The Original that Spawned All the Samples
Other than James Brown and George Clinton, perhaps no musician has been sampled more often in modern hip-hop than jazz/soul vibraphonist Roy Ayers, best known for his highly regarded 1973 soundtrack to Coffy and his 1980 collaboration with Fela Kuti Music of Many Colors. This weekend is your chance to see the original as he does eight shows at the jazz supper club Blues Alley, Thursday through Sunday at 8 and 10 p.m. Tickets are $40.
Brrrr! Seriously, BRRRRRR!
Some of us apparently think it’s a good idea to jump into frigid water in the middle of the winter. If you’re in that crowd, the big event is this weekend: the 16th Annual MSP Polar Bear Plunge, where you get to freeze your tootsies off jumping into the Chesapeake at Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis, MD. Even kids can dunk themselves (in a kiddie pool sprinkled with a few ice cubes). To participate you must raise $50 in pledges for the Maryland Special Olympics. Visit the Plunge website to download pledge forms and for important information about satellite parking and shuttle buses, because far from being a fringe activity, jumping into bone-chilling water turns out to be incredibly popular.
The Master Draws
From his beginnings as a realist painter in the mid-1890s, through his Blue Period and Rose Period and finally into the invention of Cubism and Surrealism, Pablo Picasso continually reinvented himself and profoundly changed the history of art. Now you can trace that development over the course of thirty years of Picasso’s drawings in a new show opening this Sunday in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, Picasso’s Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition. The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free.
Also This Weekend
The Washington Auto Show
Washington Convention Center
January 27th, 2012 – February 5th, 2012
Chinese New Year Parade
Washington, DC – Chinatown
January 29, 2012
2:00 pm start time
6th & I St. NW to 6th & H St. NW
