On May 3, 2026, at 4:00 PM, jazz trumpeter/composer John D’earth will present, for the first time, new music from a new recording project that will feature a new sound. The concert will take place at Grace Episcopal Church in Keswick. The new sound results from the addition of a dazzling vocalist to his quintet, Laura Ann Singh.

D’earth has been the leader, for over forty years, of one of the longest-running jazz gigs in the country: John D’earth – Thursday Night at Miller’s, on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. He was recently awarded the designation, Jazz Hero, by the National Association of Jazz Journalists, for his stewardship of this project, which has guided several generations of aspiring jazz musicians to achieve the status of world-class players.

For many of those years he was joined on the bandstand by his late wife, singer/songwriter Dawn Thompson. Together, they moved from Manhattan in the early 1980s and brought their band Cosmology (Vanguard Records, Cosmology Records) to Charlottesville. (Cosmology later morphed into the Thompson/D’earth Band.) They have been credited with inspiring the original Dave Matthews Band and, in fact, five members of DMB were members of Cosmology. The music of Cosmology arose from Dawn Thompson’s quest to blend her folk-and-rock inflected songwriting with music that drew as much from John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and The Mahavishnu Orchestra as it did from Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, or the Beatles. By bringing their sound to Charlottesville in the early 1980s Thompson and D’earth inspired others to be musically adventurous, including their old friend and bartender, Dave.

When Dawn Thompson passed away in August of 2017 she left behind a body of material and a series of unique recordings that the musicians who had played with her were eager to revisit. This only became possible with the addition of Laura Ann Singh. Laura Ann Singh is a multilingual American singer, composer, and recording artist, known for her vibrant interpretations of Brazilian popular music, Latin boleros, and beyond. Highly versatile, and with a strong affinity for Dawn’s eclecticism, Laura Ann has made it possible for the “Miller’s Quintet” to revisit some of Dawn Thompson’s compositions and to sing new music and lyrics by D’earth.

“I love to put lyrics and instrumental jazz together,” says D’earth. “In jazz, the instrumentalists are all copying the singers and the singers do the same with the instrumentalists. Jazz and blues are great musical storytellers.”

The results will be numerous: a vinyl record release planned for the fall along with singles and EPs released online, will present a copious amount of new music from D’earth, who has been a standard-bearer and mentor for the jazz community in Central Virginia and the DC area since he moved here in the early 1980s.

The May 3rd concert at Grace Episcopal Church in Keswick will be the first public appearance of D’earth’s quintet featuring vocalist Laura Ann Singh since they began recording new music just a few weeks ago.

The John D’earth Quintet consists of JC Kuhl on tenor saxophone, Garen Dorsey on piano, Peter Spaar on bass, and Devonne Harris on drums, along with D’earth on trumpet and flugelhorn.