GRACE JONES

Grace Jones: Statuesque, Iconic, and Timeless
by Raul da Gama

The legendary British-born, Jamaican-based producer Chris Blackwell (with Graeme Goodall as his initial partner) not only knew how to spend a 2000 pound stipend from his mother, but had an eye for the supremely-gifted and highly visible Jamaican artists for his newly-minted Island Records. Among his first signings for Island were Bob Marley and Grace Jones. Bob was riding the crest of the reggae wave - making it move to the beat of his own "riddim."

Grace always seems to be taller than almost any proverbial wave that would rise in Jamaica and crash in Britain. Even sitting on an interviewer’s couch, which she literally takes over as she drapes herself upon it. She is a celebrated supermodel, an actress, singer, a revolutionary presence, and is larger than life in each of the roles she plays.

Life? That began in Spanish Town, Jamaica, where Grace was born to Marjorie (née Williams) and Robert Jones, a local politician and Apostolic clergyman. “I grew up living in a bubble,” she says, gesticulating with both hands to the British ITV host Jonathan Ross, suggesting how small a space her life once occupied. Growing up in Jamaica, “…there was nothing except church and school which was in church and school which was church,” she continues, explaining the need to break on through to another side. That was not long in coming. Grace was always a singer, and being a striking presence, she naturally gravitated to the stage.

JANELLE MONÁE

From Afrocentric Roots to Android Futures: The Evolution of Janelle Monáe

by Raul da Gama

Somewhere in Janelle Monáe’s orbit, there’s a wall of accolades that reads like a mosaic of artistic triumphs. Among them: a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Children’s and Family Emmy Award, the ASCAP Vanguard Award, and Billboard Women in Music’s Trailblazer of the Year honor. Even more impressively, Monáe boasts ten GRAMMY nominations, including one for Album of the Year at the 66th Annual GRAMMY Awards for her groundbreaking 2023 project, The Age of Pleasure (Wondaland/Bad Boy/Atlantic).

But beyond the trophies, Monáe—the actress, songwriter, rapper, and cultural icon—might be even more proud of how her art has transcended boundaries. From her Afrocentric origins to the Afrofuturist universe of Cindi Mayweather, she has expanded not only her creative reach but also the representation of Black women in music, film, and speculative art. In her conceptual work, she becomes Mayweather: a crested android messiah confronting belonging, alienation, identity, and power in a world few artists dare to imagine—let alone embody.

ANAT COHEN

ANAT COHEN - Leading the Resurgence of the Jazz Clarinet

By John Zaff

Virtuoso clarinet and tenor saxophone player Anat Cohen has traveled the world, both literally and figuratively, in her quest to expand her musical palette and hone her formidable improvisation skills. The figurative travels she’s embarked on have been musical forays undertaken with an international cast of musicians, with the ultimate goal of soaking up the wide array of styles and sub-genres of music that make up the larger jazz idiom. Throughout her journey, Anat has assimilated an encyclopedia’s worth of musical styles into her playing, drawing from such disparate sources as classical, New Orleans style, klezmer music and Brazilian Choro, all the while synthesizing her own unique personal style of playing.

Anat grew up in Israel, in a musical family, studying and learning music alongside brothers Yuval and Avishai, both great players in their own right. Older brother Yuval plays saxophone, which was also Anat’s first instrument, and Avishai plays trumpet. She frequently collaborates with them in a group called the 3 Cohens. Anat’s mom played the accordion and taught music to kindergartners. Her dad also had a great love for music, but Anat’s grandparents both made it clear to her parents that music would not be an acceptable career to pursue. Perhaps because of their denial, things worked out differently for Anat and her brothers. She says, “Unlike our grandparents, our parents never put any doubts in our minds that we could make music a major part of our lives. We went to special schools for the arts and our parents chauffeured us to music lessons. For me, it all started in junior high school.”

JALEEL SHAW

Shaw in the Raw
by Raul da Gama

Sometimes (not often), you can tell the depth and erudition of an artist in the first few notes they play. Music seems to flow with every breath they take. And not simply music but history – human history. This is just the special kind of music that Jaleel Shaw seems to create when he plays his alto saxophone.

Somehow, the air that he breathes into his lungs becomes hot – jazz hot – as it is channeled into the invisible cauldron inside his chest and gets infused with a large measure of uncommon wisdom that comes from a life of contemplation of the human condition. The result: when the air is expelled from his lips through the vibrating reed, it sings and dances with the beautiful struggle that spells life itself.

Jaleel is sharply focused on the struggle of life. However, he is quick to point out a few things about his preponderance of that “struggle of life” that sets him apart from the kind of negativism that is prevalent in the world around him, and around all of us.

CAMILLE THURMAN

THE TWO VOICES OF CAMILLE THURMAN

By Ronald E. Scott

In the arena of jazz, it’s extremely difficult to become proficient with just one instrument, but Camille Thurman has become a creative improviser on tenor saxophone and a versatile singer, boosting four octaves.

Nina Simone, Shirley Horn, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan and Hazel Scott, all great pianists and singers, but Camille has blossomed on saxophones, flute and clarinet, and her inventive scats to swooning ballads make her a rare treasure.

As a finalist in the Sarah Vaughan Vocal Competition in 2013, Camille could have become a major force on the depth of her vocals or her tenor saxophone. She restructured Horace Silver’s instrumental “Love Vibrations” into a song dancing with bluesy rhythms, she then seamlessly picks up her sax and comps on the song with a beautiful melody. She once joked on stage that playing and singing can become a tongue twister when trying to introduce a song, because it requires two different movements from her tongue. Her dual diversity onstage has earned her the reputation as being a double threat.

Camille has shared stages with jazz luminaries like Benny Golson, Roy Haynes, George Coleman, Diana Krall, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kenny Barron and Jon Batiste. On the R&B and hip-hop scene, she’s accompanied Alicia Keys, Missy Elliot, Ciara and India Arie.

BIG CHIEF DONALD HARRISON

Big Chief Donald Harrison: Sparks the Revolution of Unity
by Raul da Gama

Sing it and swing it: “There is a Big Chief down in New Orleans/They call him Donald Harrison/He plays his horn and wears his plume/The big blue one he was born to wear…” Yes, indeed, the inimitable alto saxophonist and alum of one of the last iterations of Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers has earned the honorific in many more ways than one.

NEA Jazz Master Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr. says that he has his father, Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. to thank for inculcating in him the study and knowledge and enabling him to pierce the enigmas of New Orleans's secret tribal culture and New Orleans's second-line culture. The sluice gates of music were not long in opening before Big Chief’s sound world came tumbling out like a flash flood, inundating the world of music. It’s something that Big Chief began to describe as “Nouveau Swing.”

All of this suggests that if anyone would be anointed as Big Chief of the Congo Nation Afro-New Orleans Cultural Group, it would be Harrison. No one could have predicted how far he would fly with New Orleans culture on the wing. True, he did cut his permanent teeth with Art, who never shied away from bringing a slew of new-generation players into the Messengers to rejuvenate the music; not ever.

PAUL CARR AND VANESSA RUBIN

Paul Carr and Vanessa Rubin: Rawhide Blues Meets the Seductive Elegance of Jazz

By Raul da Gama

To say “the blues begat jazz” is like preaching to the choir. Although there can be no substitute for a universally songful, modern blues in the 12-bar arrangement, there is something quite unique about the blues bred in Texas. The air around the Lone Star State is steeped in the nuclear fusion of lowdown blues, sharp-edged, gloriously inventive jazz, and the high and lonesome whinge of country music. It is no wonder: Blind Lemon Jefferson used his acoustic guitar to charm and bend notes in a minor key, describing heartache with an anguished glissando. He sang quintessentially evanescent blues for lost love and described the social despair of being Black in America. The sorrow he spun in his narratives influenced the future creation of the hard-nosed, diamond-in-the-rough jazz musician—one who wailed in sharp rebuke of all that was wrong in society while joyfully celebrating all that was right.

From this fertile tradition emerged an extensive line of Texas bluesy jazz saxophonists. Giants like Arnett Cobb, Don Wilkerson (born in Moreauville, Louisiana, but raised in Houston), and Ornette Coleman paved the way. It is no surprise that the celebrated saxophonist Paul Carr should follow in the footsteps of those giants—and not just walk in their path but blaze a musical trail of his own. A Houston native, Carr graduated from Howard University. He studied music privately and performed as part of the Kashmere High School Stage Band, directed by the legendary Conrad “Prof” Johnson (aka Conrad O. Johnson).

BUSTER WILLIAMS

Buster Williams: Infinite Bassist

by Eugene Holley, Jr.

For seven decades, the GRAMMY Award-winning, NEA Jazz Master bassist/bandleader Charles Anthony “Buster” Williams, Jr. has been the standard-bearer on his instrument for generations. With contemplative, Buddha-like concentration – the very opposite of the grimacing, “stank face” images popular among musicians now – Buster quietly, yet powerfully, became a master at playing the right notes, at the right time for the right reasons; as evidenced by his gigs with Art Blakey, Betty Carter, Jimmy Heath, Wynton Marsalis, McCoy Tyner, The Jazz Crusaders, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard. Buster was a founding member of Herbie Hancock’s 1970s Afro-fusion Mwandishi ensemble, and he was a core member of the ’80s Thelonious Monk repertory group, Sphere.

Buster brings his group, Something More, to Jazz at Lincoln Center for an extended engagement from July 31 to August 2. The group consists of saxophonist Steve Wilson, pianist Brandon McCune (7/31 and 8/1), vibraphonist Stefon Harris (8/2) and drummer Lenny White. Some of the evening’s selections will include Buster’s wistful ballad, “Christina,” an uptempo number, “Where Giants Dwell," and Buster’s arresting arrangement of the Rodgers & Hart standard, “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.”

Buster released their self-titled recording in 1989 (In & Out) and created the group shortly after. The ensemble was created by Buster to fulfill a growing need for more individual musical expression. “I had promised myself that I was not going to form a band that I would constantly lead until I was writing music that I wanted to play every night. And so I did this album with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, [the late] Al Foster, and Shunzo Ohno, the trumpet player.

RON CARTER

Ron Carter: Opus d’Solo, Duo, Trio, and d’Great Big Band
by Raul da Gama

Miles Davis, one of Ron Carter’s illustrious employers, is quoted by Quincy Troupe in Miles: The Autobiography as saying, “Legends are dead people.” Miles was also quoted by Legacy Records as saying, “A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.” Miles was dead wrong in both instances, certainly when it comes to Ron, one of his most celebrated alumni. At 88 years of age, the composer, musician, and bassist has no use for “a cane” nor known “for what he used to do. He’s still doing it” and being recognized for it.

Celebrated worldwide, Ron has been awarded France's premier cultural award, the medallion and title of Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2010). The Japanese government not only credited him with helping to popularize jazz in Japan, thereby facilitating cultural exchange between the U.S. and Japan, but also honored him with The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 2021. Stateside, he has won GRAMMY Awards and been inducted in the DownBeat Hall of Fame (2012) and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame (2024).

Ron has seven honorary doctorates. He was the 2002 recipient of the prestigious Hutchinson Award from the Eastman School at the University of Rochester (2021) and he received the Satchmo Award from the Louis Armstrong Foundation for his lasting contribution to jazz as an educator. He has been judged the Most Valuable Player by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Most intriguing of all, unbreakable too, in 2015 Ron earned a Guinness World Record as the most recorded jazz bassist with 2,221 recordings. Since that time, he has recorded hundreds more. Without using “a cane.”

WILLIAM PARKER

WILLIAM PARKER INSIDE THE MUSIC

by Ronald E. Scott

In William Parker’s five decades and counting, the innovative bassist and composer has released over 20 albums as a leader (most reaching #1 on the CMJ charts) and appeared on over 150 albums while publishing his ongoing hefty volumes of interviews with renowned musicians in the avant-garde arena. The Village Voice in 1995 named him “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time.”

In response to his many accolades over the years, William responds, “I’m happy to be able to make a contribution to the music that reaches people, to play with all my heart every time, and don’t take any prisoners, set everybody free. I can’t name one bassist who didn’t make a great contribution, like Abdul Malik, Doug Watkins, or Paul Chambers and Henry Grimes; we are all family. We each have a role to play; some of us are delicate flowers and some of us are power kegs. Everybody is great in their own way, and some like Charlie Parker and Eric Dolphy stood out. I’m happy to be in the same room with established and aspiring musicians; we all have to find our own voice and keep it going.”

MALCOLM-JAMAL WARNER

Malcolm-Jamal Warner: The Rhythms of Humanity—A Legacy in Art, Literature, and Music

by Raul da Gama

Malcolm-Jamal Warner was a man whose life seemed predestined for greatness. Born into promise, his parents named him "Malcolm" after civil rights leader Malcolm X and "Jamal" after legendary jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. From a young age, his life reflected the depth and creativity inherent in those names. Warner’s undeniable talent for the dramatic led to his enrollment in The Professional Children’s School in New York—a pivotal decision that would lay the foundation for his illustrious career in the arts.

Although Warner is undoubtedly best remembered for his role as Theo Huxtable—the lovable son of Dr. Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable—on the critically acclaimed television sitcom The Cosby Show, his artistic journey went far beyond this iconic role. The Cosby Show, which aired for eight seasons (1984–1992), became a cultural phenomenon, ranking among Variety magazine’s 100 greatest television shows of all time. Warner’s portrayal of Theo, blending humor, charm and relatability, left an indelible mark on American audiences.

VICTORY BOYD

Victory Boyd: Spiritual Colors of Jazz
by Raul da Gama

When Victory Boyd begins to sing, she is creating a sacred space. Each warm exhalation washes the air and is a fervent exhortation to her creator and ours to illuminate that sacred space now virtually manifest around her. Not so surprisingly, the young yet erudite Victory reveals herself to be an artist of the first order, broadening out from the spiritual repertory for which she is best known. Her instrument is gorgeous; lustrous, precise, and feather-light. Her musicianship is fierce as she digs into the meaning of each word, brings ceaseless variety to soft dynamics, and imbues every phrase with a very special grace.

Victory – one of nine children – was born to sing. And sing she did, from the age of four, nurtured by her musician-parents. Her father is composer and vocalist John Boyd, who founded The Rising Musical Family. The family website states John’s unique artistic vision: “The audiences will see what it’s like to have music as a refuge and shelter during times of family pain, trouble, and separation. For the large musical family, music is not just a hobby; it’s the proverbial family farm. It’s the means by which a family survives. Everyone has to make a contribution. Everyone has to plant in the fields and reap the harvest.”

ANAT COHEN

Anat Cohen: Virtuoso Clarinetist and Musical Polyglot

By John Zaff

When critics and music journalists consistently bestow honors on a musician, year after year, you can be certain that that musician has honed their talent and creativity to the highest of levels and reached a true pinnacle as a player. For an amazing 18 years in a row, multi-instrumentalist Anat Cohen has received the Jazz Journalists award for best clarinet player among her peers. That outstanding record may be unprecedented, and it surely is for good reasons.

Virtuoso clarinetist and tenor saxophone player Anat grew up in a musical family in Israel. Her two brothers are both accomplished jazz musicians. Older brother Yuval plays saxophone and brother Avishai plays trumpet. The three siblings are all highly regarded in the New York music scene and beyond. The siblings each received scholarships to attend the Berklee College of Music. It was while studying jazz there that Anat developed a lifelong fascination with world music, especially Latin and Brazilian Choro. Anat’s playing is eclectic and she draws on many influences, melding them into her own unique and creative style. In the music programs Anat attended in Israel, she first studied classical formats, but soon immersed herself studying and playing transcriptions of New Orleans jazz. She also grew up around Klezmer music, and like a polyglot who can easily switch from one tongue to another, she became a musical multi-linguist.

MARCUS GILMORE

Marcus Gilmore: Inheriting Rhythms, Forging New Paths

by Ronald E. Scott

Marcus Gilmore, the inventive drummer and composer, represents the third generation of creative artists from the Haynes family. He is the grandson of revered pioneer Roy Haynes, and the nephew of Roy’s sons: cornetist and composer Graham Haynes and drummer Craig Holiday Haynes.

“It feels great to be able to gain a significant historical perspective and knowledge of the music from my family, that’s pretty cool,” says Marcus. “Up until several months ago I had my grandfather still walking the planet, and he was still innovating until the end, so he was an incredible example for me in so many ways.”

Marcus knew at age 7 he wanted to be a professional drummer, but it wasn’t until his 10th birthday that his grandfather gave him his own set. “I never really felt any pressure from the family,” he recalls. “Once I realized I wanted to be a musician, I took it very seriously. Nobody ever had to tell me to practice—especially my grandfather. I did it automatically.”

At 16, while attending Manhattan’s famed LaGuardia High School for the Arts, Marcus landed his first professional gig: a European tour with Clark Terry. His mother and the school gave permission. “LaGuardia encouraged us to be professional musicians,” he says. “The teachers and community were always making sure students were aware of opportunities.” He also attended Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program and The Manhattan School of Music, and was chosen for the GRAMMY Band, which meant rehearsals in the host city, performances at official events, and attending the awards ceremony.

ABDULLAH IBRAHIM

Abdullah Ibrahim: Architect of South Africa’s Jazz Revolution

by Eugene Holley, Jr.

For an astonishing 75 years, the music of pianist/composer Abdullah Ibrahim, the NEA Jazz Master, paralleled South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, and the birth of a new multiracial, multi-ethnic and multicultural nation, with President Nelson Mandela as its leader. Abdullah’s sonic stew mirrored all his country’s cultural and artistic complexities: a mix of Black jazz, church melodies, African indigenous folk songs, chants and rhythms, played with a soulful synthesis of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk’s dark and lovely pianisms.

Abdullah is currently on a world tour, and his engagement at Jazz at Lincoln Center entitled Life of a Legend: a Birthday Celebration (October 9) befits the kingly nature of Abdullah’s legacy and status. Abdullah is backed by his longstanding group, Ekaya, which means “home” in the isiXhosa language, and features tenor saxophonist Lance Bryant; trombonist Michael Pallas; baritone saxophonist Josh Lee; Cleave Guyton on alto saxophone, flute and piccolo, bassist and cellist Noah Jackson and drummer Will Terrell. Special guests are Abdullah’s ex-sidemen, including trumpeter Terence Blanchard, alto/soprano saxophonist Kenny Garrett, and bassist Cecil McBee. “We honor the tradition of rites of passage: the concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center October 3 & 4,” Abdullah proudly proclaims. “Our musicians are four generations – elders and current young.”

GOLDINGS-BERSTEIN-STEWART

Goldings-Bernstein-Stewart: Pioneers of the Modern Organ Trio Sound

by John Zaff

The legendary jazz groups, from Miles to Coltrane to the great Bill Evans trios, all had something in common beyond the sheer mastery of their instruments and the mind-boggling musical talent that went along with that. It was an almost preternatural ability to listen to each other and blend their voices in a way in which the musical whole became greater than the sum of its parts. The long-standing organ trio of Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart have spent several decades honing and utilizing that same secret sauce in their music.

Each of these players are virtuosos. Larry was the DownBeat Critics Choice for best organist the last two years in a row. Guitarist Peter is known for his thoughtful solos, often compared to musical storytelling, as well as for his vast knowledge and understanding of harmonic structure. He’s consistently a top ten DownBeat Critics and Readers Choice in the guitar category. Drummer Bill is famous for his innovative approach to drumming and for the creative and soulful accompaniment he provides, that puts the focus on musical conversation. Guitar great Pat Methaney once called Bill “a bottomless pit of ideas.” Individually, they should be considered a “supergroup,” but collectively they prove to be much more.

JAZZMEIA HORN

SMOKE / DECEMBER 31

Although still young, singer-songwriter Jazzmeia Horn has solidified her position as a straight-ahead, exuberant vocalist. The winner of both the Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan awards, Jazzmeia is, in the words of the New York Times, “among the most exciting young vocalists in jazz.” Nominated for multiple Grammy Awards and winner of several DownBeat Awards, she has been compared to Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson, and is firmly rooted in the jazz tradition. Her latest recording, Messages (Empress Legacy), features eight originals and has been praised, with the Dallas Morning News calling it “a creative step forward.” Jazzmeia will appear on New Year’s Eve at Smoke with the Smoke Jazz Club All-Stars comprised of alto saxophonist Vincent Herring, pianist Cyrus Chestnut, and drummer Jonathan Blake. DJS

AC LINCOLN

DJANGO JAZZ CLUB / DECEMBER 31

Singer and tap dancer AC Lincoln was raised in New York in a musical family. His parents, Kim Kalesti and Marion Cowings, are celebrated jazz singers and his sister is the widely acclaimed singer-songwriter Emily King. AC has appeared with tap dance legends such as Savion Glover, Jimmy Slide and Buster Brown and not only performs with his own band, but has played with many great artists, including The Hot Sardines, Mercedes Ellington, Antoinette Montague and Winard Harper and Jeli Posse. He has headlined at some of the world’s top jazz clubs such as Birdland in New York, Blue Note Tokyo, and The Roundhouse in London. The group at Django includes AC singing and dancing, Danny Mixon on piano, Melissa Slocum on bass, and Danno Petersen on drums. DJS

CHAMPIAN FULTON

Champian Fulton: Engaging Singer and Swinger

by Ken Dryden

Champian Fulton knew early on that she wanted to pursue both piano and singing. The Norman, Oklahoma native was exposed to jazz early by her father, the late trumpeter and flugelhornist Stephen Fulton and she was already singing with enough skill at age ten to help celebrate Clark Terry’s 75th birthday in 1995.

Many vocalists influenced Champian: “My favorite vocalist when I was a little girl is Dinah Washington. Then later, I fell in love with Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams and Jay McShann. I love the blues; I'm from Oklahoma.” As a pianist, she has many inspirations. “I always loved the block chord players, Red Garland, Errol Garner, Fats Waller, and Count Basie.” Yet her approach to performing draws from many of them without mimicry. “I wanted to take all those things that I loved and smoosh them together. Even though I feel like some of them don't naturally go together.”

Champian enrolled at SUNY Purchase at 17, where she studied with Dena DeRose and Hal Galper. “I was an odd student; I was from Oklahoma and already working professionally, playing and singing. I had a clear idea about what I wanted to do.” But she is much more than a ballad singer; she is known to include instrumentals by Charlie Parker, Earl Hines or Gigi Gryce and others in her sets.

WYCLIFFE GORDON

Wycliffe Gordon: The Gospel Truth in Jazz

by Angel Beanland

Wycliffe Gordon doesn’t just play music – he tells stories. His trombone reverberates with echoes of Sunday mornings in the Southern Black Baptist church, hymns rising like prayers, the sermon cutting through the air, and the congregation lifting their voices in song. For Wycliffe, jazz isn’t simply an art form – it’s his testimony, the bridge between sacred traditions and boundless creativity.

Few musicians embody versatility like Wycliffe, a true polymath who plays an astounding 23 instruments. From trombone to trumpet, piano to didgeridoo, each adds to his vast vocabulary. But his trombone remains his truest voice – a deeply vocal instrument capable of emotion, connection and uplift.

“I wanted to dispel the myth of a separation between Gospel music and jazz,” Wycliffe says, reflecting his belief in the spiritual underpinnings of jazz. His breakthrough album, The Gospel Truth, affirms that Gospel and jazz are two sides of the same coin. Sacred hymns blend seamlessly with jazz improvisation, creating a sound that is both timeless and vital.

Born in Waynesboro, GA, Wycliffe grew up immersed in music’s spiritual possibilities. His father, a classical musician and church pianist, taught him to see music as a universal gift – whether it came from Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, or Bobby Blue Bland. His mother believed good music was simply good music, regardless of genre, as long as it connected people.

“We were in church every Sunday,” Wycliffe remembers. “The singing and the preaching became a part of how I express myself and interpret music, even now.”

Those church traditions became the foundation of Wycliffe’s artistic voice. Watching singers stir congregations with emotion – not technical precision – instilled in him the understanding that music should move the soul.

SULLIVAN FORTNER

The Evolving Cycle of Sullivan Fortner

by Ronald E. Scott

Pianist and composer Sullivan Fortner has been named the recipient of one of the most prestigious honors in music, The Gilmore’s inaugural 2026 Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Award. The Award was recently announced at a special ceremony held at The Jerome L. Greene Space in New York City. Marking the largest single gift ever dedicated exclusively to a jazz artist, Fortner receives $300,000 in support of his musical and career goals over the next four years. By being so honored, Fortner steps into a historical trifecta as the first Bell awardee to be African American, American and a jazz musician.

Upon receiving the award Fortner noted, “'With great rewards come great responsibility,' my father often said, which makes me feel like I have a lot to do; I have to get much better--playing, writing and all that. I’m honored my peers took time to recognize me but I’m in it because I just want to play music. I love it.” Tentatively, Fortner says he would like to use some of the funds to form a chorale group with his family to include an album, tour and live concerts.

He earned the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance on Samara Joy’s “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me” and the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album alongside Cécile McLorin Salvant for her acclaimed album The Window, on which he serves as both key player and producer. He’s been collaborating with her for a decade, first appearing on her 2017 album Dreams & Daggers and on 2018’s The Window, 2022’s Ghost Song and 2023’s Mélusine, Creative.

In the coming years, jazz annals will mark that the Salvant and Fortner collaborations were just as significant as those by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Lester Young, Carmen McRae and George Shearing.

CHIEF XIAN ATUNDE ADJUAH

Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah: Breath, Spirit, and the Bandstand

by Chrys L. Roney

To experience Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah – whether on record or stage – is to encounter not just a boundary-breaking jazz artist but a living vessel for sacred jazz. His artistry is rooted in devotion: a sacred walk shaped by ancestral remembrance, innovation, and humility.

Born in New Orleans, Chief Adjuah draws deeply from Maroon and Black Indian traditions, which teach resistance and ritual. From his earliest years, music was more than an art – it was a bridge connecting generations. Today, he insists: “When we take the bandstand, we’re not just taking it as us… we open our avatars and spirits to be receivers for those who came before us, and other divine powers who join the circle.”

For Adjuah, jazz is not merely sound but living memory – a communal ceremony for healing and transformation.

The trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer (formerly known as Christian Scott) is also a cultural warrior, using music as a platform to confront systemic injustice and uplift ancestral memory. As Chieftain of the Xodokan Nation of Maroons and Grand Griot of New Orleans, his titles honor a lineage rooted in African diasporic traditions and recognize his family’s deep contributions to music, culture, and storytelling.

TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON

CD Review/Feature

Terri Lyne Carrington’s We Insist! 2025: A Cinematic Protest

We live in a moment shaped by media – by scrolling, watching, and constantly witnessing the world through a stream of images. Our emotional register feels different from the 1960s: less explosive, more internal, held in by a kind of collective composure. Terri Lyne Carrington’s We Insist! 2025 meets that reality with unmistakable truth. She doesn’t attempt to recreate the raw fire of Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln; that kind of reenactment would feel like performance, not purpose. Instead, her interpretation of the Freedom Now Suite lands with a quieter force – one that reflects the temperament of this generation. The album unfolds like a film: scene by scene, it invites listeners to absorb its textures as if experiencing a story. It doesn’t shout its urgency; it lets the urgency emerge from within.

Terri’s connection to Max is deeply personal. “Max was really important to me,” she explains. “He encouraged me, had me over to the house, put me on stage whenever he could. That kind of apprenticeship is why I’m where I am.” Terri carries this lineage with quiet confidence, a sense of purpose inherited from the music itself. It’s the same purpose that has shaped her career as a GRAMMY Award-winning drummer, composer, and bandleader; as a collaborator with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Dianne Reeves; and as the founder of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, where she works to widen access to this art form.

SONNY ROLLINS & RENE MCLEAN

Sonny Rollins and Rene McLean – My Favorite Interview

by Ronald E. Scott

My 2025 interview with the colossal saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins had to be my favorite article of the year. Once saxophonist Rene McLean confirmed our interview with him, my anxiety set in. My heart was beating faster than a riffin’ Sonny tenor solo.

Research and preparation are allotted for all my interviews, but for NEA Jazz Master Sonny Rollins, panic grabbed me. What do I ask a global artist who's been interviewed by every major publication in the world, and the subject of many books, including the recent autobiography Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins by Aidan Levy (2023)? Finally, after hours of reading interviews and viewing YouTube, a few questions resonated that were worthy of asking our jazz treasure. Rene and I compared notes and came up with a few more questions; now we were ready. Well, Rene was much more confident than I, him being an established legendary musician in his own right and oh yeah, he is Sonny’s godson.

Waking up early on the day of the interview, I was very excited, with enough butterflies in my stomach to hold an entire pavilion of the colorful specimens. I called Rene just to check in; he was ready. We briefly reviewed our questions and came up with a plan B; one never knows! The interview was a three-way phoner with Sonny in Woodstock, NY, McLean in Connecticut, and me in Manhattan, with the three-way call connection originating in California.

CRAIG HARRIS

CRAIG HARRIS ORBITS INTO 2026

by Ronald E. Scott

Conversing with the prolific trombonist, composer and bandleader Craig Harris is just as spiritually intriguing as his music. He sparks cultural awareness with intense grooves as he plays, swings and sings; there’s a message in his music like the Sound of Philadelphia (Gamble and Huff), Randy Weston, Amiri Baraka and Gil Scott Heron. He was influenced by his professor and mentor, Makanda Ken McIntyre, while attending SUNY Old Westbury. His musical journey began when touring with the eclectic cosmic music genius Sun Ra which landed him on a path with the ranks of creative music’s most progressive leaders, a path that he continues on today and is often leading the way.

Using art as cultural facilitation to promote change in the Harlem community, and the world at large, Craig has flexed his musical voice to comment on social injustice and humanity, as a 2022 NAACP Image Award nominee for his co-composition of the score for Judas and the Black Messiah (the Oscar-winning film). That same year, he released his record, Managing the Mask (Aquastra). This release is another example of Craig’s music that grabs the soul. All 13 tracks are filled with, as he says, “righteous music, great black music / yes the world can really use it.”

On a brisk, cold Saturday afternoon, we sat in Craig’s Harlem brownstone (where some years ago, he presented regular live jazz soirees) as he reflected on his past year and upcoming projects. “2025 was a hard year, because we lost a lot of our European audience due to these political times,” says Craig. “We have a commitment to our ancestors – as long as we play music in the community, it keeps the community alive; it’s really a ritual live meditation for the community.”

MARSHALL ALLEN

Still Playing for the 21st Century: Marshall Allen at 101

The stage lights catch the gleam of his alto saxophone as Marshall Allen steps forward, 101 years into a life dedicated to impossible music. Behind him, the Sun Ra Arkestra launches into "Space Is the Place," and suddenly time collapses—it could be 1968, 1993, or last Tuesday. The only constant is Marshall himself, playing notes that seem to arrive from somewhere beyond the stratosphere.

"Imagination is the magic carpet," Marshall says. "It'll take your soul to distant lands. And outer space."

Born May 25, 1924, in Louisville, Kentucky, Marshall has spent nearly seven decades as keeper of one of jazz's most radical flames. As the longtime lead alto saxophonist and current leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, he embodies a living link to a visionary who claimed to be from Saturn and transformed American music. But Marshall is no mere caretaker of a museum piece. At 101, he continues to push the music into uncharted territories.

His centennial year brought unprecedented recognition when Marshall was named Jazz Musician of the Year for 2025—a testament not just to his historical significance, but to his ongoing vitality. At an age when most musicians have long since put down their instruments, Marshall continues to lead the Arkestra with the same cosmic energy that first drew him to Sun Ra's orbit nearly seventy years ago.

"We're playing his music, and we're playing it with different interpretations," Marshall explains. "Yesterday we played it one way, today we play it slightly different." This philosophy—honoring tradition while embracing constant change—defines his stewardship of Sun Ra's legacy.

DARRELL GREEN & CAMILLE THURMAN

DARRELL GREEN & CAMILLE THURMAN

by Ronald E. Scott

Folk traditions of Valentine’s Day journey back centuries to St. Valentine and the Roman Empire. Many reasons exist as to how it transpired into one day of love; far too many for us to debate. The most significant day is February 14, and the entire month is dedicated to love, affection and appreciation for loved ones around the globe.

For this Valentine’s issue, I had the opportunity to interview two young musicians, newlyweds (2021) who always seem content. Tenor saxophonist, vocalist and composer Camille Thurman, whose luminous smile can light-up the sky during any unforeseen catastrophe, and drummer and composer Darrell Greene, always the soft-spoken gentleman. Together and independently, they are molding their interpretation of jazz.

“Look, honey, they getting married on TV,” was a remark made by a family member as they watched Camille and Darrell get married on Zoom. Yes, Zoom, directly following the COVID pandemic; the two had been in the house for over a year, sitting around, taking long drives visiting family members, composing and practicing together and performing to live Zoom audiences. “We figured at that point we had been together inside all that time, and we hadn’t choked each other or anything, so we decided it was time to get married January, 2021,” says Darrell as the two laughed. “It was crazy; we literally called our parents and friends 30 minutes before the ceremony to give them the Zoom link. The only people in our house were the pastor, the deacon and his wife. It was so funny our parents were meeting each other for the first time on Zoom. Antoine Roney was there; he thought the entire situation was hilarious. But to be honest, its was fun and definitely a unique ceremony to be cherished.”

NICOLE ZURAITIS AND DAN PUGACH

NICOLE ZURAITIS AND DAN PUGACH: Giant Steps

by Chrys L. Roney

The cab was late. Or maybe it wasn't—maybe time just moved differently that winter night in 2010 when Nicole Zuraitis climbed into a yellow taxi on Manhattan's Upper West Side and found Dan Pugach already inside.

She was a singer-pianist still learning to trust her own voice. He was an Israeli-born drummer who'd crossed oceans chasing the ghost of Buddy Rich. Neither knew that a shared ride to a jazz jam session would become the first bar of a composition still being written fifteen years later.

"I hunted him like prey," Nicole laughs now, her theatrical delivery betraying the classical training that once kept her tethered to Debussy and Gershwin. Dan's response is quieter, more measured—the way a drummer listens before committing to the groove. "I'm the container," he says. "I keep her operating smoothly."

Container and catalyst. Structure and spark. It's a dynamic that has carried them from wedding bands to the Grammy stage, from the edge of surrender to the center of jazz's most prestigious institutions.

ADEGOKE STEVE & IQUA COLSON

ADEGOKE STEVE & IQUA COLSON: FIFTY YEARS OF CONFIRMATION

by Chrys L. Roney

When asked to name the standard that best captures their fifty-year marriage, Adegoke Steve Colson and Iqua Colson don't hesitate—though they don't agree, either.

"I would take 'Confirmation,'" Steve says, invoking Charlie Parker's bebop landmark—built on shifting harmonic ground that rewards musicians who trust their ears and each other.

Iqua's answer is more tender: "My Funny Valentine." She's quoted the Rodgers and Hart standard countless times over the decades, she explains, because it's woven into the origin story of their relationship. As a student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, she wandered through a dormitory one day and heard someone playing the ballad. She followed the sound until she found him—Steve, alone at a piano.

"I always relate it to us," she says. "The Sarah Vaughan version."

Two standards, two temperaments, one marriage. It's a fitting emblem for a partnership that has thrived on complementary strengths rather than sameness.

BILL CHARLAP & RENEE ROSNES

Bill Charlap & Renee Rosnes:

Pianos & Hearts Side by Side

by Ken Dryden

Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes are not only two of the busiest jazz pianists today, but they are also husband and wife. Both have demanding careers as bandleaders and extensive discographies. How do two artists who play the same instrument get drawn together, as playing partners and romantically? Asked which attraction happened first, Bill responds, “It was as people first. We were very compatible musically and as people, too. Well, we love each other. We love music. It was always very natural making music together because we felt things the same way.”

The chemistry is apparent whether the listener has seen them play together in person, on recordings or for jazz programs, such as their joint appearance on Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz.” Renee explains, “Bill and I feel so fortunate to be sharing a life filled with love and music. From the very first time Bill and I played duet on two pianos, we immediately felt a deep musical simpatico. While we each bring our own perspectives, a shared way of thinking merges instinctively when we play together.” She believes that their feeling of time in the same place gives the music buoyancy, and since they think in an orchestral manner, there tends to be clarity of both harmony and line. She adds, “Nuances in touch also play a big role in the sound.”

GEOFFREY HOLDER AND CARMEN LAVALLADE

Geoffrey Holder and Carmen de Lavallade: A Love Story in Fabric, Paint, and Movement

As Told by Hollis King, Artist and Protégé

Geoffrey Holder had a saying he repeated often, a philosophy he lived by and passed on to those he loved:

“Speak your dreams loudly because you never know when an angel will be standing next to you.”

For Hollis King, the visual artist who became one of Holder’s closest protégés, that saying proved prophetic. A chance encounter – a borrowed hat, a lecture at the Studio Museum in Harlem – led to a decades-long mentorship and a front-row seat to a partnership that shaped American art for more than half a century.

Carmen de Lavallade died on December 29, 2025, at the age of 94. She outlived Geoffrey by more than eleven years, continuing to perform, teach, and inspire across decades that might have quieted anyone else. This is a tribute to their extraordinary partnership – sixty-two years of marriage, art, and mutual devotion – as witnessed by someone who was there.

KATIE BULL

Katie Bull: Singing Hope into Form

by Chrys L. Roney

There are artists who arrive with a sound, and there are artists who arrive with a life. Katie Bull belongs to the latter—her music is not a performance layered on top of experience, but a direct extension of it. What she brings to the stage is less about presentation and more about transmission: of memory, of lineage, of grief metabolized into something usable.

"I am a jazz woman coming from a jazz family," she says plainly, grounding herself not in genre but in inheritance.

That inheritance runs deep. Katie's father studied with Lennie Tristano, and her childhood unfolded inside the living architecture of New York's loft-era jazz scene. She grew up in a Tribeca loft once occupied by Don Cherry, surrounded by musicians who treated improvisation not as a technique but as a way of being. Figures like Sheila Jordan and Jay Clayton weren't distant influences—they were present, formative forces.

Jordan, in particular, was there from the beginning. Katie describes her not only as a mentor but as someone who "rocked me on her knees." That kind of proximity changes the nature of influence. It becomes embodied.

Her sound reflects that lineage, but it doesn't stay contained within it. Katie's vocal language moves between swing and bebop, groove and R&B, and into experimental territories shaped by artists like Meredith Monk. It's a synthesis that resists easy placement—intentionally so.

"Not everybody is going to get this," she says. "But the people who do will really get it."

That clarity—about audience, about purpose—feels earned.

KENDRICK SCOTT

Kendrick Scott – The Explorer

by Dave Popkin

Drummer Kendrick Scott is one of the most distinctive rhythmic voices in contemporary jazz. The five-time GRAMMY Award nominee is a first-call drummer who has toured and/or recorded with artists including Herbie Hancock, Charles Lloyd, Terence Blanchard, Kurt Elling, Robert Glasper, Lionel Loueke, Ambrose Akinmusire and Kurt Rosenwinkel. Kendrick’s relationship with Blue Note Records is a long and successful one, having appeared on several of Blanchard’s celebrated Blue Note releases, on the Blue Note All-Stars album Our Point of View in 2017 and his own albums as a bandleader, including 2023’s Corridors, 2019’s A Wall Becomes A Bridge and 2015’s We Are The Drum.

Kendrick has been to Smoke Jazz Club countless times, both as a fan and playing in other people’s bands. The April 8-12 run will be something new: his debut at Smoke as a bandleader. “Holy smokes, that’s crazy. It means a lot for me,” he says. “I’ve seen all of the greats right there. I’m close to 146th Street, so for me that’s the closest club uptown…that’s my hangout spot. I’ve sat up under Al Foster, Lenny White, Lou Hayes, Billy Hart and Bill Stewart. It’s so important that we get to sit under these people and listen, especially multiple times in a week. Other than the Vanguard, Smoke is one of the only clubs that does long runs like that, and that’s really important because the music gets to grow. You get to see how the artists challenge themselves every night to bring something new to the music. You don’t get that in a 15-second Instagram clip. Smoke is a place that provides that atmosphere for the music. Paul [Stache] is doing such a great job with the club. I’m just blessed that I have the opportunity to present music there.”

To visit more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/c8d60b7b9c.html#page/10.

MONTY ALEXANDER

Monty Alexander – Jamericana Music

by Dave Popkin

Monty Alexander is the Forrest Gump of jazz. He has crossed paths with some legendary figures on his quixotic journey. Born in Jamaica in 1944, he grew up there before reggae, in the early days of mento and ska music. Monty didn’t go to music school or read music. He was a natural. He was influenced by the music on the island and the jazz of Louie Jordan and Nat Cole. He started playing gigs in the late 1950s, then soon progressed to New York at the height and heat of the jazz craze. Monty learned from the best and has subsequently become one of the leading pianists of his generation, melding styles and creating smiles with his groove and infectious personality.

“The word 'jazz' is great, but I love all music. My story is so unique,” Monty says. “I was playing at 14 years old in the recording studios in Kingston, Jamaica. Just a few years after that, I meet my hero, ‘Satchmo’ Louis Armstrong. I come from that early Jamaican thing before Bob Marley. I’ve come up with a new title that says who I am and what I do, 'Jamaica to Jazz': it’s Jamericana music.”

THE SISTERING

The Sistering: A Collective Force

by Ronald E. Scott

The four diva song stylists of jazz—Lois Deloatch, Nnenna Freelon, Lenora Zenzalai Helm and Kate McGarry, all based in North Carolina—have enjoyed a meaningful relationship and support system for many years. When they were not working, they often met over good food and wine. “While relaxing, we found ourselves sharing heartaches, hopes, joys, tears and speaking our deepest creative dreams into being,” says Kate. Those living room conversations evolved into a musical collective called the Sistering.

Kate, a native of Massachusetts, is a Grammy‑nominated vocalist and educator with eight albums blending folk, pop and jazz. She has also served as a jazz ambassador to sixteen countries.

“People ask us how we came together, but it was so organic—it was like the universe called us like a magnet,” says Nnenna. “We are separate and together at the same time. We are not a group; we share the same musical language. We inspire and learn from each other’s skills and talents.” Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nnenna is a vivid storyteller of song, a seven‑time Grammy nominee, a 2023 inductee into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, and has fifteen albums to her credit.

While these vocalists have performed on major stages around the world and earned ten Grammy nominations among them, they have now joined forces as a seasoned collective on their recently released album The Sistering, a twelve‑track recording of compositions dealing with life, compassion, loss and family. They each composed two songs and co‑wrote “Origins” and “River Song.” The music is emotional, joyful and compassionate—a warm mosaic quilt of jazz, ballads, gospel and folk. The album was released on Lenora’s independent label, Zenzalai Music.

EDDIE HENDERSON

Eddie Henderson: Celebrating Miles
by Ken Dryden

Eddie Henderson is 85, but the trumpeter still exhibits the energy and inventiveness that have always been part of his music. Introduced by his mother to Louis Armstrong at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Eddie recalls, “He was the one who gave me my first trumpet lesson of how to make a sound on his trumpet and mouthpiece. I studied privately
all through grammar school.”

After moving to San Francisco, a new chapter unfolded in Eddie’s life, as he continued music studies at the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music. His new stepfather was a physician who served visiting jazz musicians. That led
to his meeting Miles. Eddie notes, “He stayed at my parents' house, because my stepfather was his physician
whenever he came to town. I've known him ever since, following his career, records and musicality every step of the
way.” When Miles was performing at the Black Hawk, Eddie explains, “He took me every night and that really
almost changed the trajectory of my musical career.”
To read more, visit https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/30a9e40ecf.html#page/6.

WALLACE RONEY JR

WALLACE RONEY JR. PUSHES LEGACY

by Ronald E. Scott

Young trumpeter and composer Wallace Roney IV – fondly called Little Wally and Wallace Jr. by his family and close friends – would say he grew up in a relatively average household. He carries a name that arrives with both weight and wings. But inquisitive jazz enthusiasts would think otherwise after peering into the windows of his jazz castle: his mother, the legendary pianist and composer Geri Allen; his father, trumpet great and GRAMMY Award-winner Wallace Roney – the only trumpet player Miles Davis ever personally mentored, from 1985 until Miles' death in 1991. He started on drums. Elvin Jones gave him his cymbals. Then one day – nobody quite remembers exactly when – you looked up and he was playing his father's trumpet.

"There was some pressure and expectations," says Wallace, reached by phone during an engagement in North Carolina. "But I came to the realization that legacy is good, and it will come as long as I'm doing justice to the music by playing the best I can. They would want me to carve my own path – which is what paying homage to my parents and Miles is about. Carrying on their legacy is doing things my way. I am paying homage to them every time I play because their music comes out of me whether I want it to or not."

KENNY GARRETT

Kenny Garrett: The Preacher Still Has Sermons to Give

by Chrys R | Hot House Jazz Magazine

When Kenny Garrett was fifteen years old, his trumpet teacher Marcus Belgrave called him a preacher. He did not understand it then. He does now.

"God gives everybody something, and everybody has something that's uniquely theirs," Garrett says during a recent conversation. "I take what's uniquely mine and try to make the best of it. That's all I try to do."

At a moment when jazz is in constant debate about its future, Garrett – alto saxophonist, composer, Grammy winner, and keeper of an extraordinary lineage – is less concerned with the argument than with the work. Sitting on 250 recordings over four decades, he remains one of the most consequential voices in the music, yet carries it all with the quiet urgency of a man who believes his best sermon is still ahead.

KEYON HAROLD

Keyon Harold: One of Sixteen, One of One

by Chrys R | Hot House Jazz Magazine

Keyon Harold grew up as one of sixteen children in Ferguson, Missouri, in a house where music was not a hobby - it was the air. His mother kept a big radio going at all hours and made regular runs to Big Lots, the discount store, returning home with jazz albums tucked under her arm like groceries. That's how a boy from Ferguson first heard Kind of Blue. That's how he found Birth of the Cool. That's how the trumpet found him.

"I was always championed by my siblings to keep going, keep practicing," he recalls. "People hit me up on Facebook to this day and tell me I owe them royalties for blowing up their ears."

Now a trumpeter, vocalist, songwriter, and producer - with a GRAMMY Award nomination for Forever Land, a Carnegie Hall debut on the horizon, and a role as creative advisor for Jazz St. Louis - Keyon carries all of that Ferguson soil with him every time he steps onto a stage. The lineage runs deep. His grandfather founded Lance's Drum and Bugle Corps in St. Louis, teaching music for free and, in his own way, saving lives. "Many were saved literally by going to drum corps practice," Keyon says. "They didn't get killed." The music traveled through the family's blood, and when it arrived in Keyon, it found its instrument.

ERIC SCOTT REED

Eric Scott Reed: A Life Devoted to the Piano

There are musicians who play jazz, and then there are musicians who live it—who carry its history in their hands and its future in their hearts. Eric Scott Reed belongs firmly to the latter category. Over a career spanning more than three decades, the pianist and composer has established himself as one of the most eloquent voices in contemporary jazz, a musician whose playing honors tradition while speaking with unmistakable individuality.

Philadelphia Roots, Gospel Foundation

Born in 1970 in Philadelphia, Eric was immersed in music from his earliest days. His father was a minister, and the church became Eric's first conservatory. Gospel music—with its emotional directness, its call-and-response dynamics, and its emphasis on communicating with an audience—shaped his musical DNA in ways that remain audible in every performance.

By age two, Eric was already playing piano. By five, he was performing in his father's church—an early indication of both his precocious talent and the spiritual foundation that would inform his artistry for decades to come.

As a child, his family relocated to Los Angeles, where his prodigious talent soon attracted attention. He studied at the Richard D. Colburn School of Performing Arts and quickly became a fixture on the West Coast jazz scene, sitting in with veterans who recognized something special in the young pianist's touch.

JOHN PATITUCCI

John Patitucci – Top of the Bottom

by Dave Popkin

John Patitucci has lived a rich musical life. He has won three GRAMMY Awards, been nominated for 16, and played on many other GRAMMY Award-winning records. He has played with absolutely everyone, including a 20-year stint with Wayne Shorter, decades with Chick Corea and time with Herbie Hancock, Norah Jones, Roy Haynes, Michael Brecker, B.B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, Bonnie Raitt, Sting, Carole King and countless others. He’s an acclaimed composer, teacher, sideman and studio musician, in addition to leading his own bands. He’s simply one of the top jazz bassists of all time.

This year, although he did just travel to Hawaii and will be going to China in August, you’ll be able to find him closer to home. John called Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, home for about 30 years before recently moving to Connecticut. He will be playing a lot of “home games” in 2026. From June 3-7, John will lead a veteran sextet at Smoke in New York. They will play 12 shows in five nights. “With me it’s about relationships,” says John. “Joey Calderazo [piano] and I have done a lot of stuff together over the years. He’s amazing. In his generation, Joey is very special. We’ve done duet tours together in Italy. He’s another brother of mine. I’ve played with Chris Potter [tenor sax] for years. Steve Wilson [alto sax] is incredible; we played with Chick Corea a little bit.”

ETIENNE CHARLES

Etienne Charles – Cultural Explorer

by Dave Popkin

Trinidad-born trumpeter Etienne Charles is a performer, composer, storyteller and teacher who is continuously searching for untold stories and sounds with which to tell them. One of his favorite methods is to embed himself in a place and a culture, so that he can then bring the story of those people to a larger audience via his musical compositions and arrangements of traditional songs. His most recent album, Gullah Roots (2025), concentrates on the history of the Gullah-Geechee enslaved people brought to South Carolina and Georgia from Africa. It was originally commissioned by the Savannah Music Festival in 2018, and last year Etienne committed it to vinyl and currently tours to support it. “I’d say five or six times I’ve done this, where I completely take a deep dive into the culture and then bit by bit compose, create and present it to the audiences. It’s really about telling the story of these people through the music,” Etienne says. “The Gullah people are a direct link to the Caribbean. Many of the early African captives went to the Commonwealth of Charleston. In 1812, many of them came to Trinidad because they got free land there. The album deals with different points in history like Igbo Landing, which was a very key moment in the history of the Gullah people. It was a slave ship that was coming to land, and the captives took over the ship and instead of sailing to Dunbar Creek, which is where the ship was destined, they all jumped off. So that’s a sad story of a mass suicide of 70-some people [off St. Simons Island, Georgia in 1803]. Dealing with things like The Weeping Time, which is the largest slave sale in the history of North America, almost 500 people sold in one sale from one family [in 1859]. We deal with Watch Night, which is a tradition that still happens on New Year’s Eve.”

LOUIS HAYES

Louis Hayes: Octogenarian Trailblazer

by Ronald E. Scott

"The art form is a challenge, but it's still fun---thinking if I should retire, but I'm still enjoying the music. It gives me a lot of pleasure," said drummer and composer Louis Hayes, a pivotal figure of the hard bop movement. "Everything changes. We've traveled all over the world where the art form is recognized, and we've met a lot of people, but everything has changed, and we have to adapt to what's happening now. My body gets older, but musically, I haven't changed."

NEA Jazz Master Louis Hayes doesn't merely adapt---he sets the curve, consistently leading with a vibrant drumming style that has evolved across decades of work as a bandleader and collaborator with the architecture of jazz. His approach to the kit is unmistakable: a crisp, propulsive swing that never overplays, always serving the music while pushing it forward. Louis is a master of dynamics, knowing precisely when to whisper with brushes and when to drive the band with explosive fills. His time feel---that elusive quality that separates good drummers from great ones---is impeccable, a deep pocket that gives soloists room to breathe while keeping the pulse alive and urgent.

That sound, as critics have noted, is excitement tempered by poise — and there is no better three-word encapsulation of what happens when Louis sits behind the kit. He doesn't announce himself. He simply begins, and within four bars, the room has changed. The ride cymbal opens the conversation — a shimmering, steady dialogue with whoever is soloing, nudging, and responding, never crowding the space. His specialty is a hard-swinging, free-flowing rhythm track that is exquisitely sensitive to the needs of the soloists around him; he lifts people rather than competing with them, a generosity of spirit that took decades to develop and sounds, in his hands, completely effortless.

NONA HENDRYX

Nona Hendryx: Ever-Evolving Artist

by Ronald E. Scott

Nona Hendryx – singer, songwriter, multimedia artist, record producer, activist, multi-instrumentalist – is a creative butterfly, never to be caught up in any genre net and far too fly and versatile for unhip jazz police.

With a career spanning six decades, Nona has a vocal presence as distinctive as a Miles Davis solo, demanding attention with flowing lyrics on social issues, love, and the stuff in between. Groove to her funk, rock, soul, R&B and Afrofuturism – music that permeates the atmosphere. She is an active member of the Black Rock Coalition and founder of Sistah S.M.A.R.T., a nonprofit dedicated to introducing young women of color to science, math, art, technology and robotics. "It's about opening up young ladies' minds about what else is available outside of the norm. It's offering new paths and blazing their own paths," says Nona.

The progressive new-wave goddess, who seems to have discovered the real fountain of youth, has collaborated with an eclectic list of artists including Yoko Ono, Cameo, Talking Heads, Prince, Peter Gabriel, and Laurie Anderson. These collaborations birthed top ten hits and a GRAMMY Award nomination for "Rock This House" with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. On multimedia fronts, in 2018 she was commissioned to create new work inspired by photographer Carrie Mae Weems and dancer/choreographer Ulysses Dove. "I'm open to music and open to other artists and their creativity – what it is that they do and what they are exploring – and I explore it with them," says Nona. "We're like explorers, sort of following a note, a sound, a lyric, and seeing where it's going to take us. I don't have any real boundaries when it comes to exploring all kinds of music."

JAMES BRANDON LEWIS QUARTET

VILLAGE VANGUARD / JUNE 30 - JULY 5

Lewis opens July at the Vanguard, leading a quartet with pianist Aruan Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones, and drummer Chad Taylor. His tenor work draws from the post-Coltrane avant-garde without being beholden to it—the sound is his own, built on a foundation of gospel, blues, and serious compositional intent. Aruan brings a harmonic language shaped by Afro-Cuban tradition and European contemporary music; the combination with James produces performances that don't resolve easily. Chad and Brad have worked together extensively, and the rhythm section anchors what can be turbulent upper-register territory. No stated thematic program—this is a working quartet presenting original material. Five nights gives the music room to develop across the run.

SHABAKA / KOKOROKO / OMAR / LOVIE

CENTRAL PARK SUMMERSTAGE / JULY 1

Four acts from the London jazz and soul continuum share a single bill. SHABAKA—born Shabaka Hutchings—has led Sons of Kemet, Shabaka and the Ancestors, and the Comet Is Coming, three distinct projects that mapped the range between Caribbean rhythm, South African spiritual jazz, and electronic texture. Kokoroko is a collective rooted in West African highlife and Afrobeat. Omar is a British neo-soul architect whose writing influenced a generation of Black British artists. Lovie represents the newest wave. The bill reads less like a random festival pairing than a deliberate statement about where improvised Black music sits in 2026—London-rooted, globally sourced, post-genre. One night, outdoors, Central Park.

CHRISTIAN SANDS QUARTET

BIRDLAND JAZZ CLUB / JULY 1-4

Sands leads a quartet with guitarist Gilad Hekselman, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Ryan Sands. The guitar-piano front line is an unusual choice—no horn—which shifts the harmonic texture toward something more open and layered than a standard piano trio. Gilad is an Israeli-born guitarist with a clean, searching sound that complements rather than competes with Christian's piano. Scott has anchored hundreds of sessions across the jazz spectrum and brings authority to the low end. No specific thematic program announced. Christian came up under Christian McBride's mentorship and has developed a style that honors hard bop structure while pursuing more contemporary harmonic territory.

TIERNEY SUTTON AND HOUSTON PERSON FEATURING LEWIS NASH

SMOKE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 1-5

Houston, at eighty-seven, remains one of the most distinctive tenor saxophonists in mainstream jazz—a player whose warm, woody tone and unhurried phrasing are immediately identifiable. Tierney is a technically accomplished vocalist with strong harmonic intelligence; her approach to a lyric is interpretive rather than decorative. Lewis, one of the most recorded drummers in jazz, anchors the rhythm section. The pairing of Houston and Tierney puts sax and voice in genuine conversation rather than a vocalist-with-accompaniment arrangement. No specific program was announced beyond the standard repertoire both artists are known for. A five-night run at Smoke allows for extended engagement with the material.

THE SOUL REBELS

BLUE NOTE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 3-5

The Soul Rebels are a New Orleans brass band that has spent two decades working across hip-hop, funk, and jazz without settling comfortably into any single genre. Their instrumentation—full brass section, drums, no chordal instrument—gives the arrangements a density that reads differently from most bands playing the Blue Note. They have collaborated with Talib Kweli, Pretty Lights, and Questlove, which reflects the breadth of where they've taken the tradition. Live, the band operates with the tight coordination of a studio ensemble and the energy of a second-line parade. Three nights over the July Fourth holiday weekend.

ROBERTA PIKET

DJANGO / JULY 5

A New York jazz pianist with deep roots in modern and classic swing, Roberta leads an intimate set built around lyric, melodic improvisation and storytelling. Django, modeled on Parisian jazz caves of the 1930s and 40s, remains one of the city’s most atmospheric listening rooms, with candlelit tables, brick arches, and impeccable sound. One early evening set — perfect as a pre‑dinner anchor or start to a longer night downtown; reservations strongly recommended.

WINARD HARPER—JAZZMOBILE SUMMERFEST 61

GRANT'S TOMB / JULY 8

Jazzmobile has been presenting free outdoor jazz in New York City since 1964—sixty-one years of programming that has put live music in front of communities that rarely see it on a concert hall stage. Winard, a drummer and bandleader with deep roots in the hard bop tradition, is a veteran of the Jazzmobile circuit and a recurring presence in Harlem's jazz ecosystem. Grant's Tomb—the General Grant National Memorial at Riverside Drive and 122nd Street—is one of the program's anchor venues. Sidemen for this date have not yet been confirmed in print. Weather permitting, check jazzmobile.org for updates.

EMMET COHEN TRIO

SMOKE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 8-12

Emmet's piano work sits squarely in the lineage that runs from stride through bebop to post-bop—technically rooted, melodically accessible, and historically aware. He has built a significant following through extensive touring and a long-running online series that has featured conversations with many of the musicians he cites as influences. The trio configuration at Smoke allows for the kind of extended interplay that a larger ensemble doesn't permit. Sidemen for this engagement are not confirmed in advance listings. Five consecutive nights.

APRIL VARNER

JAZZ ON THE PLAZA / JULY 9

A New York-based vocalist with a voice that moves between tenderness and authority with effortless control, April has been building a following on the New York scene through exactly the kind of performance that Jazz on the Plaza was designed to present. The series at 1221 Avenue of the Americas has become one of the most reliable free jazz programs in the city — a lunchtime concert that draws devoted listeners who know exactly what they're there for. No reservation required.

THE BAYLOR PROJECT

BLUE NOTE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 10-12

Jean Baylor and Marcus Baylor are one of the most compelling duos working at the intersection of jazz, gospel, and soul, and The Baylor Project is the vehicle through which they have made that intersection into an art form. Jean's voice carries the full emotional weight of the Black American sacred and secular traditions simultaneously; Marcus's drumming is a masterclass in restraint and swing. Three nights, two sets nightly — this is a booking that rewards going twice.

DJANGO—JAZZ ON THE PLAZA

JULY 12

The Django ensemble brings the sound of the Hot Club of France tradition to the open-air plaza at 1221 Avenue of the Americas — acoustic guitars, violin, and bass in the tradition of Django Reinhardt, a style that has enjoyed a genuine revival in New York over the past decade. This is a free Saturday lunchtime concert, ideal for a midtown morning that wants to become an afternoon. No reservation required.

TROMBONE SHORTY AND ORLEANS AVENUE

RIDGEFIELD PLAYHOUSE / JULY 13

Troy Andrews has led Orleans Avenue since his midtwenties, building the band into a precision unit that works across funk, hip-hop, and New Orleans brass tradition. He plays both trombone and trumpet and is as capable of a virtuosic solo turn as of driving a horn section arrangement. The Ridgefield Playhouse seats under five hundred—a venue where a band of this size and volume fills every corner of the room. This is the strongest Connecticut booking of the month and the one most likely to sell out before July arrives.

OMAR SOSA

BLUE NOTE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 13-14

Born in Camagüey, Cuba, and now based between Barcelona and New York, Omar Sosa carries one of the most singular musical identities in contemporary jazz — a sound rooted in Afro-Cuban spiritual tradition, filtered through European contemporary composition, and animated by an improvisational restlessness that makes every performance unpredictable. With more than twenty albums, Omar has built a body of work that moves fluidly between solo piano, small ensemble, and orchestral settings. His Blue Note engagement offers New York audiences a rare chance to hear him in an intimate club room where his music's full textures can be appreciated. Two nights, two sets nightly.

HEJIRA—CELEBRATING THE MUSIC OF JONI MITCHELL

IRIDIUM / JULY 14

This special Iridium program takes Joni Mitchell's catalog as its text and brings it into the jazz space where it has always half-lived — honoring the harmonic sophistication, the open tunings, and the lyrical intelligence that made Mitchell one of the most important musical minds of the twentieth century. Jazz interpretations of Joni's work require musicians willing to honor the originals while finding genuine improvisational space inside them, a balance that, when achieved, is extraordinary. One night only.

MELISSA ALDANA

WAVE HILL / JULY 15

Melissa is a Chilean-born tenor saxophonist who won the Thelonious Monk Competition in 2013 and has since developed a voice that prioritizes compositional coherence over virtuosic display. Her recent recordings have moved toward extended forms and more open harmonic frameworks. Wave Hill's Sunset Wednesdays series takes place outdoors on the grounds of a public garden above the Hudson in the Bronx—an unusual setting that rewards the kind of spare, atmospheric work she has been doing. Sidemen for this date are not listed. Admission is nominal.

JANE MONHEIT—SINGS THE COLE PORTER SONGBOOK

SMOKE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 15-19

A titled, themed engagement: Jane presents a full program of Cole Porter with pianist Max Haymer, bassist Neal Miner, and drummer Rick Montalbano. Porter's catalog—"Night and Day," "I've Got You under My Skin," "I Love Paris"—is among the most harmonically sophisticated in American popular song, and Jane has the technical command to work inside the changes rather than over them. The Smoke residency format, two sets nightly, gives the program room to breathe across the week. A second series at Smoke follows the same week as her Tierney Sutton overlap—the July mid-month programming at Smoke is dense with vocal jazz.

BILLY HART QUARTET FEATURING NICOLE GLOVER

92NY / JULY 15

Billy has played drums on recordings by Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and dozens of others across five decades of jazz history. Now in his eighties, he leads a quartet that prioritizes group sound over any individual feature. Nicole plays tenor saxophone with a grounded, full tone and brings her own compositional perspective to the material. The 92NY series—which runs five consecutive Fridays through July—is among the most consistently high-level programming in the New York region this summer. This is its opening night.

LISA FISCHER FEATURING ORRIN EVANS TRIO

BLUE NOTE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 16-19

Lisa—known to many as a longtime Rolling Stones touring vocalist—has in recent years established a solo profile rooted in jazz and art song. Here she works with the Orrin Evans Trio: Orrin on piano, James Genus on bass, Mark Whitfield Jr. on drums. James is one of the most in-demand bassists in New York; Mark brings rhythmic precision and dynamics to the kit. The combination of Lisa's operatic vocal range with Orrin's harmonically adventurous piano writing is not a standard pairing—the results depend on what material she chooses to bring into that framework.

CHARLES MCPHERSON QUINTET

DIZZY'S CLUB / JULY 17-19

Dizzy's is billing this as an eighty-seventh birthday celebration for McPherson, an alto saxophonist who has been playing at the highest level since the 1960s—he was a member of Charles Mingus's working bands for nearly a decade. His bop vocabulary is intact and undiminished, and Charles has long since earned the kind of listening a room like Dizzy's provides. Quintet personnel not listed in advance. Three nights at one of New York's premier jazz rooms, with a view of Central Park, is the appropriate setting for this recognition.

ALLAN HARRIS

BIRDLAND JAZZ CLUB / JULY 17-19

A vocalist and guitarist whose instrument is the American song itself, Allan Harris occupies a singular place in New York jazz — deeply rooted in the traditions of Nat King Cole, Joe Williams, and Johnny Hartman, and entirely his own. Allan plays piano, guitar, and sings, which means any given set can move in directions that keep even longtime listeners alert. Birdland has long been Allan's home room in New York and the chemistry between performer and audience there is palpable from the first note. Three nights, two sets nightly.

GREGORY HUTCHINSON—KIND OF NOW: THE PULSE OF MILES DAVIS

92NY / JULY 18

This is the exclusive New York City performance of material from Gregory's new album, built around Miles Davis's centennial. The band includes Ron Blake on tenor sax and bass clarinet, Jakob Bro on guitar, Emmanuel Michael on guitar, Gerald Clayton on piano, and Joe Sanders on bass. Gregory has played with Ray Brown, Betty Carter, Joshua Redman, and Dianne Reeves—the range tells you something about where the drumming sits. The Davis centennial has generated projects across the spectrum this year; this one, built by a working drummer rather than a repertory institution, approaches the material from the inside. One night only at 92NY.

LAKECIA BENJAMIN AND PHOENIX

BUSHNELL PARK / GREATER HARTFORD JAZZ FESTIVAL / JULY 19

Lakecia is an alto saxophonist who came up in funk and R&B—she played with the Ohio Players and Stevie Wonder before moving toward jazz—and Phoenix, her 2023 Blue Note recording, drew on Coltrane's spiritual period while pulling it through her own history. The Greater Hartford Jazz Festival presents her at Bushnell Park, an outdoor venue in downtown Hartford, as part of a multiday free festival. The GHJF consistently books artists at a level that would require a ticket price at most regional venues—this is one of the better free jazz programming operations in New England.

MICHELE ROSEWOMAN AND QUINTESSENCE / ORRIN EVANS

MONTCLAIR JAZZ FESTIVAL—SOUNDCHECK SERIES / JULY 14

Michele Rosewoman’s Quintessence and Orrin Evans share this Soundcheck bill as two very different answers to the “modern jazz” question. Rosewoman’s band treats Afro‑Caribbean rhythm and ritual as structural, not cosmetic; the pieces tend to unfold slowly, with grooves and vamps that feel less like backdrops than arguments the band keeps revising on the fly. When it locks, it’s dense, layered, and resistant to background listening. Evans, by contrast, tends to go straight at the audience—pulling gospel harmony, bar-band energy, and blunt swing into a piano language that can turn sentimental or confrontational in a couple of choruses. On a festival program that often leans toward festival‑friendly comfort, this pairing sits closer to the frictional end of the spectrum. It’s not a night of tidy, self‑contained “sets” so much as two working bands showing what their priorities actually are, in public, with nowhere to hide.

AARON DIEHL AND JOHN PATITUCCI

92NY / JULY 21

Two musicians sharing a stage rather than a single artist with accompanists. Aaron's piano work is rooted in classical technique and jazz vocabulary simultaneously—he has performed both the Gershwin Piano Concerto and worked with Wynton Marsalis, which maps the range. John is one of the most technically complete bassists in contemporary jazz, with a history that runs through Chick Corea's Akoustic Band and decades of studio and touring work. The pairing puts two distinct, fully developed voices in conversation. Supporting personnel not listed. Part of 92NY's July series.

GERRY GIBBS DREAM BAND

BIRDLAND JAZZ CLUB / JULY 21-25

The confirmed lineup: Gary Bartz on alto saxophone, Randy Brecker on trumpet, Buster Williams on bass, Cyrus Chestnut on piano, Gerry Gibbs on drums. Gary and Randy are both NEA Jazz Masters—putting two NEA Jazz Masters on the same Birdland bandstand for five nights is a programming event worth noting. Buster has been one of the premier bassists in jazz since the late 1960s. Cyrus's piano is rooted in gospel and bop. Gerry assembled the Dream Band concept specifically to document this generation of players in a live setting. No themed program announced—straight-ahead repertoire is the format.

TERENCE BLANCHARD AND RAVI COLTRANE WITH THE E-COLLECTIVE

92NY / JULY 23

Terence's E-Collective is an electric band—bass, guitar, keys, drums—that situates his trumpet inside a groove-oriented framework rather than an acoustic jazz one. Ravi on tenor and soprano saxophone adds a second horn voice. The pairing is generationally significant: Terence emerged from Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the 1980s; Ravi carries his father's name but has built his own saxophone language over thirty years. Together on one bill at 92NY, one night only.

JON FADDIS QUARTET: SEVENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

DIZZY'S CLUB / JULY 23-26

Jon Faddis has been one of the defining trumpet voices in modern jazz since he exploded onto the scene as a teenage protégé of Dizzy Gillespie in the early 1970s. His astonishing command of the horn—especially his laser-accurate, singing high register—made him a first-call player for everyone from Charles Mingus and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis to seminal studio dates and big-band projects. Over the decades, he’s balanced that virtuosity with a deep feel for swing, blues, and melody, leading his own bands while passing the tradition forward as a mentor and educator. For his seventy-third birthday, he brings his quartet into Dizzy’s Club, a room literally built in his mentor’s shadow, perched above Columbus Circle with the city lights as backdrop. Expect a program that moves between bebop burners, luminous ballads, and tributes to Dizzy and other trumpet giants, delivered with Jon's trademark combination of precision, humor, and exuberant joy.

ELLINGTON'S BLACK, BROWN AND BEIGE—JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER / JULY 23-24

Black, Brown and Beige premiered at Carnegie Hall in January 1943—Ellington's attempt at a large-scale tone poem tracing African American history. It was controversial among critics and was never performed in full by Ellington again. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, under Wynton Marsalis, presents it in two performances. This is not a standard repertory concert—the piece remains structurally unusual and demands ensemble playing of a different order than the dance arrangements. Two nights.

CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE AND URSA MAJOR

BLUE NOTE JAZZ CLUB / JULY 23-26

Christian McBride’s Ursa Major residency at the Blue Note is a chance to hear one of the most iconic bassists of his generation plug into his most exploratory electric persona. Rather than the straight-ahead swing of his acoustic trio or the widescreen punch of his big band, Ursa Major lives in a funk-, groove-, and fusion-inflected space, where deep pocket and unapologetic backbeat sit comfortably alongside sophisticated harmony and open-ended improvisation. Christian has teased “lots of surprises in store” for this run, and that feels right: the band’s personnel has shifted from performance to performance, and part of the thrill is hearing how he reshapes the book with each new configuration. The one constant is his enormous sound, time, and charisma, and the Blue Note—his de facto New York home base—offers a close-up, club-scale vantage point on a four-night stretch that’s likely to feel as much like a living laboratory as a victory lap.

STEVE WILSON QUINTET—ENDURING SONANCE

JAZZCULTURAL / JULY 24-26

There is a particular kind of mastery that announces itself quietly—not through flash or volume, but through the unmistakable authority of a musician who has spent decades learning exactly what he wants to say. Steve Wilson is that kind of saxophonist. A first-call alto and soprano voice who has worked alongside Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Dianne Reeves, and Maria Schneider, Steve arrives at JazzCultural this week, leading his quintet in Enduring Sonance—a program of original compositions that showcases the full range of his lyrical intelligence. The title is not incidental. Steve has always been a player whose sound endures in the room long after the note has passed, a quality that rewards listeners who lean in. Three nights, two sets nightly. Late sets each night feature the Abraham Burton Quartet—Abraham's hard-bop alto makes for a compelling companion program on this run.

CINDY BLACKMAN SANTANA GROUP AND PATRICIA BRENNAN SEPTET

LENA HORNE BANDSHELL, PROSPECT PARK / JULY 24

Two separate ensembles sharing the bill. Cindy is a drummer who has led her own groups since the late 1980s and spent years as Carlos Santana's touring drummer. Patricia is a Mexican-born percussionist and vibraphonist working in contemporary improvised music whose septet brings a different textural approach—more open, less groove-anchored. The Lena Horne Bandshell at Prospect Park is an outdoor summer venue. Ticket range reflects general admission versus reserved sections.

SEAN MASON TRIO

MARCUS GARVEY PARK / JAZZMOBILE SUMMERFEST 61 / JULY 24

Sean is a Harlem-based pianist in his late twenties who has developed a voice that works comfortably inside and outside standard structures. He has performed with Wynton Marsalis and recorded for Mack Avenue. A free outdoor concert in Marcus Garvey Park—in the neighborhood where he works and plays regularly—is the appropriate context. Trio personnel not listed in advance. Part of Jazzmobile's sixty-first annual SummerFest series; check jazzmobile.org for rain-site information.

SIMON MOULLIER QUARTET

JAZZ FORUM ARTS / JULY 25

The vibraphone has always been the jazz instrument most likely to be underestimated—and most likely, in the right hands, to silence a room. Simon Moullier has those hands. A Grammy-nominated French vibraphonist who came up through the Berklee system and built a reputation quickly in New York's post-bop scene, Simon leads his quartet to the Jazz Forum Club in Tarrytown for a Saturday night program that belongs on any serious listener's July calendar. His playing is marked by melodic generosity and rhythmic restraint—he knows when to fill the room and when to let the harmony breathe. Jazz Forum Arts, now in its fourth decade of presenting jazz in the Hudson River Valley, has built a summer club season that rivals anything happening in the city proper. Two sets, full dinner service, intimate room. This is the kind of night that reminds you why you love live jazz in the first place.

RON CARTER'S FOURSIGHT

92NY / JULY 25

Ron turns eighty-eight this year and remains an active performer. Foursight is his working quartet—the name is a play on foresight and the number of musicians. He has been the most recorded bassist in jazz history, with credits that include Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, dozens of Blue Note sessions, and an unbroken recording career spanning six decades. The 92NY appearance closes out the Friday series' most concentrated week. Personnel not listed in advance.

BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET

KEYSTONE KORNER BALTIMORE / JULY 26

Keystone Korner Baltimore—named for the original San Francisco room—has established itself as the most important dedicated jazz venue on the mid-Atlantic corridor outside of New York. Branford has led his quartet in essentially the same format for over thirty years, with a rotating cast of rhythm section players built around his tenor and soprano saxophone. The current quartet's personnel is not confirmed for this date. One night in Baltimore, the strongest Maryland booking of the month.

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN

VILLAGE VANGUARD / JULY 28—AUGUST 2

The confirmed band: Makaya on drums, Marquis Hill on trumpet (Tue–Sat), Jeff Parker on guitar (Tue–Sat), Joel Ross on vibraphone (Wed–Sun), Junius Paul on bass, Emmanuel Michael on guitar (Sun), Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone (Sun). Makaya's work sits between jazz, hip-hop production, and improvised music—he records live performances and reshapes them in the studio, then reconstitutes the results back into a live band context. Jeff, Joel, and Junius are each significant voices in their own right. Marquis brings a trumpet sound connected to Chicago's jazz tradition. The Sunday configuration with Immanuel and Emmanuel represents a different instrumentation from the rest of the week. Six nights at the Vanguard to close July.

ARCOIRIS SANDOVAL—SONIC ASYLUM TRIO

BIRDLAND JAZZ CLUB / JULY 26

One of the most arresting young voices to emerge from the New York Latin jazz scene in recent years, Arcoiris Sandoval is a Cuban-American vocalist whose instrument carries the full weight of that lineage while reaching toward something genuinely new. The Sonic Asylum Trio is Arcoiris's working small group — lean, rhythmically alive, built to support and challenge her in equal measure. Her voice moves between English and Spanish with the ease of someone for whom both are mother tongues, and the music follows her wherever she leads.

RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA—HERO TRIO

JAZZCULTURAL / JULY 30

Rudresh Mahanthappa does not play jazz so much as he interrogates it—pressing on its edges, folding in the melodic geometry of Indian classical music, and then arriving somewhere that feels both ancient and utterly new. One of the most distinctive alto saxophonists working today, Rudresh has built a body of work—Bird Calls, Agrima, Hero—that demands to be heard on its own terms. The Hero Trio is his working small group, lean and fully committed to the logic of his compositional world. This is a Thursday-night booking at JazzCultural, a room that has quickly established itself as one of the most important listening spaces in Midtown since opening as a tribute to the late Barry Harris and his original Jazz Cultural Theater. The late set features the Josh Evans Quartet—Josh is a trumpet voice worth arriving early to catch. A strong close to July.

FRANK MCCOMB

IRIDIUM / JULY 31

Singer, pianist, and composer working the intersection of jazz, soul, and R&B — not as a genre exercise but as a native language. McComb has spent decades building a devoted following largely outside the mainstream music press, through relentless touring and a catalog that draws from the Stevie Wonder and Bill Withers tradition without leaning on it as a crutch. The voice is the thing: warm, elastic, capable of going from a whisper to a full gospel cry inside a single phrase.

REGGIE NICHOLSON

HARLEM JAZZ BOXX @ MOUNT ASCENSION PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH / JULY 24

Drummer-composer Reggie Nicholson brings his deeply personal, instantly recognizable voice to Harlem. A key figure in Chicago’s AACM and a longtime New York presence, Reggie is known for his expansive rhythmic imagination, dynamic control, and painterly sense of color on the kit. His music balances groove and abstraction, moving easily from whisper-soft textures to explosive polyrhythms without ever losing a strong narrative thread. In concert, he leads with both authority and openness, giving his band room to stretch while keeping the focus sharp and the energy focused. This Harlem appearance is a rare chance to hear Reggie Nicholson in an intimate, acoustically rich setting, where every brushstroke and cymbal swell lands with full emotional weight. For listeners who love adventurous swing, deep pocket, and thoughtful improvisation, this is a must-hear summer highlight.

ANTOINETTE MONTAGUE

Antoinette Montague – Creating a Blues Family Reunion

by Dave Popkin

Antoinette Montague is an engaging singer, bandleader, educator, vocal coach, and advocate for blues and jazz music. The Newark native is back in her home city after many years living in Connecticut, and she continues to play Metro area shows and spread the word about America’s indigenous music. Her concerts are a jubilant experience that have a throwback feel and often feature a tap dancer in addition to a talented band.

“We’re trying to create some joyful noise and celebrate that blues is the roots and everything else is the fruit,” Antoinette says. “Everything else, all contemporary commercial American music, stems from the blues and that’s a uniter. We need something to bring us together, and this music certainly does. It is time for the arts to lift humanity. It is just not wise for us to be so divided. We need to all be beyond category.”

TIERNEY SUTTON

Tierney Sutton: The Hollow Reed

Tierney Sutton did not choose jazz so much as it was chosen for her – by a father who heard something in her voice before she did. Growing up in Milwaukee, raised by a civil rights lawyer who paid her mother a wage for raising their children and gave his law firm secretary a percentage of profits, Tierney absorbed a worldview defined by radical fairness and clear-eyed social honesty. When she sang a disco tune at a high school talent show, her father told her bluntly she should be singing Gershwin instead. He could not carry a tune himself, but he had her early recordings and would play them for anyone who would listen, asking, "Is she any good? Is she any good?" – because he had a feeling, even if he lacked the vocabulary to name it.

In 1981, her father made an offer: rather than spend money on college, he would get her an apartment in New York, because she was going to be a jazz singer, and it would probably cost less. She didn't take him up on it – she studied Russian instead, convinced that learning the language of the "evil empire" during the Reagan years was the most useful thing she could do. But jazz found her anyway. Working as a singing cocktail waitress the summer after freshman year, she wandered into a club on her night off and heard a jazz trio for the first time. "Oh," she remembers thinking. "Oh." That was it.

GREGORY HUTCHINSON

Finding the Space Between the Notes

After three decades as one of music's most in-demand drummers,

Gregory Hutchinson

discovered that silence might be his greatest instrument.

by Chrys R.

The week Kind of Now: The Pulse of Miles Davis (Warner, 2026) dropped, people called it a jazz record. The week Da Bang (Warner, 2022) dropped, nobody knew what to call it. Gregory Hutchinson was fine either way. He grew up around the corner from Biggie, apprenticed under Betty Carter, ran the road with Roy Hargrove and once sat in a studio with Common like it was the most natural thing in the world. Whatever thread connects all of that – that's what Gregory plays.

For more than three decades, Gregory has been one of the most sought-after drummers in the music. His résumé reads like a history of the art form – Betty Carter, Ray Brown, Joe Henderson, Roy Hargrove, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Williams, Diana Krall, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride and hundreds more. Over 200 recordings bear his unmistakable rhythmic fingerprint.

Yet today, one of music's busiest drummers isn't searching for more work. He's searching for more silence.

"Rome gives me peace of mind," Gregory says from his home in Italy. "It gives me time to think about the music I really want to enjoy. It gives me space. That's the one thing New York couldn't give me."

For someone whose career was built in the relentless energy of Brooklyn and Manhattan, that admission says as much about Gregory the man as it does Gregory the artist.

"Creators need that quiet," he says. "If you're always surrounded by something happening, your brain never gets a chance to turn off."

That quiet has become fertile ground.

JAMES BRANDON LEWIS

James Brandon Lewis: The Sound of Everything

Some musicians choose music. For James Brandon Lewis, music chose him. Growing up in Buffalo, NY, shaped by a mother who was both a math-and-science teacher and a devoted guide to Black cultural life, James picked up the clarinet at nine and the alto saxophone at twelve – and from that moment, there was no other path. "I wasn't necessarily thinking about a profession," he recalls. "More so, this is what I would like to do with my life."

His mother – the true hero of this story, as James tells it – gently steered him away from baseball, basketball and his childhood dream of becoming an inventor-scientist, and pointed him toward music instead. She took him to jazz festivals at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, to the Pine Grill Reunion, to summer concerts at the Buffalo Science Museum, letting young James see that this kind of life was possible. She also schooled him in George Washington Carver when public schools would not – planting a lifelong fascination with science that would one day reshape his entire musical philosophy.

James attended the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts from 5th grade through 12th, doing music every single day. He was accepted to Berklee College of Music, but economic reality landed him first at Buffalo State College, then – after a best friend's Thanksgiving visit sparked something – at Howard University, hungry for a bigger world.

HERBIE HANCOCK

Herbie Hancock: A Jump Ahead

by Ronald E. Scott

The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes “virtuoso” as one who excels in the technique of an art, possesses outstanding talent and technical ability. A perfect description of NEA Jazz Master, pianist, and composer Herbie Hancock, holding an Academy Award, 14 GRAMMY Awards, including album of the year for River: The Joni Letters, a tribute to his friend Joni Mitchell (Verve, 2007). This win marked the first time a jazz album received the top GRAMMY Award. Herbie credits his creative harmonic sound to his mentor and harmonic master pianist Chris Anderson.

His star sparkles on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; and he’s authored two books; Herbie Hancock: Possibilities (Viking 2014) and Reaching Beyond: Improvisations on Jazz, Buddhism, and a Joyful Life (2017).

Upon arriving in New York City, trumpeter and composer Donald Byrd became Herbie’s mentor and friend, inviting him to join his band and make his Blue Note debut on Byrd’s Royal Flush LP (1961). “He was the first person to let me be a permanent member of an internationally known band,” says the pianist in his bio notes. The most important advice Byrd gave him was never give up your publishing rights. Herbie stuck to his mentor’s advice after Blue Note label executives suggested he relinquish his publishing rights to record his first solo album, following a lengthy debate Herbie was victorious.

WINARD HARPER

Winard Harper – Upbeat in Jersey City

by Dave Popkin

Winard Harper is the heartbeat of Jersey City. He was born in Baltimore and raised in Washington, but he has made Jersey City his home. Winard performs all over town, including the forthcoming Fourth of July Celebration at Liberty State Park, the recent Jersey City Jazz Festival and On The Hill Live, and his longstanding gig leading the Sunday jam at Moore’s Lounge. As part of its Black Music Month activities, The City of Jersey City presented Winard with a proclamation on June 24, “celebrating his remarkable achievements as a world-renowned jazz drummer and his unwavering commitment to making jazz accessible to the Jersey City community through performance, mentorship, and public engagement.”

The Moore’s Lounge jam has become an institution, very inclusive to players of all ages and stripes. “The creator lined things up at a time when work had dipped around 9/11,” Winard says. “Travel got strange. Miss Ruth was helping people out. Those little places kept music alive in the neighborhoods for people. There are only a few left. We found a way we could help each other. Young people started coming out as well. It was an opportunity to keep the band working and work on our craft. People got turned on to the club. We need to do more to keep black-owned businesses afloat. If you don’t support, you look up and it’s gone.”

Winard leads a local jazz band called Jeli Posse that plays all around the Metro area. He will play a July 8 show at Grant’s Tomb for Jazzmobile’s Summerfest61. Says Winard: “It brings all people together, it’s what the world needs now, all colors, ethnicities, in the audience and on the bandstand. It’s family-oriented. As they say, jazz is one of the greatest examples of democracy.”