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15
FRIDAY
To judge from Joe Maneri’s recorded output, one might guess that he is half as old as he actually is: Although the jazzman made his debut as a professional musician in the early ’40s, it wasn’t until 1989 that he first appeared on a released recording. But Maneri didn’t spend 40 years scratching his ass: Always open to new approaches to creating music, he studied serial composition and performed with his own 12-tone jazz ensemble before deciding that he needed more than a mere 12 tones. To that end, he spent some time developing a method of microtonal playing for reeds, learning to play notes between the ones in the standard Western tonal system. He claims that this way of playing is the only current way to create original “melody or harmony,” and that it will continue to be so for “the next five centuries.” Maneri plays with his son, Mat, and their quartet at 8 p.m. at Sangha Cafe & Marketplace, 117 Carroll St. NW. $10. (202) 882-8828. (Jacob Long)