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…
Bassist Christian McBride (left), saxophonist Joshua Redman, drummer Brian Blade and pianist Brad Mehldau reconvened in the studio after more than two decades for RoundAgain.
(Photo: Michael Wilson)He recalls trying to connect his love of Black music to his background by playing with his father and experiencing “the depth of feeling and the soul, and the anguish, but also the affirmation in his sound.” Redman also discovered a brotherhood with other African-American musicians, including Blade.
The drummer mentioned that he and Redman were just recently talking about Floyd’s killing. Their experiences as jazz musicians—generally being treated with respect and deference wherever they go, engaging positively with people of all races and backgrounds—seem like they’ve sprung from a world different from what so many people who look like them encounter every day.
“It makes me feel sometimes like I live in a bubble,” Blade said. “We make music and we sort of exist in that idealism. So, how can we send more of that out into the world?”
Redman, who once considered becoming a civil rights attorney, sees music as a reconciliation: “Part of the genius of jazz is that it ultimately resolves these inherent tensions [of Black and white culture]. In its best expression, you get these opposing elements, but somehow, some sort of transcendence is reached where there’s a sort of resolution, some affirmation in the face of all this anguish and heartbreak. It’s a privilege to play the music.”
Like many musicians, both performers are looking to engage with the call for social justice. Perhaps the music they’ve created—following in the footsteps of jazz masters who worked to address societal ills—is their best answer.
But even amid the tumult of the past several months, Blade embodies the eternal optimist: “Martin Luther King [said], ‘Where do we go from here?’ [King] was asking that question, and we’re still having to ask that question. I just hope that we all can go there together.” DB
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…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
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.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
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…
