Friday and Saturday and the W.E.S. Group on Sunday.