WashingtonCityPaper.com on “If Not Now, When?”

Loving jazz flute means not getting many opportunities to write about it. Most of the time it’s a saxophonist’s second (or third) instrument, broken out in a big band to play the Frank Wess part in an old Basie chart and then put away for a few weeks. It’s a shame, because the flute and jazz were made for each other. The flute is incredibly limber, ideally suited for putting a prance to a melody (and don’t underestimate the importance of prancing in either a swing rhythm or a bebop melody) and a remarkably penetrating sound even in its softest, breathiest guise. Exhibit A might be Andrea Brachfeld, already a nearly 30-year veteran of New York jazz when she recorded her debut album in 1999. She found notice and success working in a Latin jazz band (about the only place a jazz flutist can get either) called Charanga ’76, built a career in that department, and developed a brilliant virtuosity that was as suited to the straightahead jazz sound on which she often situates her own recordings—certainly her newest, If Not Now, When? Andrea Brachfeld performs at 5 p.m. at Jazz in the Garden, i.e., the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden, 7th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Free. ~Mike West, Washingtoncitypaper.com, August 2018