Keystone Korner is Baltimore’s preeminent jazz venue. Always hosting a rotation of jazz greats, the Korner is a special place. The Kenny Garrett show I went to this summer may very well have been the best I’ve ever seen. It is like an open laboratory, conducting experiments in sound, rhythm, harmony, and meaning. And you are just feet away from the scientists when they make their discoveries.
Website
keystonekornerbaltimore.com
Address
Keystone Korner Baltimore, 1350 Lancaster Street, Baltimore, United States
Current city: Baltimore
For me, making music always begins with little compositional experiments. I surround myself with a room full of instruments, centered around a digital multi-track recorder. One-by-one, I take each different instrument (or any combination of them) and record a line of music. Every subsequent line gets its bearings as a counterpoint to the previous one. Soon I find myself before a small orchestra of Julien’s, all playing different instruments with different contrapuntal lines. The sound of the whole is so different from that of any individual part, and completely unexpected: it is like discovering a secret. This discovery is why I make music. My new album, “THE SALE,” has this process of unexpected discovery as its compositional basis, while exploring themes of memory and fictions, love and indifference, and estrangement and alienation. The album was recorded partially in my childhood home in Baltimore, and partially in my dorm room at Princeton University. Nearly everything you hear on the record–from voice to guitar, bass, keys, and drums–was played and recorded by myself, with a few notable exceptions from friends, classmates, and local Baltimore musicians.
 

More Places in Baltimore 9

Posted by Mark Brown
Run by artists Seth Adelsberger and Alex Ebstien, Nudashank is one the best places in the city to see and purchase art from some of the most exciting young artists from Baltimore and up and down the east coast.
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An die Musik is an incredible place. It is a smaller venue--the general admission seats are cushioned and seem like ones you might find in a family friend's living room. They specialize in jazz (especially local jazz, from younger Baltimore folk), contemporary classical, and avant-garde formats. The tickets are inexpensive--especially for students, of which there are many in the surrounding area (Peabody, Baltimore School for the Arts, etc.). The impression one gets as an audience member is that some kind of secret is being uncovered, or that a quiet experiment is underway, and the findings are immediate, spontaneous, and elusive. Always interesting music, a small crowd, low-volume, familiar faces, etc.
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At the top of a hill on Cathedral street downtown, we find the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore's public library system. Always open to the public, even without a library pass, it is like a great and beautiful sanctuary. Some of my best thinking has taken place in the humanities wing reading room. It is, after all, one of the few places in the city devoted exclusively, and uninhibitedly, to thinking.
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Mobtown Ballroom is a lindy hop club in Pigtown, Baltimore. They host swing nights every Friday, often with live bands (though this has been somewhat diminished thanks to the pandemic). It was once a grand and solemn old cathedral; now it's host to drinking, dancing, jazz, and even, yes, circus arts. In short, the "holy spirit" of yesteryear has given way to the frenetic energy of lindy-hop, which has a holy spirit of its own.
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Tarantula Hill is the home and sometimes venue of legendary experimental music duo Twig Harper and Carly Ptak. Rising from the ashes of a tragic fire in 2006 this beautifully (re)constructed performance space, library, studio, and home has once again become a vital asset in the the ever growing Baltimore music and arts scene.
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