The DC Jazz Festival isn’t really 20 years old until next year, if you want to get pedantic about it. Its first edition was in 2005, back when it was still the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival and ours was a very different city. Still, the 2024 iteration is its 20th festival event. And I suppose if I’m getting pedantic, I should also concede that the fest was incorporated in 2004, which makes it 20 years old after all. Congratulations, DCJF, on surviving those awkward teenage years.

This milestone catches the festival in the midst of rebuilding from the havoc wrought by COVID—yes, still, just like the rest of us. DCJF emerged from lockdown in 2021 by moving from June to September when restrictions on gathering finally lifted. It has remained in September ever since, and consolidated (due to issues both budgetary and practical) from a festival that ran for over a week and reached into all eight wards to a Labor Day Weekend event at the Wharf in Southwest, with a few additional satellite concerts. 

This year, though, things are moving back in the right direction, thanks to the successes of these smaller incarnations. DCJF has been able to add two days to the 2024 schedule—now extending from Wednesday, Aug. 28 to Sunday, Sept. 1. It also booked gigs at the Hamilton, the Kreeger Museum, Takoma Station, Arena Stage, and Mr. Henry’s—reaching Wards 2, 3, 4, and 6, respectively: That’s halfway there. This year’s event also boasts a more balanced program between the big national and global names and the homegrown favorites—and, perhaps most interestingly, some concerts in which the local and national overlap. 

Willard Jenkins, the festival’s artistic director, strives for a well-balanced program. In that regard, he’s got plenty to be proud of. “You want great voices? Well, we got Dianne Reeves, Carmen Lundy, and on the emerging side, Samara Joy,” he says. “You want emerging artists? We’ve got [pianist] Emmet Cohen, [saxophonist] Lakecia Benjamin, [harpist] Brandee Younger, and the New Jazz Underground. If you want to be on the edge, we got [pianist] Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons, and we got the David Murray Quartet with D.C.’s own Luke Stewart.”

That’s just scratching the surface. The great Bill Frisell is here for the guitar nerds. Australian trumpeter James Morrison and English singer-songwriter Jacob Collier anchor the festival’s international component. There are also six National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters on hand. The aforementioned singer Reeves is one; the others include pianist Kenny Barron, bassists Ron Carter and Stanley Clarke, and drummers Terri Lyne Carrington and Billy “Jabali” Hart.

Then there’s the local scene. The festival’s 2024 roster is impressive, and it covers much of the same breadth as the artists mentioned above. You’ve got your legends: Saxophonist Paul Carr plays on Aug. 29; drummer Nasar Abadey and Supernova will be at Union Stage on Aug. 31; and the Michael Thomas Quintet will perform at District Pier, Aug. 31. 

You’ve got your great vocalists: Sharón Clark sings at the Kreeger on Aug. 29. For your emerging artists, there’s Ebban and Ephraim Dorsey at the Kennedy Center the same day; and for your cutting-edge explorers, there are Steve Arnold and Sea Change playing Transit Pier on Aug. 31. Also on the schedule are hardworking tentpole artists like trombonists Reginald Cyntje, who opens the proceedings at the Wharf on Aug. 31, and Shannon Gunn, whose ambitious Saffron project hits the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage on Aug. 30.

But let’s go back to those local-global hybrids, which this writer is most excited to see.

Bassist Corcoran Holt, a D.C. native, begins a two-year stint as the DCJF’s artist in residence this year. “The first thing that I wanted to do was honor my mentors, the people who have influenced and inspired me on my journey,” Holt says. “So we put together a thing at Arena Stage honoring Jabali”—the spiritual name taken by 83-year-old master drummer and D.C. native Hart. 

Hart will perform at the tribute, which is billed as Generations—but in keeping with that billing, two other drummers from younger generations, 48-year-old Johnathan Blake and D.C.’s 26-year-old Kweku Sumbry, will play alongside the master. They’ll be joined by another mix of local and national talents: New York trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and saxophonist Steve Wilson on the front line, Holt and D.C./Baltimore pianist Marc Cary in the rhythm section, and D.C.’s bottomlessly talented Christie Dashiell—an established star locally, but an emerging one in the larger jazz world—on vocals. Generations: Tribute to Billy Hart takes place Aug. 31 at Arena Stage.

You don’t have to be a connoisseur to know the name Sonny Stitt. The alto saxophonist, who was born in Boston, grew up in Detroit, and independently developed many of the same concepts as Charlie “Bird” Parker—placing Stitt on the ground floor of the 1940s bebop revolution—would have been 100 this year. Stitt was often overshadowed by Parker, seen only for his similarities and not for the highly individual sound and ideas he formulated before his untimely 1982 death, at the age of 58, here in D.C., where he spent his final years. 

Katea Stitt—program director of WPFW but also a jazz advocate and activist who happens to be Sonny’s daughter—knows better. “I have a daughter, and I have nieces and nephews who constantly ask questions about him,” she says. “And then I meet young players all the time who have studied Daddy, or are interested in his work, and so I was like, well, wouldn’t it be wonderful to celebrate him this year?”

DCJF made it happen. The Sonny Stitt Centennial Concert takes place on Sept. 1 at Arena Stage, led by Davey Yarborough, a D.C. saxophonist and much-loved jazz educator and mentor. Yarborough has also thought a lot about Stitt’s legacy; to a great degree, he embodies it. Stitt was Yarborough’s own teacher and mentor. More than that, Yarborough says, “I fellowshipped with him. I got to know how he cared about young people, because I was a younger person who was trying to navigate his field. He wanted to make sure that I didn’t take the wrong steps. He wanted me to capitalize on what his mistakes were, but also what his successes were. I got to see the personal side.”

Alongside Yarborough will be organist Charles Covington, drummer Keith Kilgo, and vocalist George V. Johnson—all of whom had relationships with Stitt. They’ll also participate in a panel discussion about the alto saxophonist, which Katea will moderate.

“Daddy stressed needing to be excellent, with knowing your instrument so that you could express yourself independent of any other player,” Katea says. “That’s what we see in all of these gentlemen that are going to be celebrating him.”

A great jazz festival is one that makes space for the genre in all its guises: honoring its past accomplishments, but also paying them forward in celebration of its present and in anticipation of its future. DCJF has almost always covered all of that ground, and events like the Generations and the Sonny Stitt Centennial are particularly glorious examples. DCJF isn’t yet what it was or what it should be—a citywide festival … But what it is is pretty damn good in its own right.

DC Jazz Festival starts on Aug. 28 and runs through Sept. 1. dcjazzfest.org. $25–$500. For the days and locations of performances mentioned above, see below:

James Morrison at Australian Embassy, 8 p.m. on Aug. 28

Ebban and Ephraim Dorsey Quintet at the Kennedy Center, 6 p.m. on Aug. 29
Sharón Clark at the Kreeger Museum, 7 p.m. on Aug. 29
Paul Carr with the Junto Trio at Takoma Station, 7 p.m. on Aug. 29

Shannon Gunn’s Saffron at the Kennedy Center, 6 p.m. on Aug. 30
Jacob Collier at the Anthem, 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 30

Generations: Tribute to Billy Hart at Arena Stage, 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 31
Kenny Barron Voyage Trio at Arena Stage, 4 p.m. on Aug. 31
Terri Lyne Carrington New Standards at Arena Stage, 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 31
Michael Thomas Quintet at District Pier, 3:15 p.m. on Aug. 31
Stanley Clarke N 4Ever at District Pier, 8:45 p.m. on Aug. 31
Steve Arnold & Sea Change at Transit Pier, 1 p.m. on Aug. 31
Nasar Abadey and Supernova at Union Stage, 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 31

The Sonny Stitt Centennial Concert at Arena Stage, 3:45 p.m. on Sept. 1
Ron Carter Trio at Arena Stage, 9 p.m. on Sept. 1
NEA Jazz Master Dianne Reeves at District Pier, 5 p.m. on Sept. 1
Bill Frisell Four at Transit Pier, 7:55 p.m. on Sept. 1