For over two decades, I have been learning about jazz in D.C. not at a late-night club but at a Presbyterian church in the conflicted, history-rich, yet somewhat overlooked Southwest neighborhood, where the cover charge to hear music is $10 (only $5 up until mid-2021), the smells and tastes of cigarettes and alcohol are replaced by those of fried fish, sweet potato pie, and iced tea, and the music ends at the civilized hour of 9 p.m.

Volunteers circulated through the crowd, passing out glasses of sparkling cider, while Reverend Hamilton offered a sermon, of sorts, on the history of the event from its beginnings on a cold January night in 1999, with only thirty people in the audience, to an event that, prior to March 2020, regularly drew over 200 people. Libations were poured and glasses raised in toasts while I and the other readers offered passages commemorating the spirit of the event and the musicians who have contributed to it.

Transformation Church Songs Mp3 Download

Download File 🔥 https://byltly.com/2yGBhw 🔥

Over the past twenty-plus years, Westminster has undergone a slow transformation that has made it a less overtly sacred space. Rows of plastic chairs have replaced the wooden pews. The concrete floor has been covered with ceramic tiles that inscribe, in the center of the room, a walking meditation maze. The walls are, more often than not, lined with a rotating series of art works for sale. The choir loft has been removed to create room for storing audio equipment. What has emerged is much less a church sanctuary used exclusively on Sundays and much more a ritual space, touched by elements of Protestant Christianity but not hemmed in by them, that can be adapted to serve several different needs.

In its musical incarnation on Friday nights, the space is, from an audio engineering perspective, a bit lacking. Lots of flat surfaces and high ceilings send sound bouncing hither and yon. Conversations of patrons have the potential to overwhelm the onstage action.

As the 6 p.m. start time draws near, musicians greet each other and arrange limited set lists. Sometimes, whole groups who have a great deal of experience with each other are featured. At other times, the musicians have played together rarely, if ever. These moments offer a chance for patrons to approach performers and trade greetings and introductions. Many of the regular patrons have developed informal relationships with performers. There is no fourth wall, so to speak, between the audience and the performers. Performers and patrons share the same entrances and restrooms. There are no dressing rooms and no real backstage.

Owing in no small part to the prevalence of alley communities, Congress passed, in 1945, the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act. This legislation made it possible for Southwest to be subjected to a sweeping urban renewal project in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In an experiment that was one of the first of its kind in the nation, large tracts of housing, both street-front homes and alley dwellings, along with significant portions of the commercial district, were deemed unfit to stand and completely razed. A considerable segment of the population (an estimated 23,000 people) was displaced and relocated to other parts of the city.

In the district (as in so many other places), change has, historically, tended to be uneven and nonegalitarian, privileging the desires of a powerful and wealthy elite over the needs of marginalized communities and populations. It need not be this way. Yes, places change, but those changes are driven and directed by human beings which means they are not set in stone, not preordained to follow a particular trajectory. Hope for imaginative, aspirational futures emerges from the already existing places, communities, and practices of the present.

Afrolatinidad: Art & Identity in D.C. is an interview series highlighting the vitality of the local Afro-Latinx community. Before the term Afro-Latinx entered popular discourse, Latin Americans of the Diaspora have been sharing their stories through artistic manifestations online and in community spaces throughout the district. Their perspectives are intersectional in nature of existing in between spaces of Blackness and Latinidad.

Folklife Magazine explores how culture shapes our lives. We publish stories about music, food, craft, language, celebrations, activism, and the individuals and communities who sustain these traditions. 152ee80cbc

download brother printer software

how to download eset license key

penny arcade ringtone free download