CapitalBop’s ambitious Jazz Loft series marks its fifth collaboration with the DC Jazz Festival.

The DC Jazz Festival goes into full swing tonight and for the next seven days, the nation’s capital will be bursting at the seams with the one of the nation’s great art forms.

We point you to last week’s edition of This Week in Jazz for DCist’s preview of this year’s festival. Rather than the standard Wednesday roundup, this is an opportunity to showcase a highlight of not only this year’s event, but the past five DC Jazz Festivals: the collaboration between the DCJF and CapitalBop (Ed. note: Sriram Gopal is a former columnist at CapitalBop).

When DCist first profiled CapitalBop in 2011, it was about to curate its first set of shows with the DCJF. Giovanni Russonello and Luke Stewart, CapitalBop’s principals, have since gained much deserved recognition for presenting the best local and regional artists through the D.C. Jazz Loft. Their shows are staged in unique settings with a DIY mentality that allows both musicians and audiences to stretch out. Now in its fifth iteration, the partnership with the DCJF has only deepened and the ambitions have risen.

“This year will be different because we’ve never done anything of this scale. We’re creating a temporary theater inside an empty warehouse, and presenting three nights full of internationally renowned talent,” Russonello said in a recent interview with DCist.

Fortunately, CapitalBop has maintained its commitment to promoting the local scene as it has grown. While this year’s series is on a grander scale, presenting internationally renowned musicians from different parts of the country, each of the three nights includes a local act.

The loft series begins on Thursday with a “trio of trios” with deep ties to Baltimore. Bassist Kris Funn, pianist/vibraphonist Warren Wolf and saxophonist Gary Thomas will each lead their respective groups, plus NPR Music has agreed to film the performance for a future edition of Jazz Night in America. Thundercat, one of the most exciting and gifted musicians working today, will headline Friday’s concert. A virtuoso bassist and vocalist, he is part of a rich L.A. scene that draws from all streams of African American music. Mainstream artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Erykah Badu have tapped his deep well of talent. The lofts culminate on Saturday with a 50th anniversary celebration of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), an artist-run community organization that still operates strongly in Chicago’s South Side. Former AACM president and saxophonist Ernest Khabeer Dawkins will lead a 15-piece orchestra with local favorite Akua Allrich on vocals, and they will perform Dawkins’ Memory in the Center: An Afro-Jazz Opera, his tribute to Nelson Mandela.

“This is a group that laid down the standard for the kind of community engagement and artist empowerment that Luke and I seek to achieve,” Russonello said of AACM.

Continuing CapitalBop’s modus operandi of finding alternative spaces for its shows, the concerts will take place at the Hecht Warehouse in Northeast. The proprietors of the building offered CapitalBop its use for free, so the organizers jumped at the chance.

“Interestingly, when you’re talking about young people who aren’t part of the jazz scene as such, the big draw often ends up being the venue,” Russonello explained. “People want to hear interesting music, but they mostly want to have uncommon, fascinating experiences.”

Though CapitalBop has undergone major changes of late, it’s now a registered non-profit, allowing for more fundraising opportunities and thus bigger and better shows, its success lies in the fact that the core mission is unchanged.

“We continue to fight for this music with the same set of beliefs that guided us originally,” Russonello said. “Getting people together in a room around rebellious, challenging music helps to build community and expand the horizon of what you thought jazz was, and what you thought a good time out at night was.”

The CapitalBop D.C. Jazz Loft series at the DC Jazz Festival takes place from June 10 to June 13 at the Hecht Warehouse, located at 1401 New York Avenue NE. Full ticketing and schedule information are available here.