Brooklyn Guitar Festival 2026

Brooklyn Guitar Fesitval
Various Artists
Brooklyn, NY
June 12, 2026

Over the weekend of June 12-13th, the very first Brooklyn Guitar Festival took place and featured appearances from some of the most touted players around today. It was presented by Joel Harrison and Alex Skolnick, two tireless advocates for guitar-related events in the greater New York Area and also highly active performers themselves. The first evening of the festival took place at Warsaw in Greenpoint and was less of the marathon that took place the following day at the Arlo Hotel in Williamsburg. That said, the show featured a stylistically diverse array of music from traditional jazz to funk-fusion as well as soul, blues and straight up rock—sometimes in a single set.

Things kicked off with a smoldering set from Austin, TX-based Jackie Venson with a sound situated somewhere between all of the aforementioned style poles. With an intensely powerful voice and a refined sense of tasteful, patient, and confident tone and vernacular, Venson proved to be a formidable choice to open the evening. Her chops on the instrument were matched by her tuneful and charged songs, including the hard rock of "Hold Me Back" and the airtight R&B of "Destruct" and soulful funk on "Surrender." Other than drummer Rodney Hyder, Venson managed to sing, shred, and seamlessly trigger any number of keyboard, pads and bass patches interchangeably and without issue on a Pioneer DJ sampler. The vibe of Venson's set felt fresh and unique amongst the other performances.

Contrasting with Venson's performance, the following set brought John Scofield with his long-time trio featuring bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Bill Stewart. Over the course of an hour, each player provided a masterclass demonstrating consistently inventive choices, dialed and highly sensitive interplay as well as endless, unmistakably personal nuance. Scofield's touch, sensibility and sound remain an essential force within jazz and guitar and the group never failed to deliver whether or not they tackling the classic swing of Thelonious Monk's "Rhythm-A-Ning," the gentle and contemplative "Lawns" originally by Carla Bley, or newer originals like the spacious groove on "Mo Green" from his 2023 release, Uncle John's Band (ECM Records, 2023). 

Next up was Adam Rogers' Dice featuring fusion heavyweights Fima Ephron on bass and Nate Smith on drums. The group displayed a unique blend of blues, tight fusion, and soulful funk. Rogers' virtuosity is broad and his multi-amp stereo set-up proved to be the most ambitious and enveloping of all the evening's players. His sound seemed to be coming from everywhere in the room at once like some possessed spirit running laps around the crowd whether or not flawless executing rapid-fire angular bebop lines, Jimi Hendrix-esque Strat spasms, or lyrical soul as on the group's sublime rendition of Willie Nelson's "Crazy." The closer shared the name of the group as well as the debut album and provided one of the night's most incendiary moments with a bustling tempo, proggy metric shifting, and absolutely terrifying playing from all involved.      

Smith and Ephron were joined by keyboardist Henry Hey and stayed on as the house rhythm section for a star-studded all-star jam paying tribute to Jeff Beck which kicked off with Skolnick whose roots in thrash metal were a very comfortable fit with the knotty fusion of Beck's pieces. Co- organizer Harrison shortly joined Skolnick for a slightly modernized arrangement of Charles Mingus' seminal "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" that spliced Beck's moody arrangement from 1976 with more vintage blues flourishes from Harrison's slide playing. Eric Gales was brought up next for fiery versions of "Going Down" and "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" and featured screaming extended solo acrobatics that seemed to defy the limits of what blues has been hitherto been capable of. Vernon Reid of Living Colour took the stage next for a likewise facemelting take of 1980's "Star Cycle" which was followed with Rogers returning to take on "Led Boots," one of the late legend's most revered pieces. To close out the evening, all of the performers came on together to stretch out on Stevie Wonder's classic "Superstition," which Wonder wrote for Beck in appreciation of his work on 1972's Talking Book (Tamla, 2012). With an abundant love from a grateful, diverse audience and wealth of world class playing across a wide array of genres and disciplines, the Brooklyn Guitar Festival will likely be here to stay with any luck. It was a remarkable success for all involved.