Live Review
Reporting on live jazz from around the globe.
Downtown Tacoma Blues And Jazz Festival 2025
by Geoff Anderson
Downtown Tacoma Blues and Jazz Festival Tacoma, Washington August 24, 2025 .Tacoma, Washington held its first annual Downtown Tacoma Blues and Jazz Festival on August 24, 2025, with a first-class lineup of new blues players, veterans and some in between. And it was free. For each band, the leader's name doubled as the band's name. Not surprisingly, then, it was a day of big voices, belting the blues from many different angles. The city ...
Continue ReadingBark Culture At Solar Myth
by Carl Medsker
Bark Culture Solar Myth Philadelphia, PAAugust 21, 2025 Midway through an extended road trip, Bark Culture returned to Solar Myth in their hometown of Philadelphia for an evening, taking the stage before a standing room only audience. Formed in 2021, Bark Culture is comprised of Brazilian ex-pat Victor Vieira--Branco on vibraphone, Joey Sullivan on percussion, John Moran on bass and recent addition Sam Yulsman on piano. The enthusiastic response to the opening introductions suggested a ...
Continue ReadingMichiyo Yagi At Jazztopad Festival New York
by Max Kutner
Michiyo YagiJazztopad Festival New YorkVarious Venues New York, NY June 15-16, 2025 The opportunity to attend two performances at this year's Jazztopad Festival New York was a fortunate experience. Both events featured the brilliant Michyo Yagi on koto as a special guest, visiting from Tokyo, Japan. The Jazztopad Festival has been held in NYC for the past nine years (and for over 20 years in Poland), showcasing many of the most culturally significant members of the ...
Continue ReadingHingetown Jazz Festival 2025
by John Chacona
Hingetown Jazz Festival Various venues Cleveland, OH August 30, 2025 It would surprise no one if this review of the third Hingetown Jazz Festival in Cleveland began, as such pieces often do, by noting how the festival has grown. But that would not exactly be accurate. By the most common measure of such things, the size of the audience, this year's audience looked a lot like 2024's (this writer was not at the ...
Continue ReadingHayley Kavanagh Quartet At Scott's Jazz Club
by Ian Patterson
Hayley Kavanagh Quartet Scott's Jazz Club Belfast, N. Ireland August 29, 2025 “Welcome to the Upper East Side." Variations on this phrase--delivered by Scott's Jazz Club co-founder Cormac O'Kane--have greeted visitors to Belfast's award-winning jazz venue every Friday night since 2020. Hard to believe that half a decade has whizzed by just like that. So much has happened--global pandemic, devastating wars, mass migration, worldwide floods and fires on an unprecedented scale, Trump again... and ...
Continue ReadingOscar Peterson 100 birthday celebration at Birdland
by Mark Edelman
Makoto Ozone, John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton Birdland Oscar Peterson 100th birthday New York, NY August 15, 2025 The “Maharajah of the Keyboard" as Duke Ellington dubbed Oscar Peterson--or, to his friends, simply O.P.--would have turned one hundred in August, reason enough to remember the consummate Canadian pianist at that hallowed house of jazz, Birdland in New York City. In the nimble hands of Peterson protege Makoto Ozone, bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton, ...
Continue ReadingDainius Pulauskas Acoustic Group at the Christopher Summer Festival
by Ieva Pakalniskyte
Dainius Pulauskas Acoustic Group Adomas Mickevičius LibraryChristopher Summer Festival Vilnius, Lithuania August 5, 2025 Vilnius Christopher Summer Festival has long demonstrated an ability to present quality concerts that connect with cultural roots and artistic ambition. On this warm August evening, in the courtyard of the Adomas Mickevičius Library, the festival featured pianist and composer Dainius Pulauskas with his Acoustic Group. The evening included a program of original compositions and reimagined works by Polish jazz legend ...
Continue ReadingJazzfestival Saalfelden 2025
by Vincenzo Roggero
Jazzfestival SaalfeldenVarious venues Land Salzburg, Austria August 21-24, 2025 One hundred and ninety artists from twenty-six countries, nearly thirty thousand attendees, eight different venues, more than sixty concerts, and a record number of tickets sold. These are just numbers, but they confirm how the Saalfelden Jazz Festival--now in its forty-fifth edition--draws audiences from across Europe, remains deeply rooted in its territory, and channels resources and energy thanks to the active participation of the entire ...
Continue ReadingRavi Coltrane Quartet: Live at Jazz Alley in Seattle
by Paul Rauch
Ravi Coltrane Quartet Jazz Alley Seattle, WA August 21, 2025 I suppose there are still those who attend Ravi Coltrane sets out of curiosity, or some attempt to somehow access the Coltrane legacy in real time. It's true that the son of John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane has not been one to record in great frequency, and that he has spent a lot of touring currency on performing the music of his mother, music he ...
Continue ReadingCanarias Jazz Y Más 2025 Jazz Festival
by Larry Pryce
Canarias Jazz Y Mas 2025 Jazz Festival Plaza Santa Ana and Lago Martianaz Gran Canaria & Tenerife, Spain July 4-26, 2025 The 34th edition of Canarias Jazz Y Más arrived in July as innovative and well organised as ever. With 59 concerts set over all eight islands of the archipelago in 28 different locations this annual festival is one of the most exciting in Europe, featuring top artists from Europe and America ...
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