One of the hippest, most imaginative additions to last year’s festival was the program at the Phillips Collection. In addition to including the regular chamber jazz performances in the music room—-part of the museum’s Phillips After Five series on the first Thursday of every month—-DCJF placed musicians in the galleries themselves and let them wander around the paintings and sculptures, interpreting and responding to those works of art on their instruments. It was an impressive spectacle that also guaranteed the music would be everything it’s supposed to: original, off-the-cuff, and deeply personal.

So the DCJF made a smart move in continuing the program this year—-and this evening they do everything at once. In the galleries, flutist Jamal Brown and bassist Zack Pride take on the art collection in sound. In the music room, pianist Janelle Gill (seen above at last year’s program), a frequent performer at Westminster Presbyterian’s Friday Night Jazz, performs as a soloist; her set will consist of works that were inspired, like Pride and Brown’s improvs, by the Phillips Collection’s paintings. All of them, incidentally, will be world premieres. Oh…and just in case you need it, there’ll be a cash bar.

The music, roving and stationary, goes from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St. NW. Free.

Photo by noVArod