Fred Foss - My Foolish Heart 6/8/12

Here is one of my mentors, and a legend on the saxophone, Fred Foss. Among many, many others, he played with Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, and studied with the late great Jackie McLean. This was a performance during the DC Jazz Festival 2012, put together by the East of the River Jazz Festival. Check him out!

Fred Foss - Tenor Sax
Wade Beach - Piano
Herman Burney - Bass
Harold Summey - Drums

Back on Blogger

It's been a long while since I've updated this thing. Gotta admit, I'm not the best blogger. The more I've been working and booking gigs of my own I'm now realizing how hard it is being your own manager. Between calling venues, agents, and musicians, updating twitter, facebook, website, (and now blog), between writing, arranging, and transcribing music, on top of school and life responsibilities, where in the world do I find the time to practice???

Anyways at this point I'm working on a few things to unfold in 2011 and I'm more than excited for whats to come. Its taken lots of planning, preparation, and writing to get ready for my upcoming projects, but they will soon be ready for the general public so STAY TUNED!

In the mean time I'll tell you about a few gigs I have coming up as a sideman.

On Saturday, December 11th I will be performing at Twins Jazz with Brad Linde's Ensemble's "Four Tenors" show. This means 4 (YES FOUR!) tenor saxophonists will all be sharing the stage with the wonderful rhythm section of Rodney Richardson on Guitar, James King on bass, and Airmen of Note's Dave McDonald on drums. BTW check out Rodney's new CD, it's great. The tenor saxophonists on this gig will be Brad Linde, Charles Phaneuf, yours truly, and the one and only Brian Settles. Not sure what the cover will be yet, probably $15. www.twinsjazz.com or www.bradlinde.com

Following that concert on Monday, December 13th you can hear DC's first and only resident big band, the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra perform classic holiday works as well as a few original arrangements of holiday classics for the BCJO First Annual Holiday Show. $15 www.bohemiancaverns.com or www.bohemiancavernsjazzorchestra.com.

I'll probably post something again shortly before the end of the year to update you on what's in store for 2011. Stick around for that.

EJB

HUJE Rehearses with McCoy Tyner

Earlier today we practiced with the great McCoy Tyner for our concert with the legend tomorrow night. And of course now I can not sleep. It was a true pleasure to see how real and down to earth McCoy is, one of the coolest jazz musicians ever. Here is a clip from our rehearsal, I take a little solo on it about half way through:

Elijah Jamal Experience @ Twins Jazz 12/26/09

Many have you have been asking when my band will be performing on the weekend, because of the inconvenience of coming to a little bar on a Monday night to hear us play. So in response to that I have assembled a very special aggregation of musicians to perform my original music and arrangements at Twins Jazz Club on U St. Here's the lineup:

Elijah Jamal Experience
Elijah Jamal Balbed - Saxophones
Alex Brown - Piano
Zach Brown - Bass
Shareef Taher - Drums

AT...

Twins Jazz
1344 U St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
9 and 11:00 Sets
$10 Cover and $10 Minimum
http://www.twinsjazz.com/performances

This is going to be a night of fun, hittin, straight-ahead jazz in a cozy and WARM atmosphere. Hope you all can join us for this adventure!

Peace and Love

Elijah Jamal Experience Live!

If you are looking for a week night hang, come by Utopia on Mondays from 8:30-12:30 or Cafe Nema on Wednesdays from 7-11pm to catch some of the finest live jazz in town. The Elijah Jamal Experience is:

Elijah Jamal Balbed - Saxophones
Eric Wheeler - Bass
Nate Jolley - Drums

Utopia
1418 U St NW
Washington, DC 20009-3916
(202) 483-7669

Cafe Nema
1334 U St NW
Washington, DC 20009-4445
(202) 667-3215

NO COVER AND GREAT FOOD!

Joe Herrera and the Unity Project Perform at Twins 11/08/2009

Joe Herrera and friends will be performing the music from Larry Young's album "Unity" at Twins Jazz club on the historic U St. Unity was recorded on Blue Note records in 1965, and to this day is a favorite among jazz players and spectators. If you missed us at Bossa, be sure to catch this one time performance at Twins! The group will feature:

Joe Herrera - Trumpet
Elijah Jamal Balbed - Tenor Sax
Harry Appelman - Organ
Rodney Richardson - Guitar
Larry Ferguson - Drums

Twins Jazz
1334 U St., NW
Washington, DC 20009
Cover: TBA
8-Midnight

Hope to see you there, you won't want to miss it!