Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Cooperative relationships that have developed between presenters in France and various Scandinavian countries as well as between French and Italian promoters were responsible for other memorable concerts. The French-Nordic Jazz Transit, a A new initiative that enabled several Norwegian artists to appear at France’s Grenoble Jazz Festival in March 2003, brought both young and veteran Danish musicians to Le Mans. Solo recitals by Carsten Dahl and Søren Nørbo highlighted the lyricism and romanticism of these talented Copenhagen-based pianists while guitarist Pierre Dørge and New Jungle Orchestra took listeners on a multi-cultural musical voyage that made stylistic references to music from Africa, Indonesia, China and the Middle East while saluting Duke Ellington along the way. Two generations of virtuoso Italian jazz pianists were featured in solo concerts by Stefano Bollani, one of the brightest rising stars on the current European jazz scene, and Enrico Pieranunzi, one of the most distinctive instrumental voices on the Continent for the past 25 years.
While artists imported from the U.S. weren’t totally boycotted by the French at Le Mans, only three of the 30 concerts held between April 30 and May 4 during the five-day marathon that traditionally concludes the event were headlined by Americans. These slots were evenly divided among the three categories of American musicians heard on the international scene today: an expatriate (pianist Eric Watson who has lived in Paris for the past 25 years), a Great White Hope (saxophonist Chris Potter) and a Great Black Music disciple (saxophonist Steve Coleman). Watson seems to have abandoned whatever blues sensibility he might have brought over with him from the U.S. to France for the more intellectual intensity that characterizes Northern European improvisation. Potter’s new quartet delivered a swinging set that made it sound like they were midway through their three-week tour as opposed to playing their first gig together. Coleman closed out the Europa Festival leading the latest incarnation of his group Five Elements. Although his current drummer and bassist could use considerably more seasoning, the band still energized an overflow crowd with a solid dose of his distinctive form of fusion that flirts with both free jazz and funk.
--Mitchell Feldman
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
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As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
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It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
