An Evening of Jazz with the DAL Trio

About the DAL  Trio:

"DC has always been a second home to me and I haven’t been since Covid.

I’m coming to present the music to and with the community.

Our repertoire will be a Kaleidoscope of originals, improvised  and Jazz standards.

The Trio will feature along time friend and world renown drummer  Nasar Abadey  and one of 

our Chicago protégés organist. Aleko Lionikis.

 This  would be my first Performance in Baltimore since August 26, 2016"

About Ernest Dawkins:

Dawkins is one of the world's premiere saxophonists and composers, whose life goal is for his music and compositions to reflect the evolving collective cultural memory of the African American jazz aesthetic.  His four decades of work as a professional artist, educator, and community-based organizer are widely recognized for shaping the contemporary cultural landscape of Chicago and beyond.  He is the founder and executive director of Live the Spirit Residency and is past Chairman of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).   His latest Commissions from  the Jazz Institute of Chicago, to compose Tim Black Blacker Than Black and Refound Connections Commissioned by South Arts, were premiered in 2022. Other recent  projects include a commission from New Music America in 2020 to compose his work “Redefining Fredrick Douglass,” and in 2018 International Connections grant from the The McArthur Foundation to lead the Englewood to Soweto project, and a Joyce Award in 2017 in support of the composition “Quantum Englewood.”  His creative work has additionally included commissions from the Old Town School of Folk Music, the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Sant'Anna Arresi Jazz Festival, Sons d’Hiver Festival, Banliues Bleues Festival, Meet The Composers, the Jazz Institute of Chicago, and the King Arts Complex of Columbus Ohio.  He is the leader and founder of several ensembles, most notably the New Horizons Ensemble, Aesop Quartet, Chicago Trio, Live the Spirit Big Band, and the Chicago 12.  Dawkins has recorded numerous CDs on his publishing company Dawk Music. Dawkins was named 'Chicagoan of the Year' twice by the Chicago Tribune, most recently in 2001. He received a Meet the Composers Round VII New Residencies grant in 2000 and has been awarded the State of Illinois Governors Fellowship award twice. In 2008, he received a Governor’s International Grant. Dawkins established The Englewood Jazz Festival, now in its 25th. year, showcasing the work of master musicians at a free annual outdoor event on Chicago’s southside.  Dawkins has worked alongside many pioneering musicians including Ramsey Lewis, Muhal Richard Abrams, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Amina Claudine Myers, and Anthony Braxton, while also committing himself to uplifting and mentoring the next generations of young artists in Chicago and beyond, connecting tradition and history to the urgency of the present moment.