A Bounty of Jazz is Coming to DC Labor Day Weekend
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
by Willard Jenkins, DC JazzFest Artistic Director
DC JazzFest 2026 will once again deliver a veritable cornucopia of jazz flavors and vivid colors, presenting a tantalizing bounty of the music that makes 21st century jazz an evolving, multi-stylistic expression. As an international jazz festival, one of our primary responsibilities is to showcase an appealing and mind-expanding range of the stylistic nuances that make jazz such a broad and vibrant art form, including presenting various musical streams that are stylistically jazz-adjacent and reflect the influence of jazz.
DC JazzFest 2026 will meet those parameters, not only by presenting well-established pathfinders and groundbreakers, but also in reflecting where jazz is going by featuring emerging and “new” artists and their expressions of 21st century jazz. The human voice being the original instrument of all musical expression, that facet from the jazz perspective will be represented royally. NEA Jazz Master, 3-time Grammy winner, and Tony Award winner Dee Dee Bridgewater will bring her ever-swinging, soulful jazz expressions and vivacious, Broadway-informed stage presence. For DCJF ’26, Dee Dee will be at the helm of her sensational all-women quartet, in keeping with DCJF ’26’s presentation of Women & Diverse Voices. Kurt Elling will be joined on the DC JazzFest stage by the famed Yellowjackets as they collectively pay homage to the music of the all-time greatest electric jazz band, Weather Report. The marvelous songstress Lisa Fischer, star of the documentary film Twenty Feet From Stardom, will renew her sonic partnership with the Orrin Evans Trio. From the “international” side of DC JazzFest ’26, we’ll experience the French singer Laura Anglade via our ongoing partnership with the Embassy of France.
Reflecting one of DCJF’s ongoing themes, The Next 250 Years: A Vision for Jazz/Emerging Artists & New Voices, as we celebrate America’s 250th, emerging vocal perspectives will be represented by Ekep Nkwelle, an alum of Howard University’s award-winning Afro Blue jazz vocal ensemble. Likewise, the rising trumpeter Brandon Woody out of Baltimore, whose debut recording arrived via the historic Blue Note label, will pilot his Upendo ensemble on our stage. DMV-based trumpeter Kenny Rittenhouse will make his DCJF debut, as will the flutist Elsa Nilsson, who will bring her global jazz perspectives through our partnership with the Embassy of Sweden.
Also delivering global jazz sounds will be the island-proud folklorist and trumpeter from Trinidad & Tobago, Etienne Charles’ Creole Soul. Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez and his 30th anniversary PanaMonk project will provide an Afro-Caribbean perspective on the music of Thelonious Monk. South America will inhabit the DC JazzFest stage with the precocious young pianist José André representing Bolivia, and the 2025 DCJazzPrix winner José Luiz Martins representing Brazil.
Joshua Redman will grace our stage, as no jazz festival is complete without a master level tenor saxophonist. In addition, DC JazzFest will honor the centennial of the immortal tenor titan John Coltrane, via the new voice of emerging artist Isaiah Collier and his “Collier Plays Coltrane” program. Further representing this unusually bountiful year of jazz master birth centennials, the African Rhythms Alumni Quintet will bring the music of Randy Weston, and drummer Nasar Abadey’s SUPERNOVA will remember Miles Davis.
From the inaugural 2025 class of Jazz Legacy Fellows (a 4-year initiative of the Jazz Foundation of America via the Mellon Foundation, honoring senior-level artists), DCJF welcomes pianist-composer Michele Rosewoman’s all-star band, Quintessence. The 2026 GRAMMY-winning drummer and newly appointed Newport Jazz Festival artistic director Nate Smith will bring his band to DCJF, as will the thoroughly unique guitar stylist Bill Frisell.
Highlighting DC as a major jazz city, DC JazzFest 2026 will present bassist Ben Williams, a Duke Ellington School of the Arts graduate and winner of the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Bass Competition. Our own JazzDC All-Stars, an assemblage of DC’s finest directed by Paul Carr, will celebrate DC’s 250th.
DC Jazz Festival artists-in-residence have consistently delivered engaging programs to our festival and year-round stages and enriched our community through their yearlong engagements. That will certainly be the case as DC JazzFest 2026 boasts the appointment of two vibrant new artists-in-residence. Pianist Emmet Cohen has rapidly become one of the music’s true torch bearers. Not least of his many attributes – besides his brilliantly swinging exploits at the piano – is his true yen for creative collaborations. Not only has Emmet embraced musicians of his and succeeding generations through his popular series of “in-house” concert performances – which commenced online during the pandemic sheltering-at-home days – he has also engaged, and subsequently recorded in partnerships with, some of the music’s great elder statesmen, including NEA Jazz Masters Ron Carter, George Coleman, Jimmy and Tootie Heath, and Jimmy Cobb, among others. He has also worked with many musicians of his generation and younger in uniquely creative partnerships.
We are also thrilled to further introduce to broader audiences the piano artistry of one of our own – Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Howard University alum, pianist Janelle Gill as a 2026 DC Jazz Festival artist-in-residence. A proud Washingtonian, Janelle Gill carries forward the deep jazz lineage of our city while sharing her artistry on international stages including the Kennedy Center, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the North Sea Jazz Festival. Gill is not only a remarkable pianist, but also a composer and musical director whose work bridges jazz, theater, and global musical traditions. Her recent score for the IN Series revival of Ethiopia blended opera, spirituals, reggae, jazz, and African musical traditions into a richly layered musical tapestry that critics hailed as one of the most dynamic scores in recent D.C. theater. Beyond the bandstand, she is an educator and collaborator whose artistry connects generations of musicians, working with luminaries such as Oliver Lake and David Murray while helping nurture the vibrant jazz community across the DMV.
From the jazz-adjacent and indelibly jazz-influenced side of 21st century music, DC JazzFest 2026 will also welcome the vibrant funk of Snarky Puppy alum keyboardist Cory Henry & The Funk Apostles. And there is no better way to musically celebrate DC’s 250th than through the music of legendary DC funk & jazz go-go pioneer Chuck Brown, as embodied by the ever-popular Chuck Brown Band. They will be joined by a “very special guest” to be announced shortly. Where else but DC JazzFest are you going to find such a broad range of tantalizing jazz expressions? Nowhere…