Live Review

Reporting on live jazz from around the globe.

Laura Macdonald Quartet at Caol Ila Islay Jazz Festival

by Mark McKergow
September 16, 2026

Laura Macdonald QuartetCaol Ila Islay Jazz Festival Islay, Scotland September 12, 2026 Ayrshire-born and Berklee-educated saxophonist, composer and educator Laura Macdonald has been a central figure in Scottish jazz for a quarter century. She first performed at the Islay festival in 2000, has released four albums and was named Best Scottish Jazz Performer in 2021. In 2022, she became the first female saxophone lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and later stepped into the role ...

Detroit Jazz Festival 2026: A Gathering in a Great Jazz City

by Paul Rauch
September 15, 2026

Detroit Jazz Festival 2026 Hart Plaza Detroit, MI September 4-7, 2026 Thursday evening is when artists, media and event staffers begin to file into the Detroit Marriott, arriving from points around the globe. The common purpose is the 47th annual Detroit Jazz Festival, an annual tradition on Labor Day weekend. The largest free jazz festival in the world is four days of music, fellowship, celebration and counting one's blessings. In 2026, Mother Nature decided to ...

Ursa Major at Miner Auditorium

by Steven Roby
September 15, 2026

Christian McBride's Ursa Major Miner Auditorium San Francisco, CA September 13, 2026 Christian McBride stood toward the rear of the Miner Auditorium stage Sunday night, directing traffic from behind Nicole Glover and Ely Perlman. Even when he switched from upright to electric bass and began one of his fleet, muscular solos, he remained there. The placement suited Ursa Major. McBride may have assembled the quintet, but its final concert of SFJAZZ's season-opening residency drew its force ...

Hingetown Jazz Festival 2026

by John Chacona
September 14, 2026

Hingetown Jazz Festival BOP STOP, Jukebox and Saucy Brew Works Cleveland, OH September 5, 2026 Birds flyin' high, you know how I feel Sun in the sky, you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel Beloved Cleveland vocalist Evelyn Wright knew what she was doing when she chose “Feeling Good," the bluesy Anthony Newly song, to be the first music heard at the 2026 ...

Kalia Vandever at LOFT in Cologne

by Matty Bannond
September 13, 2026

Kalia Vandever, Simon Jermyn, Florian Herzog, Jonas Burgwinkel LOFT Cologne Jazzweek Cologne, Germany September 8, 2026 Loft is stashed away in an unassuming side-street courtyard. It offers seats for around 100 visitors, who must first prove their fortitude by tramping up five flights of narrow stairs. After attaining the summit on September 8, they met a sharp tang of cleaning products and a small performance space with a baby grand piano tucked behind ...

Alex Ventling's Wavemakers at Becco in Oslo

by Daniel Mège
September 12, 2026

Alex Ventling's Wavemakers Becco Oslo September 3, 2026 In Oslo's Tullinkvartalet district, the pulsing of the Delta Light Installation leads to the courtyard of Becco, a wine bar and hotspot of the city's music scene, where on the second floor one finds a concert venue. On this night, light converged with the music of the Wavemakers, a Nordic chamber jazz quartet. Alex Ventling, the New Zealand-born pianist and composer with Swiss roots now ...

Summer Bummer 2026

by John Sharpe
September 10, 2026

Summer Bummer 2026 Trix, Antwerp Belgium August 28-29, 2026 Intro The 11th edition of the Summer Bummer festival more than lived up to the promise of the mouth-watering bill, presenting a wide variety of experimental music without fealty to any particular genre. While Summer Bummer inevitably tips its hat to the local Belgian improvised music scene, it is notable for bringing in projects not routinely heard elsewhere, including one world premiere. Trix--more often a rock ...

Samara Joy and Christian McBride at Summerstage

by Paul Reynolds
September 7, 2026

Samara Joy and Christian McBride Summerstage Verve's 70th Anniversary Celebration New York NY September 2, 2026 Founded 70 years ago, Verve Records was launched in part to treat female jazz artists with respect, who too often had been shortchanged within a music community that was male-centric to an extreme. It's fitting, then, that a concert held to honor the label's milestone birthday primarily showcased Verve's women singers over the years. The main event ...

The Blues Project - LIVE & Well in the Redwoods

by Thomas Cole
September 5, 2026

The Blues ProjectThe Paper Mill Creek SaloonForest Knolls, CAAugust 14, 2026 Some sixty years after The Blues Project first emerged from the ferment of Greenwich Village, Roy Blumenfeld led a fresh incarnation of the band into the tiny Paper Mill Creek Saloon in Forest Knolls, California. Nestled in the scenic redwoods in a small room with a weathered bare wooden floor gleaming with the rich patina that only decades of use can produce in a ...

Célia Kameni at Parc Floral de Paris: A Siren, a Calming Voice, and a Journey Through Sound

by Acacia Grace
September 2, 2026

Célia Kameni Parc Floral de Paris Paris Jazz Festival August 29, 2026 On a rainy August afternoon, the gardens of the Parc Floral provided the perfect stage for a performance that moved effortlessly between genres. Located in the Bois de Vincennes in Paris' 12th arrondissement and near the Château de Vincennes, Parc Floral is a 31-hectare botanical garden inaugurated in 1969. Its summer music programming has long embraced the relationship between music and ...