Marsalis Headlines Silver Spring Jazz Fest (Video)

Grammy™ Award-winning saxophonist and Tony® Award-nominee Branford Marsalis and his Quartet will headline the 2013 Silver Spring Jazz Festival on Saturday, September 7 from 4:30 to 10 p.m. at Veterans Plaza. The Plaza is located at One Veterans Place in downtown Silver Spring. (See today’s schedule at bottom of post).

Also performing are Marcus Johnson, the Noah Haidu Quintet, and the National Philharmonic.

The Branford Marsalis Quartet will join the ranks of celebrated headliners that the Silver Spring Jazz Festival has featured over the past decade, including Wynton Marsalis, Arturo Sandoval, Sergio Mendes and Aaron Neville.

Having gained initial acclaim through his work with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and his brother Wynton’s quintet in the early 1980s, Marsalis also performed and recorded with jazz giants including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins. He has also collaborated with diverse artists such as Sting, the Grateful Dead and Bruce Hornsby. His varied interests are further reflected in his explorations in film, radio and television, including his role as the musical director of “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno for two years in the early 1990s. In 2011, the National Endowment for the Arts conferred the prestigious Jazz Masters Fellowship on the Marsalis Family, a celebration and acknowledgement of a family described by “The New York Times” as “jazz’s most storied living dynasty, who has made an indelible mark, collectively and individually, on the history and the future of jazz, America’s art form.”

The festival is presented by Montgomery County Government, the Celebrate Downtown Silver Spring Foundation, Montgomery County Recreation and the Silver Spring Urban District. Corporate sponsors include Live Nation; Home Properties, Inc.; WUSA-TV; Comcast; the Silver Spring Courtyard by Marriott; AFI Silver; and the Gazette.

Veterans Plaza is a few blocks from the Silver Spring Metro station. Public parking facilities are located at the corner of Cameron Street and Second, and at the corner of Colesville Road and Sprng Street.

As noted above, the festival will kick off at 4:30 p.m. with an all-star line-up of entertainers, according to the following schedule:

4:30 p.m.          Festival Welcome and National Philharmonic presents Songbook

6 p.m.              The Noah Haidu Quintet

7:15 p.m.          The Marcus Johnson Project

8:30 p.m.          Branford Marsalis

The following roads in downtown Silver Spring will be closed to vehicular traffic during the festival:

• Fenton Street from Colesville Road to Wayne Avenue
• Ellsworth Drive from Georgia Avenue to Spring/Cedar streets
• Roeder Rd. closed to thru traffic, but partially accessible
• Veterans Place closed

Free parking is available in all public garages and lots in downtown Silver Spring. The Silver Spring Metro (Red Line) is two blocks away.

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