Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Not diamonds. Divas.
Georgetown’s landmark supper club, Blues Alley, tucked behind 1073 Wisconsin, will celebrate its 60th anniversary with some vocal fireworks. The jazz outpost’s “All Diva Week” runs from July 21 to 27.
Of the five divas in the lineup, the last two, prolific recording artists, are especially well known. But they could hardly be more different.
Raised in Harlem and Newark in the 1940s and ’50s, Beatrice Melba Smith (not her stage name) found success on Broadway, in film and on television, then new fame as a singer of R&B and disco hits. She then returned to Broadway, 25 years after winning a 1970 Tony Award for her portrayal of Lutiebell in “Purlie.”
The other marquee performer, who grew up on Long Island in the 1970s and ’80s, became one of the essential faces and voices of the Great American Songbook revival, also sparking a second bossa nova craze. She continues to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, the Rainbow Room and jazz clubs worldwide.
Onstage at 7 and 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 24, and Friday, July 25: the legendary Melba Moore. Taking the mic at 7 and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, and at 5:30 and 8 p.m. on Sunday, July 27: sultry stylist Jane Monheit.
Though the repertoires of Moore and Monheit, like their backgrounds, scarcely overlap, presenting artists who appeal to distinct audiences accounts for the staying power of “The House That Dizzy Built,” according to owner Harry Schnipper. The music, however, “has to fall under the jazz umbrella,” which has evolved and expanded over Blues Alley’s six decades.
Opened by Dixieland clarinetist and vibraphonist Tommy Gwaltney in 1965, the club received Gillespie’s stamp of approval after the trumpeter raised his angled horn there in 1977. He returned often; a limited-edition CD, “Dizzy Gillespie: Live! At Blues Alley,” was made of an appearance in 1991, slightly more than a year before his death.
Through the nonprofit Blues Alley Society, which runs a weeklong summer jazz camp and the Ella Fitzgerald International Jazz Vocal Competition, Schnipper is nurturing a new generation of performers and fans.
The “All Diva Week” will get rolling on Monday, July 21, with 2025 competition winner Clara Campbell performing selections from the Ella Fitzgerald Songbook. Based in D.C., Campbell, a graduate of Snow College in Ephraim, Utah — 125 miles south of her hometown of Bountiful — joined the U.S. Air Force’s Airmen of Note as a featured vocalist in 2022.
With two sets at the usual starting times (other than Sunday) of 7 and 9:30 p.m., Blues Alley’s Emerging Artist Mondays are priced at $25, plus the standard $7 fees and $15 food-and-beverage minimum.
A release event for “Attunement,” Maryland native Heidi Martin’s recording of her own jazz compositions, will follow on Tuesday, July 22, with $30 tickets for each of the two sets. Martin was awarded a 2024 research fellowship from Rutgers University’s Institute of Jazz Studies to work with the archives of singer, songwriter and activist Abbey Lincoln.
On Wednesday, July 23, the club will present two-time Wammie (Washington Area Music Association Award) winner Alison Crockett, who “weaves together the rhythms of Black American music into a powerful, uplifting tapestry.” Tickets are $35.
Reminder for those hoping to see Moore on Thursday or Friday ($50) or Monheit on Saturday or Sunday ($35): originally a carriage house, Blues Alley has just 125 seats to sell for each set.