Author Archives: Dulani Wallace

The spotlight was first cast on Joe Quarterman in the early 1960s in Washington, DC, and he has quite the story to tell in words and in music of life in the District. With the help of ESL Music, Will Rast and the Funk Ark, ”Sir Joe” makes a new splash this Saturday, May 12, at The Hamilton. The show also features Thievery Corporation saxophonist, Frank Mitchell, Jr.

I caught up with him over the phone, minutes before boarding a plane to Manchester, England where he was scheduled to play with Osaka Monaurail, a Japanese funk band.

“Sir Joe” is a busy man and his not making a comeback, per se. He’s being introduced to a new generation.

How did it all begin for you, Joe?

I had no formal training, just experience from being around various artists. I’d been playing professional trumpet since I was 16, and I played with a local band from Washington, DC called the El Corals and we backed up many acts that came to the DC. We played with Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips… anybody who was performing during 1961 to about 1970 when I left the band.

How’d you keep up with all those acts?

We had discussions in the dressing room and rehearsal. You do what you can. You just pick up stuff, you know?

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Tomorrow, April 5th, catch a fire at the Montserrat House! Brooklyn-based Super Hi-Fi joins DC’s Nappy Riddem in a fanfare of dub and African rhythms.

Super Hi-Fi, the band led by Ezra Gale, evangelizes West African funk and jazz with a wildly popular revue called the “Afro-Dub Sessions.” The show features jam sessions with acts such as Subatomic Sound System and Victor Axelrod (aka Ticklah). They’ve shared stages with psychedelic roots band Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad and other East Coast-based bands, such as Rubblebucket and Debo Band.

Hi-Fi’s talent doesn’t stop short of the band. Its members also lend their talents to bands such as the soulful Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, People’s Champs, Dub is A Weapon, Boy Without God, and Rubblebucket.

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DJ Camilo Lara (above, left), the mastermind behind the Mexican Institute of Sound (MIS, Instituto Mexicano del Sonido), is a hip preservationist of Latin music.

With MIS, Lara has found a beautiful connection among cumbia and mariachi and hip hop and rock. He also has a slant in the music business as president of EMI Mexico. His personal collection of vinyl albums is vast and includes works of major influence such as Kraftwerk, The Clash, and Animal Collective. MIS just finished their new album, Politico, which will be released this summer.

MIS’s Indie Music Award-winning third release, Soy Sauce, was recorded with a live band and vocals. Sauce is a jovial blend of an experimental electronica, slick hip hop beats, and traditional Latin American arrangements. Keep an ear out for a catchy mariachi cover of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.”

Tomorrow, March 17th, the Mexican Institute of Sound will perform in the ballroom at Artisphere in Arlington. Doors open at 7:30pm, and the show starts at 8pm. Tickets are $20, or $18 for students and seniors.

Lara took a moment out of his busy schedule to chat with me.

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“So basically we’re making a food truck, that serves music!” —Chris Naoum

The founders of Listen Local First understand the effects of the triple bottom line. They have a strategy that can be summarized in one word: exposure. Inspired by the Eat Local/Buy Local movement, LLF rounds up the trifecta of social, environmental, and financial goals in an effort to create sustainability within DC’s community of musicians and music lovers. Local businesses involved have spread music like the gospel.

Now Chris Naoum and Rene Moffatt are upping the ante. They launched a Kickstarter campaign to create an experience dubbed a “Mobile Music Venue.” Instead of using a stationary venue for play and promotion, the LLF team will travel by van with a sound system with a portable backline and employ a video team to drive down to the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas (March 13-18).

Along the way and at SXSW, the team will document their journey to share to the blogosphere. Like guerrilla filmmakers, the LLF team will host a number of pop-up showcases and document the live music performances of local DC bands for a web series and short documentary about LLF and DC music. They used the Kickstarter network to raise $5000 before the March 5th deadline to fund the trip out West. Though anyone can contribute (minimum suggested pledge $5), LLF also encourages traditional word-of-mouth and social media promotion. There is a prize associated with every unit of donation, so keep on donating! As of today, LLF is $500 above their goal.

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Funk band Galactic has an uncanny ability to create a musical canvas that could lend itself to other styles of music.

This technique is very casual as you watch them play. One moment, a band member or guest commandeers a horn, and then he or she is prone to transition to jazz vocals or staccato rap verses. It’s a natural movement intrinsic to the New Orleans band. And they were generous to the crowd last Thursday night at the 9:30 Club.

There was a royal, luminescent “G” that sat high above the bands. So, by time Galactic began their set it almost glistened a little brighter than for their opener. Trombonist Corey Henry from Rebirth Brass Band led the wild, riffy, musical unrest with the arm of a marksman. This young man was able to bend a note into taffy. He hardly broke a sweat as he went into a spiritual possession, articulating notes at the speed of greased lightning. The comfort level in the crowd was convivial and worldly. Henry channeled the mastery of James Brown’s session trombonist, Fred Wesley.

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Galactic’s playful blend of acid, jazz fusion, and New Orleans Dixieland is getting a revival here in D.C. Its founding members Robert Mercurio and Jeff Raines, from the District, will bring the parade to the 9:30 Club this Thursday, February 23rd, and we have a pair of tickets for you to win. Joining their musical procession will be Corey Glover (of Living Colour) and Corey Henry of the Rebirth Brass Band.

Originally a band of eight, Galactic surreptitiously inked their namesake into a new portal of N’awlins neo-jazz artists in the early ’90s. Though they’ve been categorized as contemporary jazz players, Galactic applies intricate time signatures to traditional Southern music.

Then they effectively blend skiffle motifs (an early blend of horns, folk, and country) to stylized hip-hop rhythms. All these ingredients come together to form harmonious equal parts smooth and rugged, like gator-skinned boots.

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At the beginning of 2012, he took the name Yasiin Bey. But his bent toward social consciousness stays true to the grammatical modifier we “most definitely” know him as, Mos Def. The actor and emcee will appear onstage Monday, February 20th, at the 9:30 Club.

Mos Def comes from a pedigree of politically aware lyrical artists originating out of Golden Era of Hip-Hop. In New York, where the art form took shape, there were rappers that quickly shot to the mainstream (Beastie Boys, Kid ‘n Play). And then there emerged a sub-culture of artists that rejected the “rapper identity.” These artists became sort of a side effect of the pop celebrity that record labels took ease with marketing.

Instead of the glittery, commercialized oeuvre groomed for wider audiences, emcees including Def took to Afrocentricity and racial injustice for subject matter. Like forebears Public Enemy, Mos Def’s lyrics spoke of the consequences of violence as opposed to the act itself.

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The Mothership emerged ever so gloriously Tuesday night at the 9:30 Club. George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, the pioneering psychedelic funk collective, played to a diverse crowd ranging from college-age Funkensteins to grey-haired devotees.

The scene was sexy, uninhibited, and orgiastic. When the music started, it didn’t stop. Since the Collective’s inception in the late ’60s, Clinton and his bandmates have forged a camaraderie whose impact is part of the roots of popular music. At 70 years old, Clinton is living, breathing, musical history.

What stood out the most when Clinton first appeared on stage was that there were no multi-colored stream dreadlocks. He banished his ‘do in exchange for a slick double-breasted suit. The horn and rhythm sections joined forces to form an imminent groove. They were warming the crowd up, and we were going with it. Then the bass, drums, and keyboards took us to the land where few ensembles dare to go together. The journey began.

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Fort Knox Recording’s Liftoff, the band I touted as gatekeepers to the glo-fi movement, is featured today as part of Listen Local First’s DC Local Music Day. The band is a collaboration of Steven Albert, Steve and Johnna Raskin (of Speedy Consuela), and Thievery Corporation’s Rob Myers. They create rich sounds that are reminiscent of Saint Etienne, Calexico, Portishead, and Ennio Morrione. That’s why Listen Local First honors them.

Listen Local First is a musical initiative responsible for DC Local Music Day. The monthly event, which starts today, February 8th, will showcase Liftoff’s dreamy sets along with the music of seven local artists at participating businesses. On Facebook, you can find more on how this new model inks a harmonious treaty between commerce and the arts here in DC.

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