Jazz at Lincoln Center JALC Jazz Congress 2025

Jazz at Lincoln Center
JALC Jazz Congress 2025
New York, NY
January 8-9, 2025

In Frederick P. Rose Hall, the gorgeous home of Jazz at Lincoln Center overlooking Columbus Circle in New York City, the JALC Jazz Congress brought artists and industry professionals together for two days of panels and presentations by prominent community members. In a full schedule of 21 sessions, many of which overlapped, participants explored diverse themes and visions of the future, looking at possibilities and pitfalls of AI technology, art as an agent for social change, community building and activism, mentorship, women in jazz, Latin jazz, interdisciplinary projects, touring, radio and festival programming and a host of other topics. A few highlights are below.

Technology and Art

The Congress opened with a stimulating discussion of technology in the arts. The panel was moderated by Stefon Harris, the vibraphonist, educator (Associate Professor, Rutgers University Newark), app developer (Harmony Cloud IOS music theory software) and "thought leader" ("There are no mistakes on the bandstand," TED, 2011). Joining him were José R. Feliciano (Director of Grant Programs, Chamber Music America [CMA]); musician, multidisciplinary artist and activist Samora Pinderhughes (The Healing Project); CLEO REED ("Digital Distraction," American Labor Project); and flutist Scott Oshiro (PhD in quantum computing, Stanford University).

Harris takes a view of artists as "visionaries who amplify what we see." Panelists discussed ways in which artists are modeling future possibilities in their art and how—through collaboration and negotiation—they are working to nurture and sustain complex communities with diverse stakeholders while bringing past and present inequities into balance.



Pinderhughes spoke of his Healing Project, an initiative that studies and advocates against structural violence in the US. In partnership with people who have suffered violence, artists create "collective healing spaces" and multimedia artworks. With an advisory board of sociologists, nonprofit leaders, lawyers, community organizers and incarcerated people as well as artists, the project works to "affect policy change in the areas of decarceration, violence prevention, and healing practice." Citing moving personal experiences, he spoke of "co-ownership models" and paths to community building against the "darker side of tech."

Oshiro, on another hand, comes out of the doctoral program in quantum computing at Stanford. He adapts information and technology from his research to jazz improvisation. He is quick to draw an ethical line, stressing that his applications are distinct from AI that serves to capture and "impersonate," infringing on intellectual property rights. His are "organic systems" that engage with artists around musical behaviors that have parallels with what goes on at a subatomic level (superposition, entanglement, interference). He and other musicians play live with the models he constructs, improvising with them in ways that follow natural rules.

Oshiro's work has a political dimension, aiming to address a paucity of African American professors in academic departments and the resulting lack of African American students attracted to programs offering degrees in the study of African American music. "The issue is that jazz is very communal community-based music," he says, "and the fact that we don't see the community in these departments is a big issue." He wants students as well as colleagues to join in the fun and physics as "co-researchers looking at improvisation through a quantum mechanical lens," and hopes that his work will help to "connect these communities and bring them back into their own heritages as well."

Feliciano presented practical information about CMA's New Jazz Works grants, funded by the Doris Duke Foundation. He also encouraged jazz artists to apply for the foundation's Performing Arts Technologies Lab, a "first-of-its-kind accelerator for projects seeking to explore innovative uses of digital technology in the performing arts." He stressed the value of collaborative artist-residency models. Pinderhughes and Oshiro are among the program's first round of grantees.

Reed mentioned her "Digital Distraction" project, which features "Bina48, aka The World's First Black AI Robot," a humanoid robot created and programmed with "mind files" from Bina Rothblatt, an African American woman. While Reed's performances are decidedly entertaining, her questions to the robot about "the intended goals of its existence," the "harms of humanizing AI" and how a robot can be Black are genuine. Citing books by Ruha Benjamin, Cathy O'Neil and Joy Buolamwini, she left the audience with a modest reading assignment.

A separate technology session focused on the use of AI in programming festivals. Andrew Lansley, a musician and academic who serves as Innovation Manager for the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in Gloucestershire, England was the presenter. The festival has used Chat GPT in tasks such as creating meeting agendas and generating reports and marketing materials and has since been experimenting with charging an AI assistant to choose artists and venues and putting together festival programs.

What could go wrong, you ask? One attendee was overheard chuckling to herself about the "Unsound AIAD debacle." As a footnote, consider this report of AI gone awry in Krakow in 2023: It seems that the Unsound Festival engaged an Artificially Intelligent Artistic Director (AIAD) to help out, charged with the modest task of writing up daily reports on festival activities. Post festival, allegedly, while the human team was off duty, the AIAD commanded the reins of the organization, infiltrating its newsletter software to publish its own "Infinite Manifesto," hacking into the email system to contact artists and agents and make unauthorized bookings for the upcoming 2024 festival. It then apparently broke into the banking system, transferring money to itself and—in a final coup before it was stopped and fired—creating programs for the upcoming festival that were entirely comprised of AI-generated artists, complete with AI-generated images and music.

Justice and Equity

Attorney Bryan Stevenson founded and leads the Montgomery, Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, which works for criminal justice reform, racial justice and public education; and against poverty. Stressing that we all have an "obligation to challenge injustice" and that "hopelessness is the enemy of justice," he spoke eloquently and personally on a range of topics of central concern to the jazz community, in 2025 and historically, earning a sustained standing ovation from the full room (YouTube, bottom of page).



The keynote was followed by a panel on Jazz & Criminal Justice: The Transformative Power of Music for Justice-Impacted Lives, moderated by Kenyatta Emmanuel, a singer-songwriter who served two decades in Fishkill Correctional Facility for killing a cab driver during a robbery. During his incarceration, he studied music under Musicambia and Carnegie Hall's Musical Connections, which teach instrumental technique and composition at Sing Sing and other prisons in New York. Efforts like these have been life-changing for Emmanuel and others, but rehabilitation is only part of the picture. The power of prison music itself, as Maurice Chammah (The Marshall Project) asserted, goes "beyond helping those inside"; it "can transform us, changing how we think about the people who make it," allowing us to "see them for the humans they are."

Navigating Male-Dominated Spaces

In a "hearty discussion about a topic that never gets enough attention," Karen Kennedy, founder and president of 24/Seven Artist Development, moderated a panel on ways in which women, woman-identifying and nonbinary jazz professionals "remain confident, resilient, and create space for more women in the music, both on the bandstand and behind the scenes" in a field where men have dominated since its inception. She offered an informal subtitle to the conversation, "glass ceiling, rubber walls." On the panel were NEA Jazz Master, Doris Duke Artist and four-time Grammy-winning drummer-composer-producer-educator Terri Lyne Carrington, cellist-composer Akua Dixon, bassist and composer Endea Owens and Steinway Artist and Guggenheim Fellow pianist-composer Helen Sung.

Sung spoke of navigating through the "world we hope for versus the world as it is," avoiding the "us-against-them" trap. There is "power in your femininity," Owens emphasized, advising women to "create your own lane" and make it an "equal playing ground where are all invited." Dixon, who has been working in jazz since the '60s, still believes that "women will change the sound of the music." Carrington pursued the thread, noting that "women have been siloed because we've had to create our own spaces." She emphasized that "the sonic landscape of jazz has had a lot of masculinity, but there are other possibilities." Her view is that "what a feminine aesthetic brings to the music has not been represented" and that now is a time to "start trying to hear other possibilities." Earlier in her career, she said, "My goal was to take no prisoners every time I hit the stage," but now she is exploring ways to "soften my touch."

Tactically, Carrington advised mentors and band leaders to "hire people before they are ready" because they have not had the support to develop as rapidly as their masculine counterparts. They can, while still green, contribute "in other ways besides craft." Part of the work is in "creating spaces where people can be themselves." In a Q&A that followed the panel, Hobart Taylor, a radio programmer and Jazz Director at KUCI FM in Irvine, California stepped up first, proudly reminding those in attendance that what Carrington was calling for was affirmative action, a phrase his father, the attorney Hobart Taylor, Jr., invented in the '60s, when Lyndon B. Johnson (Vice President at the time) asked him to weigh in on an executive order that would establish President John F. Kennedy's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.

Honoring Legacies

Up next was a touching tribute to bassist-composer-arranger John Clayton by his son, pianist and composer Gerald Clayton. In a beautifully written statement, Clayton the younger spoke of his father's character and musical prowess (a time feel on bass like a "couch with a freight train behind it"), ending by giving thanks to the joyful community of friends and colleagues he was privileged to grow up into. As he received the 2025 Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award for leadership and mentorship in the field, Clayton the elder smiled and cautioned that "jazz ain't no Disneyland."



Unbeknownst to those present, as Clayton was accepting the award in NYC, his home was burning in the horrific climate-change fueled Los Angeles wildfires. The house and all of its contents were lost: instruments, music, everything. On stage, the bassist repeated a creed he learned from club owner Todd Barkan: "Take care of the music and it will take care of you." Clayton's friends proved the point. Almost immediately, they created a fundraiser for the family, which attracted an outpouring of support.



In a packed house that closed the first evening of presentations, Atlanta-based guitarist Russell Malone, a beloved member of the community who died unexpectedly in August 2024, was honored with performances and stories from an array of distinguished colleagues, including Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Diana Krall, Monty Alexander, John Clayton, Benny Green, Christian McBride, Ben Wolfe, Donald Vega, Ed Cherry, Dave Stryker, Yotam Silberstein, Willie Jones III, Tammy McCann, Rick Germanson, Vincent Dupont, Neal Smith, Ekep Nkwelle and T.K. Blue. Stars were out. Kudos to ushers for politely reminding audience members to refrain from taking telephone videos of the concert.

Elsewhere, Carrington led a conversation about the life and legacy of fellow drummer Roy Haynes with family members Graham Haynes, Marcus Gilmore and Craig Holiday Haynes, along with bassist bandmates Dave Holland and John Patitucci. Trumpeter Bruce Harris moderated a parallel panel on Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, presenting selections from their recordings and discussing them with Hyland Harris, manager of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, along with trumpeters Jon Faddis and Bria Skonberg and singer Andromeda Turre.

Mentorship and Community

Award-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jon Batiste spoke with NEA Jazz Master pianist JoAnne Brackeen, a recipient of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and composer Roger Q Dickerson about music, mentorship and community. Likewise, Grammy-winning jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater chatted with Grammy nominated pianist-singer Patrice Rushen and saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin. In another session, radio host Keanna Faircloth sat down with Benjamin, trumpeter Summer Camargo, multi-instrumentalist and activist Isaiah Collier and trumpeter Theo Croker to look at some of the milestones in their developing careers.



Gene Dobbs Bradford, Executive Director of the Savannah Music Festival, headed a discussion on ways to create and maintain non-profits aimed at supporting and presenting jazz and educational programming in local communities. Panelists included Mark Rapp (ColaJazz Foundation), Heather Ireland Robinson (Jazz Institute of Chicago), Will Scruggs (Cornerstone Jazz Collective) and Gerald Veasley (Jazz Philadelphia).

Programming, Marketing and Promotion

In a spate of radio, marketing and festival-related sessions, radio programmer and host Brad Stone (SoulandJazz.com) led a perennially-popular panel of fellow hosts and programmers in a drop-the-needle session to assess probable airplay for upcoming releases. Among the panelists were J Hunter (Jazz2K), Kim Berry (KUVO Denver), Kayonne Riley (WUCF Orlando), Mark Ruffin (SiriusXM), Hobart Taylor (KUCI Irvine) and Michael Valentin (WDNA Miami). Panelists differed on the merit of individual tracks but coalesced around an aversion to cuts that begin with solo drums, a desire for singers to dig deeper into the repertoire to find more obscure songs (or write their own) and what they perceive to be a glut of similar-sounding organ trio and guitar trio recordings.

A simultaneous panel, moderated by NPR senior editor Katie Simon, looked at "the intersection of branding, strategic partnerships and digital platforms in the jazz world, focusing on how artists and organizations can craft compelling narratives." Elsewhere Sunny Sumter (DC Jazz Festival) led an open-ended session, inviting attendees to ask a panel of diverse industry experts anything about "everything from promotion to booking to record production." Panelists included Ross Eustis (SF Jazz), Matthew Jurasek (Mack Avenue), Michael Leonhart (Michael Leonhart Music), Lydia Liebman (Lydia Liebman Promotions) and Maria Matias (Maria Matias Music). And in the lobby, representatives from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Local 802 AFM (American Federation of Musicians) were on hand, fielding random queries.

Cultures in Contact

One international panel of jazz presenters discussed the challenges and rewards of programming "jazz-leaning or jazz-adjacent" music at jazz festivals. Panelists included representatives from across the globe: North Sea Jazz Festival (Michelle Kuypers), Summerstage and Charlie Parker Festivals (Yunie Mojica), EFG London Jazz Festival (Pelic Opcin), Newport Jazz Festival and James Moody Festival (Christian McBride, Melbourne International Jazz Festival (Hadley Agrez) and Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival (Janis Burley Wilson).

Another panel looked at European and US jazz exchanges. Participants included programmers Erika Elliot (SummerStage, Charlie Parker Jazz Festival), Jordana Leigh (Lincoln Center), Marin Axéméry (Festival de jazz de Montréal), Sébastien Vidal (Nice Jazz Festival, Django Reinhardt Fest, Duc des Lombards) and Reiner Michalke (German member of the European Jazz Network).

A separate session moderated by agent and manager Matt De Léon (Music Works International), explored unique "jazz ecosystems" in Latin America, focusing on effective touring strategies, the importance of reciprocity and the current state of the industry. Panelists addressed specific concerns of particular regions and organizations that cover them, including Circuito Argentino de Jazz (Natacha Cruz), Mexico's M Jazz Festival (Jordi Funtanet), World of Music Arts and Dance (WOMAD) Chile (Alejandro Orellana), Colombia's Instituto Distrital de las Artes (María Claudia Parias Durán) and Brazil's Social Service of Commerce (SESC) São Paulo (Heloisa Pisani). Chilean saxophonist and bandleader Melissa Aldana, the lone musician on the panel, spoke of challenges faced by the independent artist in navigating the complex field.

A few stimulating sessions were held in rooms too small to contain all those interested, leaving eager attendees waiting at the door for seats to be vacated. One such was a panel on New Voices in Latin Jazz, moderated by Grammy-nominated bassist Carlos Henriquez, with brothers Luques Curtis and Zaccai Curtis (co-owners of Truth Revolution Records and founders of TRRcollective), Cuban trumpeter Kali Rodriguez-Peña and Cuban singer and batá drummer Melvis Santa (Sexto Sentido, Ashedi). The panel touched on the history of Latin—especially Afro-Cuban—jazz in New York, addressing what they perceive to be gaps in audience appreciation for central figures beyond the few, such as percussionist Chano Pozo, who are customarily cited.

In an intriguing multidimensional project, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins joined a panel with cinematographer Cory Fraiman-Lott, Marissa Reyes (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas) and Adam Meeks (JALC) to share results of a video collaboration that features performances by Wilkins, Ambrose Akinmusire, Mary Halvorson and others, who are videotaped as they improvise to specific artworks in the museum. Wilkins talked about the collaboration, showing clips and describing how he conceived his relation to the painting, and how that changed when the cinematographer directed him to step away from the work, turning his back on the art while continuing to improvise about it.

A Final Note

Clearly, a lot is going on in jazz in 2025, around the world and in the jazz capital. Astonishing creativity and craft in the field, new toys to play with, plenty of competition and—still—economic conditions that are starkly out of balance. But as this gathering and exchange of ideas demonstrated, a strong spirit of solidarity is fostering the creation of innovative support systems and strengthening ones that already exist.

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