Ed Baldi spends his days surrounded by sound. As a freelance producer, event promotor, and musician, his Locust Point studio is packed with keyboards, computers, and monitors from which melodies emerge. And just a few doors down, he’s now bringing music to the masses.

Baldi is a cofounder of Sonic Lifeline, a passion project that he started with his nephew, photographer Nick Moreland, during the pandemic. They wanted to provide an artist-centric opportunity for young musicians and strengthen Baltimore’s reputation as an important East Coast city for jazz.

A Federal Hill resident, he didn’t have to look far for a venue, approaching his friend Marc Gentile, managing partner at the restaurant Little Havana, about using its back room to stage a new concert series.

“I walked in there, clapped my hands, and heard the reverberance,” says Baldi. “The room sounded like an instrument. I said, ‘I want to hear a horn being blown in here.’”

The first shows were performed in 2022. During concerts, the space, which normally is used for private events, is transformed into a roughly 60-seat jazz club called the Hemingway Room. With a background in theater and film—Baldi worked as a stage manager on and off Broadway in New York, and in the art department during filming of HBO shows, The Sopranos and Oz—he especially enjoys turning a blank space into a theater of sorts.

Food and drink are available through Little Havana, but the focus is on the music.

“We’re not just supporting emerging artists, but also reconnecting the dots of what was once the jazz circuit between New York, Philly, Baltimore, and D.C.,” says Baldi, with the venue joining the likes of Keystone Korner and Caton Castle in showcasing the genre. “I like to say we’re not jazz brunch…This was specifically designed to be a place for musicians, by musicians. We’re creating an incubator for these performances.”

The fall slate of concerts runs through mid-November. Among the highlights is an Oct. 18 performance by Zach Brock, Bob Lanzetti, and Keita Ogawa, three members of the jazz collective Snarky Puppy. Each artist plays two evening sets.

In July, an episode of PBS’s Artworks featured Sonic Lifeline and the Hemingway Room. Another episode, which captured a Sonic Lifeline-produced performance at the SpringHill Suites in downtown Baltimore, aired in September.

Baldi hopes more collaborations like those will take place in the future, and he is currently in the planning stages of winter and spring editions of the concert series at the Hemingway Room.

“This is not just a recital—we want to create an experience,” says Baldi. “My feeling is, if we have a space where musicians are safe to create, uninhibited, the audience is privileged to peer into that world.”

Nico Sarbanes

Nico Sarbanes: Live in Baltimore (self-released)

When we think of Baltimore jazz, we think of a bygone era, filled with small nightclubs, three-piece suits, and plenty of cigarette smoke. But local jazz is alive and well, thanks to a number of surviving legends, as well as the next generation of stars, like the Dunbar Alumni Jazz Band and Nico Sarbanes. Professionally trained, Sarbanes is one of the city’s most talented (and under-the-radar) performers, playing a mean trumpet and confidently crooning in a style associated with the Great American Songbook. At 23 years old, the Baltimore native has just released his debut album, a set of live recordings from the acclaimed Mount Vernon music venue, An die Musik, that features some of his hometown heroes, including saxophonists Antonio Hart and Tim Green, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, and drummer Winard Harper. Across five accomplished jazz jams and standards—like a feel-good Baltimore original dedicated to a local Union Square barber, or an up-tempo, twinkling rendition of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s smoky “Ishafan”—Sarbanes connects and celebrates our city’s vibrant jazz community, and honors its rich history.

Bond St. District

A Church On Vulcan (Friends Records)

In the summer of 2014, a young black rapper from West Baltimore met a young white percussionist from Montgomery County. In an unlikely twist of fate, the two instantly clicked, and by fall had released their first EP as the hip-hop duo Bond St. District, one of the city’s most animated, vivacious acts. MC DDm spits fire with his sharp, confident lyrics—at times clever and humorous, at others candid and poignant. Like a pastor pushing the gospel, DDm engages crowds with bona fide swagger, and his bodacious presence is only amplified by his right-hand man, producer Paul Hutson, who mixes in his masterful, multi-layered beats. Together, these distinct halves make a seamless whole, founded in a mutual respect for each other’s talent, and at live shows, their genuine chemistry is clear as soon as they hit the stage. But the strength of their bond is never more apparent than now, on their first full-length album, out exactly two years after their debut. From the rattling, energetic knocks of “Show Me Your Hands” to the lush, dreamy melodies of “How Come” and the sunny funk of “Yesterdays,” their infectious songs—and synergy—make you a forever fan.

See our full interview with DDm and Paul Hutson from Bond St. District.

Like many things in Todd Barkan’s life, the opportunity to revive his West Coast jazz club, Keystone Korner, in Baltimore seemed serendipitous. “That’s how a lot of good things happen,” says Barkan, who struck up a friendship with restaurateur Robert Wiedmaier when the chef hosted the National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) Masters awards dinner at Marcel’s in Washington, D.C. almost exactly one year ago.

“It was a byproduct of the music,” says Barkan, who was being honored with an NEA Jazz Masters’ award that night. “Had I not gotten the award, I would have never met Robert. The music brought us together.”

A few months later, Wiedmaier suggested that the duo reactivate his former Mussel Bar space in Harbor East as a modern iteration of Keystone Korner. While the new spot will take inspiration from the original San Francisco club, which Barkan operated from 1972-1983, it will have an identity all its own—paying homage to Charm City’s rich jazz history.

Read more about the club, which debuts with a performance by legendary double bassist Ron Carter, with guitarist Russell Malone and pianist Donald Vega, on April 30.

The new club will take after the original Keystone Korner in San Francisco.
Just 11 days before the grand opening, a team of nearly 20 people whizzed around the former raw bar—rearranging furniture, interviewing potential employees, discussing menu details, and planning interior decor. “This is what I like to call the calm before the storm,” says hostess Dajerel Gray, in between answering phone calls and taking reservations. By her count, the club has already sold 107 tickets for its lineup of shows booked throughout June.

Similar to the original Keystone Korner, most of the staff members are either performers themselves, or aficionados who are deeply passionate about jazz. Take visual consultant Lucas Novaes, a local artist and musician who is curating all of the art in the space. There’s also general manager LaRone Duplessis, whose deep-rooted connection to jazz dates back to his upbringing in New Orleans.

Barkan, of course, is also a champion for the scene. The seasoned pianist moved to San Francisco and took over Keystone Korner in the early-’70s—the heydey of rock and roll.

“People told me I was nuts,” he says. “The rock scene was at a peak. That was the era of The Grateful Dead, Carlos Santana, and Jefferson Airplane. They said, ‘Barkan, what are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I’m opening a jazz club.’ I’m rather idealistic, I didn’t know any better.”

Under Barkan’s reign, the club became a hub visited by jazz legends like Dexter Gordon, Bobby Hutcherson, Stan Getz, Buster Williams, Ron Carter, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. “It was all about the music,” Barkan remembers. “We’re going to try to make this place the same.”

Menu will feature spins on American staples paired with classic cocktails.
One aspect that will differ slightly from the original Keystone Korner is that the new iteration will have a larger culinary focus. Wiedmaier’s restaurant group will oversee kitchen operations, offering a menu that the Michelin star chef describes as “retro Americana refined.”

“The food is very American, but with cheffy touches,” says Wiedmaier, who researched the menu at jazz clubs in New York City with Barkan a few months back.

Wiedmaier is particularly excited about his deviled quail eggs topped with whipped yolks, mangalica pork, caramelized onions, and a remoulade sauce. He also mentions pan-roasted sea scallops with bacon-potato hash, and a smothered chicken in tarragon butter sauce.

The beverage program will offer 20 beers on tap, eight champagne varieties, and more than 30 wines by the glass. In keeping with the jazz club feel, there will also be plenty of classic cocktails. (Think martinis with cheese-stuffed olives and after-dinner grasshoppers.) “We want to marry the food and the music together,” Wiedmaier says.

The entire project came together in less than four months.

On January 8, 2019, the same day Barkan got the call from Wiedmaier pitching the idea to open Keystone Korner in the former Mussel Bar space, he was advising students at the prestigious Jazz Congress in New York City.

“He calls and says, ‘I have some good news. We want to open up Keystone Korner in Baltimore,’” Barkan recalls. “And that was it. Three months ago, I didn’t even know this club was going to exist.”

Barkan relates it to the opening of the original Keystone Korner, which he purchased from its former owner in a deal that took only two days to close: “The parallel is Robert calling me in January,” he says. “It’s now April, and we have Ron Carter opening up on International Jazz Day. It’s like a wonderful movie.”

Locally inspired design spearheaded by MICA grad Lucas Novaes.

The 200-seat space is equipped with a large centerpiece bar, wooden accents, a back lounge, intimate booth seating, and multiple communal tables. Throughout the club, designer Lucas Novaes plans to incorporate old photographs, mixed-media works, chalk portraits, and murals of local icons including Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, Eubie Blake, and Ethel Ennis.

Both the music, as well as the history, aren’t lost on Novaes: “Jazz is one of the most sophisticated forms of expression,” he says. “It came from struggle, and Baltimore is a beacon of that.”

Live music will be performed seven nights per week.
The team assures that, no matter what night you choose to pop in to the club, there is sure to be a performer gracing its custom-built, carpet-lined stage: “There has to be,” Barkan says. “I’m not going to run a club like this and just have a jazz album playing.”

Aside from hardcore jazz musicians, the lineup will also incorporate genres like samba, funk, and psychedelic rock. Wiedmaier hopes it also becomes a platform for local musicians studying at the Peabody Institute and Baltimore School for the Arts. “We want to bring in these straight-up jazz musicians, but we also want to bring in younger performers,” he says. “It’s going to be a venue for everybody.”

Tickets for all shows, which range from $10-45, will be offered in both general admission and premium seating with direct views of the stage.

Baltimore jazz legend Cyrus Chestnut helped to choose the club’s new Steinway.
When picking out the club’s piano, Barkan enlisted the help of his old friend Cyrus Chestnut. The Baltimore-based composer, pianist, and Howard University professor—who got his start playing at the Mount Calvary Star Baptist Church on Harford Road—says he was honored to help pick the instrument for such “an iconic and historic venue.”

“It wasn’t necessarily about what I liked,” Chestnut says of the process. “It had to have a range to encompass various different points of view. It had to be something that had good sound. Not too bright, not too dark, right in the middle. Just a joy to play.”

After trying out a few, the seven-foot Steinway B model proved to be the winner: “I sat down and started playing, and it felt really good to me,” Chestnut says. “I just kept playing and playing, and after about 20 minutes, everybody looked at me and said, ‘Oh I guess that’s the one, huh?’” Chestnut will grace the piano keys once again when he performs with Buster Williams and Lenny White at the club May 22-26.

Keystone Korner is an indicator of a local jazz revival.
As Chestnut puts it, “I think Keystone will really be the start of a new jazz renaissance in Baltimore,” he says. “This place is really going to up the ante. We’ll once again have that jazz hub that Baltimore had for so many years.”

While there are many local venues that have become known for hosting jazz bands—including An Die Musik, Germano’s Piattini, and Bertha’s Mussels—Keystone fills a void left behind by clubs like Ethel’s Place, Blues Alley, and the Left Bank Jazz Society.

Another club called Bentley’s is expected to open in the former Cookers Music Bistro space on Howard Street in the coming months—contributing to the overall revival of Charm City’s storied jazz scene.

“I remember when I first got to New York and I said I was from Baltimore, people looked at me differently because it was just this known thing that cats from Baltimore had something special,” Chestnut says. “Just as cats from New Orleans and Chicago, Baltimore was like ‘Okay, oh you’re from Baltimore.’ There was a certain expectation. That is really something special.”

Volunteering Untapped Fake Wedding
Feb. 23. The Baltimore Museum of Industry. 7 p.m. Prices Vary. On a Saturday night last February, John Magiros jumped in front of a crowd of dressed-to-the-nines party-goers at the Baltimore Museum of Industry and called out, “Who’s single and wants to get married tonight?” Magiros then ushered two volunteers forward, gave the “groom” a top hat and the “bride” a veil, and “married” them using Mad Lib-style wedding vows in front of hundreds of strangers. And while the wedding was fake, the mission of the party—to support the local nonprofit network Volunteering Untapped—was very real. At this year’s Black Tie Baltimore Fake Wedding on February 23, the VU leadership team including Jeremy Raichle, Teddy Davidson, Brittany Fowler, and Magiros, will cut out the obligations of attending a wedding—no presents or plus-ones required—while keeping the drinks flowing all night. “It’s all the fun of a wedding with none of the commitment,” says Magiros. “What more could you ask for?”

Grateful Dead Tribute for Kids
Feb. 2. 800 Key Hwy. 9 a.m.-11 a.m. Free-$50. Deadheads, rejoice! If you’ve been looking for a way to introduce your kids to the mother of all jam bands, you’re in luck: the American Visionary Art Museum and local radio station WTMD are hosting a Saturday morning celebration of all things Grateful Dead. Local cover act Ed Hough’s Dead Collective will perform kid-oriented favorites in the museum’s banquet hall, with plenty of snacks, drinks, and art to go around.

Jim Gaffigan
Feb. 7-8. 140 W. Mt Royal Ave. 7 p.m. $35.25-204. Whether it’s in his scene-stealing TV roles, his bestselling books, or his four Grammy-nominated comedy albums, Jim Gaffigan always manages to earn a laugh. The family-friendly comic, who launched his Quality Time tour in January, is known for finding humor in the mundane, such as doctor visits, food, and fatherhood. Get your tickets quickly—his show is almost guaranteed to sell out.

Lunar New Year Celebration
Feb. 10. 600 N. Charles St. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. Across Asian cultures, the lunar new year marks the beginning of a new calendar year. To ring in the Year of the Pig, the Walters Art Museum is throwing a free, family-oriented celebration in their sprawling Mt. Vernon complex. Visitors of all ages can explore the museum’s expansive and much-lauded Arts of Asia exhibition, followed by a chance to create their own Asian-inspired works. Make sure to catch the traditional lion dance performance, which is believed to bring good luck in the new year.

Creature Feature
Feb. 12. The Senator Theatre, 5904 York Rd. 7 p.m. $15-$23. Whether you love them, hate them, or are allergic to them, there’s no denying that animals have a special connection with humans. This month, the Stoop Storytelling Series invites locals to get onstage at the Senator Theatre to share the good, bad, or the ugly about their relationships with four-legged friends (or foes). Get to the theater early to grab a pre-show cocktail and hear live music by (appropriately) Brooks Long and the Mad Dog No Good.

A Date With John Waters
Feb. 14. 124 Market Place. 8 p.m. $44-110. Perhaps no one embodies the spirit of Charm City more than hometown auteur John Waters. Fresh off of a retrospective at The Baltimore Museum of Art, the beloved director of films such as Pink Flamingos and Hairspray is making Valentine’s Day a little weirder with a monologue about his artistic influences, good taste, and sexual politics. To make date night unforgettable, filth followers can even spring for a meet and greet with the Pope of Trash himself after the show.

Max’s Belgian Beer Fest
Feb. 15-17. 737 South Broadway. 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Free. According to Lyft, Max’s Taphouse was the most visited bar in Baltimore during 2018, and for a good reason. During this annual beer fest, belly up to the bar and sample a selection of rare European pours that will join the pub’s usual 200-plus bottles and taps for the entire weekend. If you have one dubbel or tripel too many, no worries, the Fells Point favorite will be serving up Belgian-inspired snacks to soak up the suds.

Charm City Django Jazz Fest
Feb. 22-23. 3134 Eastern Ave. 8 p.m. $25-28. In celebration of this finger-plucking music genre pioneered by Belgian jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, gypsy jazz musicians from near and far will take over Creative Alliance for two days of blazing guitar runs and jazz heat during this fourth annual jam fest. Revel in the chance to hear the likes of Ellicott City-based wunderkind Samuel Farthing, local jazz group Ultrafaux, and Philly-based accordionist Dallas Vietty and his group Passarinho. creativealliance.org.

Frozen Harbor Music Festival
Feb. 22-23. Inner Harbor, 34 Market Pl. Prices vary. While most music festivals wait until the warm weather months to host big-name acts and sold-out crowds, the Frozen Harbor Music Festival embraces the cold and parties on anyway. This year, spend the weekend show-hopping to Inner Harbor venues (think Baltimore Soundstage, Rams Head Live!, and Leinenkugel’s Beer Garden) to hear 160 regional and national acts jam out across 10 stages.

American Craft Show
Feb. 22-24. Baltimore Convention Center, 1 W Pratt St. $5-$50. Times vary. Whether you’re visiting this revered makers festival for an hour or for the entire weekend, the American Craft Show is guaranteed to have something for everyone. The three-day downtown event, which features work by artisans from near and far, hosts wares such as jewelry, ceramics, and furniture at every price point. Be sure to stop by one-of-a-kind booths like Tristan Sopp’s, where you can buy DIY folded-paper animals, and Marc Tickle’s, which features handmade kaleidoscopes.

Visual Art

Maren Hassinger: The Spirit of Things
Maren Hassinger’s four-decade career in art is rooted in sculpture and dance. A selection of her sculptures, made with wire rope, plastic bags, and newspapers, are on exhibit in the Contemporary Wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art in the solo show The Spirit of Things. Some have been reconfigured for this exhibition, which also contains video installations of her performance art and dance. She’s also known for her role at the Maryland Institute College of Art as director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture, which she has served since 1997. July 18-Nov. 25, performance and conversation with the artist at 3 p.m. Sept. 8. BMA, 10 Art Museum Drive.

ISLA: Regarding Paradise
Ironically, the etymology of the word “paradise” goes back to its Greek and Old Iranian roots meaning “walled enclosure.” In this group exhibit at Towson University, curated by Baltimore artist Jackie Milad, contemporary artists working in an array of mediums examine the figurative and literal walls that enclose the pristine beach images of the Caribbean islands, a place that has worked toward political autonomy and environmental justice. Sept.7-Oct. 20. Reception on Sept. 6. Center for the Arts Gallery at Towson University, 8000 York Rd., Towson.

DOS-à-DOS
Baltimore artists L. Nef’fahtiti Partlow-Myrick and Jenny O’Grady met as students in the Creative Writing and Publishing Arts master’s program at the University of Baltimore and will now exhibit the fruits of their labor: a collection of art books, made from a variety of materials both traditional and unorthodox (paper—but also metal and beans, for example). The show’s title references a bookbinding technique that ties together two text blocks with a shared spine-that spine being the MFA program, in this context. Sept. 7-30. Hamilton Gallery, 5502 Harford Road.

Baker Artist Awards 2017 & 2018
Recent Baker Awards awardees—Abraham Burickson (interdisciplinary, 2018), Sara Dittrich (interdisciplinary, 2017), David Marion (visual art, 2017), and Amy Sherald (visual art, 2018)—will show work in an exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Included in the show will be Burickson’s “The Odyssey Works Box,” an archival box filled with books, photographs, and other ephemera, accompanied by a video tour of the history of the arts collective Odyssey Works; Dittrich’s wall sculptures, arranged with hundreds of clay ears; Marion’s multimedia sculptures “Extinction Event” and “Fracking,” which explore violence perpetrated on the natural environment; and two portraits by Sherald. Sept. 12-Oct. 14, with a free opening event with performances on Sept. 13. Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive.

Balancing Act
Joseph Paul Cassar has been working in Baltimore for 13 years as a visual artist and art historian, and is a professor at the University of Maryland University College. He’s shown his work around the world, and this month will exhibit in our city, when Y:ART Gallery in Highlandtown shows his recent work in Balancing Act—drawings in ink and pastel, paper cut-outs, collage, and acrylic on canvas. Sept. 12-Oct. 20, opening reception from 6-9 p.m. Sept. 15, artist talk from 4-6 p.m. Oct. 13. Y:Art Gallery, 3402 Gough St.

Mark Bradford: Tomorrow is Another Day
Renowned contemporary artist Mark Bradford represented the U.S. at the 2017 Venice Biennale and will bring that work to Baltimore for the exhibit Tomorrow is Another Day, accompanied by a new site-specific installation, at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Bradford explores themes from his personal life, black identity, Greek mythology, and the universe through mixed-media pieces, paintings, and video. Sept. 23, 2018-March 3, 2019; opening celebration, 1-5 p.m. Sept. 23. Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive.

What Makes Us (Us)
Gina Pierleoni exhibits some 200 paintings and mixed-media portraits of people encountered over a 25-year period in Baltimore and beyond. She’ll lead a coinciding workshop which will include live music to help to dig deeper into questions of place and perception. Aug. 25-Sept. 29; workshop, 6-7:30 p.m. Sept. 15. Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave.

AfriCOBRA: The Evolution of a Movement
This group exhibit at Galerie Myrtis celebrates artists in AfriCOBRA, aka African Commune for Bad Relevant Artists, a coalition that was born from the black arts movement that began in the 1960s and is now celebrating its 50th anniversary. The aesthetic of these artists emerged from activism and aims to speak to black people specifically. The show will display paintings, photographs, prints, and 3-D pieces by the group’s earliest and most recent members, including Akili Ron Anderson, Kevin Cole, Adger Cowans, Michael D. Harris, Napoleon Jones-Henderson (founding member), James Phillips, Frank Smith, Nelson Stevens (founding member), and Renee Stout. Coinciding programming will include Tea with Myrtis (as in, founding director of Galerie Myrtis, Myrtis Bedolla) and an art salon with AfriCOBRA members who will talk about their artwork and its impact on the black arts movement. Sept. 15-Oct. 17, with an opening reception from 5-7 p.m. Sept. 15. Galerie Myrtis Fine Art, 2224 N. Charles St.

Music

Taste of Tuva
Celebrated artist Joyce Scott will host this special evening featuring the music, art, and food of Asia. Alash Ensemble, a trio of throat singers from the Central Asian state of Tuva, will bring both their music and culinary specialties, while collaborating with Baltimore musicians Shodekeh and J Pope. The event supports the Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University. 6-9 p.m. Sept. 15. TU South Campus Pavilion at Towson University, 8000 York Rd.

Abdu Ali’s Last Show of 2018
Baltimore music artist Abdu Ali will perform their last live show of the year this month at Metro Gallery, joined by Kotic Couture (hip-hop with pop, Baltimore club, and underground art influences), Pamela_ and her sons (the solo music project of Alessandra Hoshor), and W00dy (Philadelphia-based experimental pop artist). 8 p.m. Sept. 5. Metro Gallery, 1700 N. Charles St.

BeatClub at the Lewis
Over the years, Bmore BeatClub has met regularly inside clubs, bars, and initially a record shop to celebrate hip-hop and beats. Novice artists rap alongside experts at these gatherings, and this month’s event will be extra special, as Bmore BeatClub will bring hip-hop, spoken word, and poetry to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. 7 p.m. Sept. 28. Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St.

Theater

Fades and Fellowship Barbershop Stories
Barbershops are places of conversation and camaraderie—and from this idea came the production Barbershop Stories by Baltimore-based theater troupe Fades & Fellowship. A cast of real barbers will perform the stories overheard in the shop—and then give actual haircuts to selected audience members. Sept. 28. The Motor House, 120 W. North Ave.

Literary Arts

CityLit Swing: A Special Celebration Honoring Kwame Alexander
CityLit will honor poet, educator and New York Times bestselling children’s author Kwame Alexander with its Chic Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts during a celebratory evening at The Motor House. Sliding-Scale tickets are available for this CityLit fundraiser, which will include lite fare, libations, jazz, and a reading by Alexander. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 13. The Motor House, 120 W. North Ave.

Small Press Expo
The annual Small Press Expo celebrates indie cartooning and comic arts, bringing more than 4,000 creatives to Bethesda for readings, workshops, and to meet with one another. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sept. 15 and noon-6 p.m. Sept. 16. Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Road, North Bethesda

Miscellanea

Mortified: Share the Shame
Everyday adults share their most mortifying moments via teenage diary entries, poems, love letters, lyrics, and locker notes in this popular show. 6 and 8 p.m. Sept. 22. Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave.

Mono Practice
Founding director Ruri Yi is opening a new contemporary art gallery, Mono Practice, in Station North this month, with a focus on abstract and reductive art. The inaugural exhibit, Pointing To The Sun | An Exercise In Abstraction, is curated by Rod Malin and will feature work by Baltimore-based artists David Brown, Zoë Charlton, Ariel Cavalcante Foster, Terence Hannum, Stephen Hendee, Bill Schmidt, and Yi. Sept. 6-Oct. 13, with an opening reception from 6-9 p.m. Sept. 6. Mono Practice, 212 McAllister St.

Visual Art

Young Blood
Art has the power to reflect the culture in which it was made, often expressing ideas that cannot be articulated as effectively through words alone. In the case of the exhibit Young Blood at Maryland Art Place, we see—through painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and animation—what inspires and stimulates the minds of our local creative youth culture. Each year, MAP celebrates recent Baltimore-area masters of fine art grads with an exhibit of their work.

This year’s Young Blood showcases pieces by graduates of Maryland Institute College of Art; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and Towson University, including Caroline Hatfield, Mollye Bendell, Mitchell Noah, Madeline Stratton, Ryan Lytle, and Sara Kaltwasser. Through Aug. 25, with an opening reception from 6-9 p.m. July 11 and an artist talk at 1 p.m. Aug. 18 at MAP, 218 W. Saratoga St.

Sondheim Artscape Prize exhibition
From sculpture to photography to painting, fiber art, and video installation, work by this year’s Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize finalists is visually spellbinding, and the artists don’t shy away from exploring such issues as spirituality, race, gender, and immigration. Baltimore-area visual artist finalists Erick Antonio Benitez, Nakeya Brown, Sutton Demlong, Nate Larson, Eunice Park, and Stephen Towns are each exhibiting selected works at the Baltimore Museum of Art through August 5. The winner will be announced during a ceremony at 7 p.m. July 14 and awarded a $25,000 fellowship. Exhibit runs through Aug. 5, awards ceremony at 7 p.m. July 14 at the BMA, 10 Art Museum Drive.

Summer ’18
The current show at C. Grimaldis Gallery in Mount Vernon revisits the exhibitions shown over the past year while giving a little preview of what’s to come. This survey exhibition features pieces by British sculptor Anthony Caro, abstract expressionist Grace Hartigan, and Korean light artist Chul Hyun Ahn. It also debuts work by 2018 Guggenheim Fellow Rania Matar, Colin Van Winkle, and 2017 Rome Prize recipient Beverly McIver. Through Aug. 18 at C. Grimaldis Gallery, 523 N. Charles St.

Intimate Women
Intimate Women, currently on view at Full Circle Gallery, explores the relationship between women’s minds and bodies through photography-based collage and sculpture by women artists. Their inner worlds are revealed through stories of culture, gender roles, and sexuality. As curator JiaJia Chen puts it in a statement about the show, “Every work in the exhibition is an adjective, presenting personal but universal subject matter from different perspectives.” Artists include Asha Holmes, Jianan Liu, Layla Choi, Michelle Cuevas, and Rachel Hartman. Through Aug. 4 at Full Circle Gallery, 33 E. 21st St.

Music

Jack Novotny Sextet
The Jack Novotny Sextet will bring their original music, composed in the spirit of the great jazz masters, to An die Musik. They’ve studied the nuances, style, and flavor of works by icons such as John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman, and expand upon and integrate those ideas into their own pieces, rather than duplicate the originals or even replicate improvs.

“Performing new material that has never been heard is exhilarating for our group,” says Jack Novotny, saxist in the group. The sextet also includes bassist Juini Booth, pianist Benito Gonzalez, trumpeter Marlon Jordan, tenor saxophonist Edwin Bayard, and Baltimore drummer Nasar Abadey as a guest, filling in for regular drummer Mark Lomax II. Novotny will play tenor/soprano saxophone and flute. 8:30 and 10 p.m. July 12 at An die Musik, 409 N. Charles St,.

Literary Arts

John Lingan
Rockville-based John Lingan, who has written for the Oxford American, New York Times Magazine, and others, brings us his debut book, Homeplace: A Southern Town, a Country Legend, and the Last Days of a Mountaintop Honky-Tonk. Lignan spent four years researching the early-American town of Winchester, VA, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He first went there to seek out Jim McCoy, a honky-tonk owner and the DJ who first gave Patsy Cline airtime. What he uncovered though was a story about a town facing an identity crisis. He’ll launch his book tour this month with a reading and signing at Bird in Hand. 7 p.m. July 17 at Bird in Hand, 11 E. 33rd St.

Miscellanea

Cirque du Soleil Crystal
Cirque du Soleil’s show Crystal explores the artistic limits of ice through jaw-dropping acrobatics on the ice and in the air—synchronized skating and adrenaline-pounding extreme skating will be performed alongside traditional circus arts like trapeze. This dreamlike world is brought to life with visual projections and an original score. July 5-8 at Royal Farms Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St.

Artscape
Our beloved Artscape returns this month, taking over 16 blocks of Baltimore and boasting three outdoor stages, 11 indoor venues, over 200 concerts, an artist market with more than 150 vendors and craftspeople, plus large-scale projects showcasing visual and performing arts, visual art exhibitions, film, street theater, and youth-focused entertainment. Performances include theater, dance, comedy, and more. And all of the above is free. It’s a great way to celebrate the city and all the arts in one fell swoop. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. July 20 and 21, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. July 22 at Mount Royal Avenue & Cathedral Street, Charles Street, Bolton Hill, and Station North Arts & Entertainment District neighborhoods.

Ratscape
After a two-year hiatus, the wonderfully bizarre Ratscape will return this year in conjunction with Artscape. A lineup of more than 40 local bands spanning rock, rap, punk, experimental, hardcore, and more will perform free shows at the Ynot Lot, an outdoors venue in Station North, throughout the weekend: JPEGMAFIA, Jeff Carey, and Bound by the Grave on Friday; Butch Dawson, Joe Bidan, and Homosuperior on Saturday; Wume, Sneaks, and HexGirlfriends Sunday. The grassroots festival is produced by Baltimore Music Preservation, aka Joshua Christy Schuelpner, Mike Franklin, and Caroline Devereaux. 2 to 10 p.m. July 20-22 at the Ynot Lot,1904 N. Charles St.

Todd Marcus

On These Streets (Stricker Street Records)

Over the past two decades, Todd Marcus has become a Baltimore jazz mainstay for his virtuosic instrumentation on the bass clarinet. Swinging between modern compositions and standard roots, the composer and performer celebrates the city’s rich musical heritage and, in the great tradition of his genre, brings other hometown talents along for the ride through his various ensembles. With the help of those lauded local and national musicians—including Charm City’s own veteran drummer Eric Kennedy, rising-star vibraphonist Warren Wolf, and spirited bassist Kris Funn—this spring record is an ode to West Baltimore, where Marcus resides and moonlights as a community activist. Released around the third anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death, these 16 songs use freewheeling arrangements and intricate melodies to capture Sandtown-Winchester—a neighborhood riddled with poverty and violence—in all its beauty and struggle. Marcus honors the community’s vibrant past, addresses existing challenges, and salutes its promising future with emotional fervor.

Snail Mail

Lush (Matador Records)

In 2018, it’s not every day that a teenage band starts out of a small-town garage and then nabs a major record deal only about one year after releasing their debut EP. But Lindsey Jordan of Snail Mail is not your average Ellicott City 18-year-old. The vocal powerhouse and guitar-shredding prodigy is the driving force behind her band’s raw, reverberating, mighty-yet-vulnerable sound—one that, heralded by the likes of The New York Times and Rolling Stone, is worth every inch of its unwavering acclaim. Snail Mail is a fresh breath of ’90s rock and roll, and this first full-length record is a robust, coming-of-age look at the love and loss of growing up, shining with unpretentious emotion and refreshingly electric authenticity, especially in our highly digitalized and trivialized world. Across brooding anthems and slow-burning ballads, Jordan goes all in and slays on her star-of-the-show guitar, delivering heart-on-her-sleeve songs with the wisdom of a woman well beyond her years and bursting forth with the sort of punkish riffs that would make her idols proud. In the end, she solidifies her place as a natural-born songwriter at the top of the heap—no longer at the edge of stardom, but here, now, and ready to rock.

Read our full interview with Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan.

Spencer Finch: Moon Dust
Feb. 21-Oct. 2024. The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr. Wed.-Sun. 10 a.m – 5 p.m. Free. 443-573-1700. The Baltimore Museum of Art adds a light installation inspired by lunar dust. Mankind’s eternal fascination with the moon has inspired generations to marvel at the orb’s bright, serene presence in our nighttime sky. Now Brooklyn-based artist Spencer Finch is using the moon’s alluring luster as inspiration for the BMA’s new installation, Moon Dust, on view February 21 through October 13, 2024. For the next six years, Finch will dangle some 150 chandeliers (each one boasting 417 bulbs) from the museum’s ceiling, using a variety of lights to mimic the chemical composition of the moon’s surface as collected during the 1972 lunar landing mission of Apollo 17. But much like the real celestial body, you don’t need to know a lot about chemistry or science to let it light up your imagination.

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit

Feb. 6. Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric, 140 W. Mt. Royal Ave. 8 p.m. $29-56. 410-900-1150. In the 11 years since this Alabama native ditched the Drive-By Truckers to go it alone, his widely successful solo career has proved he made the right decision. With two Grammys under his belt, the Americana songwriter returns to Baltimore with his all-star band for a night of pared-down folk songs you won’t forget.

Frederick Douglass Day 

Feb. 10. Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St. 12-4 p.m. Free-$8. 443-263-1800. Among the many legends born in the Baltimore region, few are more revered than Frederick Douglass. Raised on the Eastern Shore, the freed slave turned iconic abolitionist, author, and orator spent many years in and around Charm City. This year, celebrate his 200th birthday and honor his historic legacy with readings and a children’s storytime at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.

Steve Martin and Martin Short 

Feb. 16. Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric, 140 W. Mt. Royal Ave. 8 p.m. $85-235. 410-900-1150. Steve Martin and Martin Short have earned their reputations as comedic titans through their decades-long careers that included such memorable collaborations as Father of the Bride, Three Amigos, and, of course, Saturday Night Live. These funny men are teaming up again for a rare night of double-billed comedy full of off-kilter humor at The Lyric.

Max’s Belgian Beer Fest 

Feb. 16-19. Max’s Taphouse, 737 S. Broadway. 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Free. 410-675-6297. Take shelter from the cold weather this February at one of Baltimore’s most hallowed haunts, Max’s Taphouse, during its annual Belgian Beer Fest in the heart of Fells Point. With more than 200 bottles and beers on tap, you can sip on your favorite local brews or go bold with European rarities not commonly found in the U.S. The pub will also be offering Belgium-inspired grub such as cheese platters and frites to help soak up the suds.

Lunar New Year Celebration 

Feb. 18. The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Free. 410-547-9000. In these uncertain times, we may all feel like we could use a little more luck. On cue, The Walters is bringing together Chinese and Korean dance troupes to perform a traditional Lunar New Year celebration meant to ward off bad luck and usher in good fortune. The museum’s Year of the Dog festivities also feature live music and fun arts activities for the kids.

Fueling the Automobile Age 
 
Feb. 23. Baltimore Museum of Industry, 1415 Key Hwy. Tues.-Sun. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free-$12. 410-717-4808. When people think of oil, they usually think of big-time tycoons in Texas, not little old Baltimore City. But the BMI’s newest permanent exhibition explores all the ways our town contributed to the booming age of automobiles, thanks in large part to former oil heavyweights like Amoco and Crown. Visitors can learn about America’s love of cars by piling into a real 1962 Chrysler Newport station wagon, pumping fuel at a mock gas station, and viewing advertisements from the car heydays of the mid-20th century.

American Craft Show 

Feb. 23-25. Baltimore Convention Center, 1 W. Pratt St. Fri. 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. $14-34. 612-206-3100. Whether you’re looking for a bold piece of furniture to complete your living room or a fabulous piece of statement jewelry, the American Craft Council’s annual show has you covered. With more than 650 artists hailing from Baltimore and beyond, there are thousands of one-of-a-kind finds, ranging from handmade clothing to fine art and even whiskey.

Django Jazz Fest 

Feb. 23-25. Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. $23-72. 410-276-1651. When Belgian jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt lost movement in two of his fingers after a fire, he taught himself to play with the other three, and in the process birthed an entire genre that is now called Gypsy Jazz, an energetic, swinging style that swept the early 20th century. Revel in the form during this weekend celebration featuring music by the likes of Baltimore’s beloved jazz group Ultrafaux and international guitar star Samson Schmitt.

Black & White Party
Jan. 27. The Assembly Room, 316-318 Guilford Ave. 8 p.m. $150. 410-396-5430. The Pratt Contemporaries’ annual Black and White Party always falls in the dead of winter, but this year, enjoy a brief reprieve from the cold weather with a night in Old Havana. With a fresh Cuban theme and a nod to the 1950s paradise heralded by Ernest Hemingway, this library benefit will feature live music, local eats, and a hefty dose of handmade cocktails (daiquiri, anyone?). Tickets go fast, as this do-good party has become a can’t-miss event of the year.

Cyrus Chestnut Meets Warren Wolf
Jan. 12-13. An Die Musik, 409 N. Charles St., 8 p.m., 9:30 p.m. $10-27. 410-385-2638. Baltimore sons Cyrus Chestnut and Warren Wolf have not let the light fade on the city’s rich jazz scene. The pianist and vibraphonist, respectively, have brought their homegrown talents into the national spotlight, with the former being dubbed “the best jazz pianist of his generation” by Time magazine, and the latter touring and recording with the likes of New York City’s Wynton Marsalis. The two musicians will team up and return home, bringing their swinging sound to the intimate, 90-seat venue of An die Musik. At one or all four shows in Mt. Vernon, fall under the spell of Chestnut’s blues-tinged keys and Wolf’s swift, skilled vibes. 

Lexington Market Catacombs
Jan. 13. Lexington Market, 400 W. Lexington St. 10:30 a.m. Free. 410-332-9992. They say Baltimore is a city built on tunnels, both heavily used and long-abandoned. The latter gets a little less mysterious this January with Baltimore Heritage’s guided tour of Lexington Market. Swing through the centuries-old marketplace and stop by its famous vendors, such as crab cake king Faidley’s Seafood and sweet-treat titan Berger Cookies, before journeying beneath the bustle for one of the city’s best-kept secrets. With the help of local historians, prepare to be awed by the city’s age-old catacombs, rumored to even have housed Prohibition-era distilleries.

Martin Luther King Day Celebration
Jan. 15. Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St. 12 p.m. $5. 443-263-1800. Celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 89th birthday with live performances, community talks, and arts and crafts at the African-American history and culture museum, including a step salute and freedom-square quilting party.

LaxCon 
Jan. 19-21. Baltimore Convention Center, 1 W. Pratt St. Fri. 7 a.m.-7 p.m., Sat. 7 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m.-12 p.m. $10-200. It’s no secret that Maryland’s favorite sport is lacrosse, with grown-ups still rocking their high-school pinnies and local universities coming out on top in the NCAAs. For the fourth consecutive year, whether you’re an active athlete or retired benchsitter, join your fellow laxers for this all-lax-everything event, where you can grab some gear, network with players, or hone your skills at one of the weekend’s many workshops.

Baltimore Restaurant Week
Jan. 12-21. Locations & times vary. $20-35. 410-244-1030. As Baltimore’s food scene continues to boom, it’s hard to keep up with the ever-growing array of dining options around town. This month, make it your resolution to sample your way through the city, with more than 100 old favorites (Gertrude’s) and trendy newbies (Gunther & Co., pictured) offering discounted brunch, lunch, and dinner for 10 days.

Polar Bear Plunge
Jan. 25-27. Sandy Point State Park, 1100 E. College Pkwy., Annapolis. Thu. 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. $75. 410-242-1515. At the end of each January, thousands of shivering souls brave the Chesapeake Bay’s frigid waters to benefit the Special Olympics of Maryland. Muster the courage to dip your toes in the icy waves, and warm your heart thinking about the 7,549 local athletes that your chilly dunk will benefit. 

Shen Yun
Jan. 26-28. Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, 12 N. Eutaw St. Fri. 7:30 p.m., Sat. 2 & 7:30 p.m., Sun. 1 p.m. $91-194. 410-837-7400. For one weekend, the hallowed Hippodrome stage will transform into Ancient China, also known as the Land of the Divine, as Shen Yun brings some 5,000 years of Chinese culture to life in modern-day Baltimore. Be sure to see this world-famous performance troupe, whose ancient dances, bright costumes, and mesmerizing movements have grown into a global phenomenon.

Orioles FanFest
Jan. 27. Baltimore Convention Center, 1 W. Pratt St. Times & prices vary. 410-649-7008. mlb.com. Baseball has always been America’s great uniter—even in crazy and turbulent times—and this year proves no different. Thousands of fans will crowd the convention center for the annual Orioles FanFest. Bring the kids to chat with players, snag coveted signatures, and play games for prizes. It might be a few months until we’re back in Camden Yards, but this beloved event should hold you over until the spring. 

This past December, there was a buzz in the air at An die Musik Live!—the tiny, 90-seat jazz haven perched on the second floor of a Mount Vernon townhouse. Onstage, a murderers’ row of locally reared jazz talent was assembling for a concert that would be part holiday show and part homecoming. In the midst of it all, exchanging warm greetings and playful ribbings, was vibraphonist Warren Wolf. Though raised in West Baltimore and a current resident of Reisterstown, Wolf doesn’t play his hometown all that often. As one of today’s most in-demand jazz musicians, you’re much more likely to find him gigging around the globe than tuning up in Timonium, or some such place. But he’s happy to be here tonight. 

“You know, it’s good to leave home, and it’s good to come back,” Wolf says later. “You have to reconnect with your people regularly. There’s something about those DMV musicians, those players from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. There’s a fire to how we play, and we like to play with each other, because we share that.”

Tonight, Wolf has formed a quartet with three fellow Baltimoreans-turned-jazz-hotshots—drummer Quincy Phillips, bassist Kris Funn, and pianist Alex Brown. As the set begins, Wolf, wearing a close-trimmed Afro, thin goatee, and dark blazer over an open-collar white shirt, demonstrates the skills that led the voters in DownBeat Magazine’s 2016 Critics Poll to name him one of the five best vibraphonists in the world. 

As his two mallets begin their rapid up-and-down motion, the felt ball at the end of each stick multiplies into a blur. Aided by the whirring motors beneath the instrument’s wooden, xylophone-like keys, every note he strikes boasts the sustained vibrato that gives the vibraphone its signature chime. Out of that blizzard of notes emerges a strong melodic pattern that, once established, is endlessly restated in new variations. It’s that combination of physical dexterity and lucid musicality that has launched Wolf out of Baltimore’s local orbit and into the national galaxy of jazz stars. 

“[Bassist/composer] Curtis Lundy turned me onto Warren 11 years ago,” says Bobby Watson, the legendary alto saxophonist. “Curtis said, ‘You have to hire this guy—he’s a beast.’ He’s another child prodigy. He’s such a nice person, but he’s always playing his butt off. . . . I always told him, ‘I’m glad I got you now, because you’ll be hard to get in the future.’”

In September, Wolf will unveil his new duo with fellow vibraphonist Joe Locke. And then in November, the same week he turns 38, Wolf will introduce his new quintet during shows in New York and Switzerland. Meanwhile, Wolf will continue to teach at Philadelphia’s Temple University.

“I hear people saying, ‘Oh, Warren’s big-time; he’s playing with all those famous people and making big money,’ but I don’t let that stuff affect me,” Wolf says. “I don’t mind going down to HomeSlyce Pizza here in Baltimore and playing for $60 and some free pizza at the Wednesday night jam session that Todd Marcus runs. I like the freedom of a situation like that, because a lot of the time when you’re touring, you don’t get to play as freely as you’d like. You have to stick to what you’re selling, so you have to play the latest record.”

“But who I am—
and who my father trained me to be—is a complete
musician.”

Wolf’s latest record, last year’s Convergence, is his third album with the high-profile jazz label Mack Avenue Records and the best proof yet of how high he has climbed in the jazz world. It features the young vibraphonist leading an all-star quartet comprised of pianist Brad Mehldau, guitarist John Scofield, drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, and five-time Grammy Award-winning bassist Christian McBride. 

“I sat down with my manager, Andre Guess, and Denny Stilwell, the president of Mack Avenue,” Wolf recalls, “and we agreed that as great as the first two records were, we wanted to do something that would put my name in a different context, that would raise the bar. So we decided to get some of the best players available. . . . It was time to show that Warren can hang with the best.”

Wolf acquitted himself just fine, writing six strong compositions that pushed his guests to work hard. He also showcased his talent for reinterpretation, arranging old standards by Stevie Wonder and even Frédéric Chopin.

“Sometimes you have to change it up,” Wolf says. “A lot of guys just want to play their own songs and don’t pay attention to what the audience wants. So much jazz is all this swing and a lot of drums over and over again. Okay, but let’s include something else, too. 

“For this album, that ‘something else’ was Motown and classical music,” he continues. “When I was a child, I toured with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and we played John Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy. Now I’m hearing all those styles inside me, and I want them all to come out in my music. A lot of people put me in this box called ‘a jazz musician’ because I play so fluently through changes. But who I am—and who my father trained me to be—is a complete musician.”

Wolf grew up in Edmondson Village in West Baltimore, running through the alleys where he and his friends would nail crates to the telephone poles and play basketball. From the very beginning, his musical diet was varied. He consumed ’80s R&B via his sisters, hip-hop with his friends, and just about everything else from his father, Warren Wolf Sr. The elder Wolf was a social studies teacher in Baltimore—working at Northern High School, Booker T. Washington Middle School, and Paul Laurence Dunbar Middle School, among others. But he was also a percussionist who led a group called Wolf Pac that played at local clubs such as the Sportsmen’s Jazz Lounge in Howard Park. He had always dreamed of becoming a full-time musician, and he wanted to make sure his son had that chance. 

“When 5:30 hit, that’s when practicing started,” Wolf recalls. “From 5:30 to 6:30 it was piano. From 6:30 to 7:30 it was drums. From 7:30 to 8:30 it was vibraphone. It was like that five days a week from the time I was 5 until I was 17. It was hard, because what kid wants to be stuck in the basement practicing when he could be outside playing? But when I played a solo with the Rock Glen Middle School Band, people clapped and later came up to say, ‘Warren, you sound really good.’ I got off on that, so I kept practicing.”

One effective technique involved playing along to his father’s cassettes of classical concertos. “Those violinists can play really fast, but I was determined to keep up, wrong notes or not,” Wolf says. “That built up my speed.” 

Though Wolf considers himself equally proficient on vibraphone, drums, and piano—and still plays all of them onstage and in the studio—he got the most attention for his vibes work, if only because there’s a lot less competition on that instrument. 

“It’s important for me to . . . let the world know that
a strong music
culture comes
from Baltimore.”

“Honestly, I think of myself as a vibraphonist-slash-drummer,” he told DownBeat in 2013. “But . . . the vibes have given me the most recognition, so I lean in that direction. . . . It’s an instrument you don’t see every time. At almost every show I play, at least one person comes up and says, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen a xylophone out front before.’ I say, ‘Thanks, but it’s not a xylophone.’”

All of his practice paid off when Wolf was accepted into the Baltimore School for the Arts and then the Berklee College of Music in Boston, pushing him out of the comfortable nest of Baltimore and into a give-and-take with some of the best college-age jazz musicians in the world—and with some of the world’s best working jazz musicians on the faculty. The education happened not just in the
classroom but also at Wally’s Cafe, a Boston jazz venue where Wolf got to test himself against the best players of his generation. It’s an irreplaceable experience, and Wolf believes too many Baltimore musicians make a mistake in never leaving town to be challenged and heard in the wider jazz world.

“You just have to do it,” he says. “My sister said, ‘I’ve got to figure out how to get out of Baltimore and make some bigger connections.’ I told her, ‘There’s no secret; you just raise a little money and go do it.’”

Wolf graduated from Berklee in 2001 and stayed in Boston, teaching at Berklee, playing in a band led by Rachael Price—now the lead singer for the famed Americana quartet Lake Street Dive—and waiting for the phone to ring. It required some patience, but eventually the job offers started coming in from jazz luminaries, including—most crucially—Christian McBride.

The McBride connection—along with playing on a album by saxophonist Tia Fuller—got Wolf his record deal with Mack Avenue, which in turn gave him a visibility that led to guest appearances with established artists and an invitation to join one of the most unusual ensembles in jazz: the SFJazz Collective. SFJazz, San Francisco’s nonprofit jazz institution, sponsors a resident octet that each year records a two-CD, 16-track album devoted to one composer. 

Each of the eight members contributes a new arrangement of a piece by that composer as well as an original composition in the composer’s style. Then, they play that music at the SFJazz Center and on national and international tours. Wolf has already participated in the albums devoted to Joe Henderson, Michael Jackson, and Miles Davis. Most unusually, the SFJazz Collective is provided with the rarest commodity in modern jazz: subsidized rehearsal time. 

“That’s so important,” says Wolf. “Most of the time in jazz, someone brings in a lead sheet; you play the melody, then each person solos, you play the melody again and you’re done. Next song. It’s totally not like that with the SFJazz Collective; there’s time to create music that’s through-composed. It keeps the music fresh.”

Wolf left Boston in 2004 to return to the Baltimore area. After you get to a certain level in jazz, he points out, you’re traveling all over the world anyway, so it really doesn’t matter where you live, as long as you’re close to an airport. Wolf, his second wife, and their two children now live in Reisterstown, not only because Maryland is cheaper than Boston or New York, but also because he feels more comfortable being close to family and the community of musicians he grew up with. Those ties have seemed especially important since his mother, Celeste, died two years ago.

“My mom was the backbone of the family,” he says. “She treated everyone as they would want to be treated. When she retired as a supervisor for Baltimore Gas and Electric, she needed something to do, so she taught herself piano. My dad was always there for me, but he was all about the music. My mom taught me how to love, because she was a very loving person.” 

For any artist from Baltimore, two big challenges are knowing when to leave, and knowing when to come back. Wolf feels he did both at just the right times, and that he now enjoys an international career because he never lost the special flavor of his Baltimore roots.

“It’s always important to know where home is, and for me that’s Baltimore,” Wolf reflects. “It’s important for me to bring the Baltimore music style to the world, to let the world know that a strong music culture comes from Baltimore. And it’s important for me to play a few local shows per year to always give my fans a world class show that the city doesn’t receive too much.”

Center Stage’s newest production has actually been six years in the making. When artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah first came to the Mt. Vernon theater company, the script for Jazz—an iteration of Toni Morrison’s novel of the same name—wasn’t ready yet.

“Then the Morrison estate went to another writer and when I heard, I was like, ‘I want to do it,’” he says. “Part of it is set in Baltimore, so it feels like something naturally meant for us.”

Following productions of White Snake, Twisted Melodies and That Place, Jazz debuts in the newly renovated Center Stage on May 19.

Playwright Nambi E. Kelley was tasked with transforming the vivid imagery of Morrison’s tale of love, violence, and music in turn-of-the-century Harlem into a stage play. The style of Morrison’s novel is similar to jazz with its unpredictable rhythm and variety of voices.

“I think she writes with an ancestral melody that haunts and enchants,” Kwei-Armah explains. “It is the empathy that she shares and shows and explores and articulates that I find intoxicating. I really loved the book and I wanted to dance with Toni.”

He worked with Kelley to decide which parts of the story are relevant and still provide the audience with a clear understanding of what Morrison was originally trying to portray. Miraculously, Kelley finished the script in just a year.

“It’s hard doing an adaptation. You know, it’s really stressful,” Kwei-Armah says. “A book has three days worth of reading; you’ve got two hours to tell the same story.”

The actors and crew are currently in their third week of rehearsals preparing to bring Morrison’s rich imagery to life. Fittingly, Jazz will feature the American-made genre throughout the production—including an on-stage trombonist and other musicians playing the sultry sounds of 1920s Harlem. 

“That’s the beauty of theatre,” he says. “It’s an open art form and that’s really been our guiding principle.”

Previews for this highly anticipated show begin on May 19 with the official opening night on May 26 running until June 25.

The way Kwei-Armah waxes poetic about Morrison, it is clear he has a bit of an intellectual crush on the writer and is anxious to bring her words to his stage.

“Toni has created something that says, ‘Come to me,’” he says. “And you are required to use a lot of your imagination to make it come to life. We will be giving it our all to explore the complexities and the beauty of her words.”

Convergence

Warren Wolf (Mack Avenue Records)

When it comes to jazz, Baltimore has a deep-rooted history, with Chick Webb, Cab Calloway, and Billie Holiday all calling it home. Today, the tradition is still going strong with the help of talented artists like the young Warren Wolf. The rising vibraphonist grew up here, honing his craft at Peabody Preparatory and the Baltimore School for the Arts before moving on to the big leagues at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Having since returned home, he now releases his accomplished third album, full of sizzling soul, dazzling ballads, and full-on funky grooves. Across 11 songs, Wolf not only keeps Baltimore jazz alive, he moves into the future with gusto and skill.

Mirror Image/Mirage

Big Hoax (self-released)

If you’re looking for a summer band, this four-year-old four-piece has a brand new record that will serve as the perfect warm weather music. Luke Alexander’s earthy vocals lead his bandmates’ instruments—upright bass, cello, trumpet, pedal steel guitar, piano, to name a few—through a range of songs: outright folk, upbeat stomps, sunny bossa nova, a lovers’ waltz. At times, they bring to mind the rich anthemic harmonies of a young Mumford & Sons; at others, they evoke the worldly darkness of an early-album Dave Matthews. But all the while, Big Hoax remains uniquely themselves, experimenting with form and genre, creating a robust medley of Americana sound.

Did you ever hear the one about Lady Day biting Miles Davis at Ethel Ennis’s house? It’s true. She bit him on the hand. And drew blood.

In the early-1960s, Ennis was living on Druid Hill Avenue, across from Union Baptist Church, and the famous trumpeter paid her a visit. A few years earlier, the two had shared a bill at New York’s Village Vanguard, and Davis was a fan. At one point, he reached toward Ennis while they were talking, and Lady Day sunk her teeth into him.

Ennis explains that Lady Day was an English Cocker Spaniel, not a certain jazz singer with that nickname, and drops into one of her spot-on impressions, this time mimicking Davis’s raspy voice. “‘That goddamn dog bit me,'” she says, before bursting into a laugh and clapping her hands. “Whew, he was not happy about that, and I did feel terrible at the time.”

Sitting in the front room of the modest Mondawmin row home she’s lived in since 1963, the 78-year-old Ennis exudes a playfulness that runs counter to any diva-esque attitude you might expect from the grand dame of Baltimore jazz. She’s dressed comfortably, in a long white shirt, black slacks, and black slippers. In fact, the mere mention of the d-word is likely to be met with a sidelong glance and a droll reply that she was “raised better than that.”

After 60 years in the music business—she signed her first recording contract in March 1951—Ennis retains a sense of good-humored modesty that would make her grandmother proud. She’s toured the world, appeared numerous times on national TV, hobnobbed with a who’s who of jazz greats (along with Miles, there was Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, and Benny Goodman), and never let it go to her head. After performing at the 1973 Presidential Inauguration, she came home and cleaned the refrigerator.

Sitting across the room, her husband, Earl Arnett—a writer and former reporter for The Sun—chuckles at that last tidbit. “Ethel performed for millions of people that day,” he says, “and came home as if nothing happened. That’s the way she’s always been; she does everything her way.”

And she usually does it with Arnett by her side. Married for 43 years, Ethel and Earl are the sort of couple that finish each other’s sentences, trade inside jokes, and communicate on a variety of levels—sometimes wordlessly with just a glance or half-smile. A mixed-race couple, they were wed in Aspen in 1967, when such unions were still illegal in Maryland. The state’s miscegenation laws were changed later that year.

No conversation about Ennis’s life and legacy would be complete without Arnett in the room to jog her memory and fill in details to stories, of which there are many.

Ennis dislikes interviews—that sort of blatant self-promotion goes against her sense of modesty—so a visitor brings some old 78 records to discuss instead. After all, she can’t resist great music.

Ennis spots a copy of Bessie Smith’s “I’m Wild About that Thing” and flips it over—”You’ve Got to Give Me Some” is on the other side. “I’d love to hear that,” she says, with a mischievous half-smile. “That title is so funny.”

Ennis has been known to sing Smith’s “Empty Bed Blues” at shows, but she usually shies from that sort of material. “I could never perform blues unless it was tongue in cheek,” she explains. “The blues were always [sings in a deep voice], ‘Ohhh, I woke up this morning, and I’m feeling so bad.’ My grandmother always told me that sort of music was demeaning.”

Ennis grew up in Sandtown-Winchester. Her mother, Bell, played piano at Ames United Methodist Church, and her father, Andrew Sr., worked long hours at his barber shop in Harlem Park. Her younger brother, Andrew Jr., played the clarinet and saxophone and went on to join Ray Charles’s band. But it was her grandmother, Honey, who exerted the greatest influence on her.

“My grandmother taught me to be a lady,” says Ennis, “and she expected me to always act like one. She also wanted me to sing things that would uplift the spirit and not dwell in sorrow.”

Ennis went to Douglass High School, was captivated by rhythm and blues—especially “race records” by singers such as Nellie Lutcher and Camille Howard—and played piano in a local group, Riley’s Octet. Though she was just 15 when she joined the band, her mother was surprisingly supportive, figuring that youngsters rehearsing music weren’t out running the streets and getting in trouble. Honey called such music “common,” but Ennis wasn’t dissuaded. It was, after all, uplifting.

“And the guys were protective and never took advantage of me,” recalls Ennis. “I liked being part of the gang.”

One night at Randallstown’s Oddfellows Hall, an audience member offered her a tip if she’d sing “In the Dark,” but, at that point, she’d never sung in public—she was still just the piano player. But the five-dollar tip was too big to resist, and her angelic, full-throated singing brought the house down. The crowd demanded encores, and, from then on, she was a vocalist.

After graduating high school in 1950, Ennis went to business school during the day and continued performing at night, either as a solo act or with bassist Montell Poulson. She sang between acts at strip clubs on The Block and at a truckers’ bar on Pulaski Highway. She and Poulson played mostly ballads, jazz tunes, and R&B at Phil’s Lounge, The Zanzibar, and Pennsylvania Avenue’s Club Casino.

One night, a New Yorker named George Fox dropped by Club Casino for a drink and was floored by what he heard. Fox owned a club at Pennsylvania and Fulton called The Red Fox, and he saw Ennis as the type of singer who could headline the Persian Room at The Plaza.

Fox made sure Ennis had a steady gig at The Red Fox for the next nine years. She never returned to business school.

But she always remembered her grandmother’s advice: “Don’t go against your grain for gain.”

A Billie Holiday record catches Ennis’s eye—”Gloomy Sunday.” On the label, under the title, it’s described as “the famous Hungarian suicide song.” One of Holiday’s signature tunes, its pinched melancholia and fatalistic lyrics (“Gloomy is Sunday, with shadows I spend it all/My heart and I have decided to end it all”) dovetailed perfectly with her tragic persona and decadent lifestyle. Holiday cast a long shadow for female vocalists trying to break into the business—especially if that vocalist was from Baltimore.

“For me, it’s all about personal happiness, and I didn’t want to live that kind of life,” she says. “Earl, what did that manager once tell me?”

“She had a manager in New York,” says Arnett, “who told her, ‘You can either be happy, or you can have a career in show business. They don’t go together.'”

“I’ve found that’s a fairly common attitude,” adds Ennis.

“That’s why a lot of show people are fairly miserable in their personal lives,” points out Arnett. “But that’s not to say Ethel hasn’t had some sorrow, too. Her first husband was abusive, and you would think the blues would come out of that, like with Billie Holiday.”

“Uh-uh,” says Ennis, shaking her head. “Noooo. I wrote a song about that period of my life. It went, ‘Loving you made me a better woman'”—she pauses—”‘for another man.'” She giggles and points toward Arnett, who beams back at her.

Ennis met attorney Jacques Leeds between sets one night at The Red Fox. They married in 1957 after dating for two years and would have seemed, to outside eyes, like the ultimate power couple. Ennis had scored a record deal, cut three acclaimed discs (Lullabys for Losers, Change of Scenery, and Have You Forgotten?), and had started getting national attention and bookings around the country. Leeds became city solicitor and was named Assistant State’s Attorney General in 1960.

But Ennis says there were problems: Leeds was jealous of her success, drank too much, and was unfaithful. “One night, I came home from work,” she recalls, “and there was Jacques and a girlfriend in bed, drunk as skunks.”

She shakes her head, but, in typical fashion, can’t resist injecting some levity: “I wouldn’t have minded so much if she was on his side of the bed, but she was on my side.”

That reminds her of a time the phone rang in the middle of the night, and she and Leeds were sound asleep. Ennis picked up the receiver, and the voice on the other end said it was Billie Holiday calling.

She immediately handed the phone to Leeds. “This is somebody playing,” she told him. “Can you deal with it?”

But it actually was Holiday. As it turns out, the two singers had a mutual friend, a Baltimore hairdresser named Sherry who often visited Holiday in New York. “One night, Billie asked Sherry, ‘Who’s that new bitch down in Baltimore?'” says Ennis, impersonating Holiday’s voice. “I think she heard cuts from Lullabys for Losers on the radio, and the announcer mentioned that I was from Baltimore. Anyway, my friend said, ‘Oh, that’s Ethel, my friend. Let’s give her a call.'”

After establishing that it wasn’t some prankster, Ennis got back on the phone and spoke to Holiday. “She told me she really enjoyed my voice,” says Ennis. “She said she could tell that I didn’t fake it, and, if I kept singing like that, I would be famous.”

Ennis flips through more records, a half-smile creasing her face as she comes across names from her past: “Cab Calloway. I worked with him at The Apollo and saw him years later at the Playboy Club.

“Ella Fitzgerald. She was shy, like me. She performed at my junior high school, Booker T. Washington, when I was in the eighth grade, and I got her autograph.”

“Ella used to tell people that Ethel was one of her favorite singers, and that would get back to us from time to time,” interjects Arnett.

“Benny Goodman,” continues Ennis, reading the name off the record label. “In 1958, my manager heard he was looking for a vocalist for a European tour, so I auditioned for him. I accompanied myself on piano and sang ‘I’ll Take Romance.’ Benny Goodman sat in his chair, listened, and smiled, as if to say, ‘Don’t call me. I’ll call you.’ A few weeks later, he called, and I got the job. No one was more surprised than me.” She continues flipping through the stack.

“Dizzy Gillespie. One time, we were on a plane heading to the same jazz festival, and he got on the microphone and went into this spiel about Ethel Ennis being on the plane. He was impressed that I sang the national anthem a cappella at the Presidential Inauguration, and he told the people on the plane about it.”

“That invitation came out of nowhere,” says Arnett. “We got a call from the Office of the Vice President.”

“I asked, ‘The Vice President of what?'” recalls Ennis. “They said, ‘The Vice President of the United States,’ and I said, ‘Take this, Earl. It’s another nut.'”

The memory causes them to burst out laughing. Then, Arnett says: “It turns out [Spiro] Agnew was a fan. We never knew him when he was governor, and I don’t think he even knew Ethel was from Baltimore. But he had Ethel’s records, and that led to her singing the national anthem at the Republican convention in Miami and then at the inauguration. We weren’t Republicans, but Agnew was a sincere fan and wanted to showcase Ethel; so we said, ‘Okay.’ After all, people are people, and, when you think about it like that, it’s not much different from being here in Mondawmin.”

“That’s right,” says Ennis, who’s spotted another familiar name on a record: “Duke Ellington. He was a man of few words. I performed with him on The Bell Telephone Hour in the mid-1960s.”

Arnett cues up a Bell Telephone clip on the TV. Florence Henderson introduces Ennis: “She’s a Baltimore girl, and the word is that she’s well on her way to being the biggest jazz attraction in years. She has taste and style, and she sings just right.”

The audience applauds, and Ennis enters, singing, “When you’re smiling, just keep on smiling/’cause the whole world smiles with you.” She looks completely at ease and composed for someone performing live on national TV. “I don’t think about it,” says Ennis. “I just do it. I guess I don’t get nervous because I’m not ambitious. I always felt like, ‘I don’t belong here, but here I am.'”

In the next clip, Ennis strolls through a lighted gazebo—a prototypical variety-show set piece—wearing a green sleeveless gown and humming melodically. As she exits the gazebo, the camera swings around to catch her entering a stage filled with musicians. A row of trombonists gives the tune a brassy punch, as she begins singing, “Love you madly, right or wrong/sounds like the lyric of a song.”

Ennis smooths the air with her hands, and the camera pulls back to reveal Ellington, dressed resplendently in a deep blue suit, playing a grand piano. As she continues singing, Ennis walks toward Ellington, and the camera comes in close. He can’t take his eyes off her, and she pauses at his side before circling behind and laying both hands on his shoulders. Ellington flashes a smile, as his fingers move purposefully and gracefully across the keys and his feet bounce beneath them.

He stands to conduct the band, and, Ennis, after a final “I love you so maaaadly,” leans across the empty stool and winds down the song with a playful piano solo, eliciting a look of approval from Ellington.

It’s the sort of show-stopping performance that presages superstardom. Ennis has had such moments over the years, but the superstardom never followed, which is fine with her. She’s good-natured about it, content that she opted for sanity and longevity.

“You know, Ethel may be the only singer still performing who has worked onstage with Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie,” Arnett points out. “That makes her somewhat historical.”

Not missing a beat, Ennis quips, “And that’s hysterical.”

The nation’s loss has been Baltimore’s gain. Although she continued to perform and record over the years—her 1998 CD, If Women Ruled the World, was especially noteworthy with gorgeous renditions of songs by the likes of Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt—Ennis stuck close to home and contributed mightily to Baltimore’s renaissance.

Looking through Ennis’s photo albums, you get an idea how important she’s been to this city. There are shots of her hobnobbing with Muhammad Ali at a fundraiser at Centerstage, rehearsing for a flood relief telethon after Hurricane Agnes, performing at the first City Fair and the first Artscape, headlining Afram, singing with the BSO, playing guitar at Coppin, cooking at a March of Dimes fundraiser, and returning from a visit to Xiamen, Baltimore’s sister city in China. She’s especially proud of an animated character, Ethel Earphone, that she played in Book, Look, and Listen, a children’s show that aired on Maryland Public Television in the mid-1970s. She never had any children of her own.

There are also photos taken backstage at Ethel’s Place, the club Arnett and Ennis opened in 1984. Located across the street from the Meyerhoff, it brought a wide range of top shelf acts to town—from Wynton Marsalis and Clifford Jordan to Doc Watson and Yo-Yo Ma.

“The idea was for it to be a gathering place, a focal point, and not just another nightclub,” says Arnett. “And it gave Ethel a place to perform with her peers, and she could do what she wanted. But it never quite gelled the way I imagined, and even though we did some live TV and radio broadcasts, it didn’t catch on as a production facility, which I’d hoped it would.”

As a result, Ethel’s Place closed in 1988.

“As you’re doing all those different things, you don’t really think about it,” says Ennis, “but it’s important to be involved in the community—you do, until it’s done. And I believe you can bloom where you’re planted, so there has always been a kinship between the city and myself.”

So it’s surprising to hear that Arnett and Ennis might move to the Southwest. Arnett has family in Arizona, and the couple visited the area three times in 2010 and seem quite taken with it. “But we haven’t actually found the perfect place,” says Ennis, “and I’d hate to have to move all this stuff that we’ve collected over the years. But we’re thinking about it.”

The timing might be right. Arnett just completed a long stint of community work, twice serving as president of the Greater Mondawmin Coordinating Council, and wants to write a memoir. He expects Ennis will be productive for years to come. “I believe Ethel will be one of those rare performers who will continue working into her 80s,” he says, before mentioning that she’ll be performing at Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel on March 11 and recording with pianist Larry Willis later in the year.

“We just need a little more space and a little more quiet to do the things we want to do before we depart the scene,” says Arnett.

“We might be in the West,” adds Ennis, “but we will definitely be together.”

A final selection from the stack of records Ennis is holding seems appropriate—Sarah Vaughan’s version of Kurt Weill’s “September Song.”

Ennis has long admired Vaughan as a vocalist, and it’s easy to imagine her and Arnett singing along to the final verse:

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I’ll spend with you
These precious days I’ll spend with you