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Detroit Jazz Festival 2025 Lineup and Schedule
Detroit Jazz Festival Shuttle Info
TRANSCRIPTION:
Michael Jewett: Joining us to talk about the Detroit Jazz Festival, which opens two weeks from today! Festival director, Chris Collins. Always great to hear from you! How you doing?
Chris Collins: I'm doing well, Michael! Good to hear from you! Super exciting year! Super exciting time of the year!
Michael Jewett: Yeah, it is! It's jazz festival season! Labor Day weekend. If you do not know, we hope you know by now that the Detroit Jazz Festival is an annual Labor Day weekend event in downtown Detroit, now in its 46th year! And you've been at the helm of the festival for a few years now. I guess, I'm being a little modest there. How many years have you been at it?
Chris Collins: Yeah. 13 years.
Michael Jewett: Lucky number 13! Yeah!
Chris Collins: Look at that!
Michael Jewett: I know we had passed a decade a while ago Time flies and the years add up when you're doing something you love.
Chris Collins: Doing the good work!
Michael Jewett: Doing the good work, yeah! And there's nothing beats a jazz festival! I tell you. Nothing beats the Detroit Jazz Festival. You and I, and I'm on record with this. And we've spoke many times about this, about how much I personally just love being part of the audience--this discerning, hip, engaging, diverse, energetic audience that assembles for the Detroit Jazz Festival. We kind of closed with that before, but I thought we talk about it to open things up. The vast majority of those in attendance for the Jazz Festival tend to be, I hate to say, repeat customers, but people who return to the festival or tend to be festival regulars. Do you have an appeal maybe to... well, there are people who have never attended a Detroit Jazz Festival. What do you think we could say to someone to check out the Detroit Jazz festival for the first time?
Chris Collins: Yeah, I will tell you that the stats have shown that about a third of the attendees are from outside the region, many outside the country, and there's a lot of evolution in that and the live streams that go out to the world. Last year, we reached nearly 2 million unique viewers in 36 countries. The attendance, overall, the one thing that's really great that happens is people come to the Detroit Jazz Festival, and they come back every year no matter what's happening in their own neck of the woods. And that creates, certainly, some amazing diversity and change. But given 325,000 people over four days in person, it's a lot of those who have had a taste of it and said, "We're never going to miss this again." But, one of the few premier jazz specific festivals left the world and of course being entirely free, it's accessible to everyone, which is a core part of our mission. But every year, it's about what's happening in this music historically, so we have those legendary artists. And then, what's happening now, those artists that are crossing thresholds of important artistic moments in their lives, to discover them and to bring them up, so aspiring artists from all over that are doing something new. And the biggest message is that jazz, from its inception, the concept of communicativeness and interactive, and like any great art form, the connectivity to not just the present and the past, but to a vision of the future, very much makes this art form a living, breathing entity that every generation owns a piece of this evolution. And that never goes stronger than it does now for the current generation and the lineup this year, as it does every year, features artists that are exploring and combining contemporary genres and historic genres with the historical language and philosophies of jazz music at a very sophisticated level. But people will find that, whether you're a neophyte or if you've never really listened to jazz or if you have a preconception that jazz is from the 1920s or the 1950s or 1960s, you're going to find that this music is very relevant to who we are right now. And I can't emphasize enough what you said about audiences. Even the artists will tell you, "You want a great audience. Do your thing in Detroit," because you can imagine it's a testament to access and diversity. Because it's free, you will get jazzheads. You will get artists. You will get neophytes. You will get people who are walking down Jefferson in Detroit, and they say, "What's going on here?" They walk in, and before they know it, they're there all day. But that diversity creates, even from the artists' point of view, one of the greatest jazz audiences, one of the most listening and interested and and engaged jazz audiences in the world! So, I'm very, very proud of that, and it's a testament to all of us why you have to work to break down those barriers to be sure that inclusivity access is there, so that diversity, which wants to happen happens, and, all of a sudden, something really magical happens that wouldn't happen if those barriers were still in place.
Michael Jewett: Beautiful! Beautiful! I tell you. Attend the Detroit Jazz Festival. My faith in humanity, my faith in things are just restored every year. It's a day I look forward to. It's a holiday. It's a holiday and about the audience faithful. It is like kind of like a jazz family reunion. Great, great, great, great happening!
Chris Collins: It is! A couple of logistic quick points is that we've done some real work on entrance, because there's security and whatnot at the entrance of Hart Plaza, but we've done some really interesting things to speed up that process, so people can get a lot quicker. We encourage audiences to travel light with a small handbag or something, because there's always the potential of being searched and things. And we have great food and drink and everything else on the footprint. You don't have to bring anything. We also have a special VIP entrance for those who have donated in name of the VIP access and things. And there's a dedicated exit lane as well, so people are going to have a much quicker and more enjoyable entrance experience and to get in and get to the music into their seats and enjoy what they're digging.
Michael Jewett: Fantastic! If you need any and all information, DetroitJazzFest.org, kind of like one long word, Detroitjazzfest.org. Returning and making a very welcome return to the festival, but now as this year's artist-in-residence, MacArthur Fellow, pianist, composer, real visionary in the music, Jason Moran. What are some of the things that made Jason Moran such a great pick as an artist-in-residence?
Chris Collins: Well, I've had Jason in various capacities doing really interesting stuff over the years. I love him to death! He's a great artist, but also a great communicator. He's mindful of the importance of community, the fragility of art in a culture, and the value that Detroit and its corporations and independent donors, what we place on creative jazz music. It's really important to us here. And he's an admirer and respecter of that. So, it's finding artists like that at his level of the game that can also come in and have a profound impact on our community and culture. And it's evident in his sets. He does three different sets throughout the festival. He's already been in town doing educational elements. He spoke to the public. He's been part of our launch back in April. Anyone who saw his solo piano performance, it was, I mean, just stunning! But on Friday, opening night, he's doing a special set that's brand new to him, brand new to everybody, where he's collaborating with another Detroit great from the electronica world, really one of the granddaddies, Jeff Mills, along with Jason Moran doing a brand new conceptual set that brings those worlds together, but very Detroit-connected, right? It's going to be new, fresh. It's going to appeal to all kinds of different folks. And then, on Sunday night, he's doing this project. He's been exploring Duke Ellington music, and he's doing it, though, with a big band of aspiring artists from our community. So, these are not kids, but they're people that are talented jazz artists. Many have come through the Jazz Festival's youth programs, and now they're into their professional career. And so, we've assembled this big band from all different corners of the community to prepare and then present this amazing set of Jason's vision of Duke Ellington music on Sunday night. And then, on Monday, he closes the festival with a band people are familiar with him: his Bandwagon, but with special guests, which will make it give another dimension. So, you can not just him coming into doing stuff. He's doing brand new stuff, and he's engaging with what's unique in the Detroit culture and community, which, of course, you know in the arts is really vast and diverse, and he's embraced all of that. It's a beautiful thing!
Michael Jewett: Yeah, I've always been a longtime fan and admirer of his work. Jason Moran, this year's artist-in-residence. There's always a very strong Detroit presence at the festival, our scene, regional scene and whatnot. A number of great performers all across, and you mentioned at the outset of our talk about kind of like the cultural or stylistic or genre panorama of styles. And you certainly get that from Detroit representation. But I just want to do pick out maybe more on the traditional side. On Sunday, the Detroit Jazz Queen paying homage to upon whose shoulders we stand. They're celebrating some great vocal jazz pioneers and icons: Ella, Nancy, Dinah, and Etta. That's kind of like the type of offering that really, really is a highlight of the Detroit Jazz Festival. Any other Detroit-connected artists that maybe, and again, to make an appeal to those first-time attendees, that they might want to check out?
Chris Collins: Indeed! As I said, it's a living breathing art form, and we have an open artist submission. I go and I listen all the time but do a lot of things, so that any artist can get their stuff to me. And of course, we have now youth programs that have been engaged for a dozen years or more, so there's generations of come through. There's now like heavy pro players. And I'm always looking again for those moments. They're doing a new release or they're moving into a new artistic vision in their life. And acts like Alan Denard's quintet--anybody who listens to Alan, he's just got his own vision. And he's bringing contemporary genres into what he's doing but is well-versed in the traditions of the city and of the history of jazz. And another one is Louis Jones III, a drummer and composer, which is a great combination. He's got this wonderful group that he's going to be releasing his first CD. And, I mean, I've known Louis since he was in middle school. Always an interesting cat. He got his degree from Wayne State in jazz. And he developed as a composer, and, just recently, I had him in the All-Star Generations Band that we toured in Japan just a couple of months ago--a really talented cat! But again, these are examples of two guys. It's not just their talent. They have cultured an ensemble and music that is, to me, about the real Detroit Jazz tradition, which in a word is "innovation," which matches everything in our city. It's about how do you coalesce the language and the history with your ideas, your vision, and what's happening now into something that is truly unique and multi-dimensional and is about an ensemble, which brings all the different voices together. There has to be generosity and communication. The end result is something really worth checking out. Those are two great examples of cats you want to hear, because they're doing something that's going to be memorable and likely have an impact on the future language of Detroit jazz.
Michael Jewett: I am speaking with the director of the Detroit Jazz Festival, Chris Collins. We are two weeks away.
Chris Collins: WHOO!
Michael Jewett: Labor Day weekend is going to get here quicker than you think. The Detroit Jazz Festival, now in it's 46th year. Complete information at DetroitJazzFest.org. We're talking about homegrown stuff, the Detroit scene and whatnot. On a broader international scale, a pretty impressive year for, broadly termed people, Latin jazz or Afro-Cuban jazz: the Chucho Valdes/Paquito de Rivera Reunion Sextet, Omar Sosa's Quarteto Americanos. It's just one of those years where you have like that kind of probe. I think that's usually an element in the festival, but this year, especially Chucho Valdes and Paquito. That's pretty special!
Chris Collins: It is, and it's one of those sets. Chucho was our artist-in-residence some years ago. And when we talk about this set, there's a couple of interesting things. First of all, Chucho Valdes and Paquito de Rivera, these are lifelong friends and colleagues. I mean, it is a very personal thing. And it's a great example of keeping your ears open and hanging with the cats. I heard about this idea of them doing something this year together to celebrate a lifetime of relationship. Of course they have their own careers, so they didn't play all the time together. There was a lot of their own activities, so they're coming together at this important time in their lives. And it's not something that's playing all over the place. I heard about it in New York in one thing, and I started to call Chucho and the cats and say, "Can we make it happen in Detroit?" Of course, they agreed to do it. So, that is an incredibly important set historically. And then, Omar, of course, is another Cuban jazz cat. Of course, Omar has his own take on it. I love Omar! We did some special stuff with Detroit musicians just a few years ago, and he always brings again the traditions of several different cultures. But we always have to keep in mind, and you're right, I do it every year, much of the jazz language, which started--really inspired--by traditional African music and language and culture. A lot of that, before it reached the United States, into New Orleans and whatnot, it was distilled and shaped through the Spanish-speaking countries for various reasons. And it's finally coming out even more and more that the early days of New Orleans and the development of this music, there were a lot of Puerto Rican and Cuban and Panamanian musicians. It is absolutely a foundational part of not only jazz, but, of course, all American music. So, it's so important that these cats have a place at every jazz festival as far as I'm concerned.
Michael Jewett: Yeah. People ask me every year, and it's always a difficult thing. "What should I see? Who can I not miss?" It's a difficult things, and I always say, "Well, I have to know what you like or what you may like." It's a tough thing, but I know Team WEMU, we're big Lakecia Benjamin fans. So, this is your chance to find Lakecia Benjamin at the Detroit Jazz Festival. But there are a couple of stages here. I know that you being the director, and you have to be diplomatic. You can't play too many favorites. But I'm on record here, Chris, that I've been telling people that the Sunday main stage, if you had to camp out at a stage, Randy Napoleon's guitar orchestra project, Waking Dream, I've heard the records, just amazing. Connie Han, amazing pianist in her trio. Well, it's a jazz show. You got to hear some piano. If you'd go to a jazz festival and you don't hear piano, bass and drums. I mean, come on. It's like, let's hear some of Connie Han's artistry. Then, you get Jason Moran and the aforementioned Duke Ellington project with the festival collegiate jazz orchestra. So, you hear some El Antonia--21st century El Antonia, if you will. And then, the aforementioned Chucho Valdes and Paqueto de Rivera reunion sextet. That's quite an afternoon and evening of music! And this is, I'm not putting Chris on the spot here, but this is the Michael Jewett recommendation, if you had to pick, you can only go one day, you maybe prefer to kind of like camp out, but if you have to camp and be at one place, the main stage on Sunday is a pretty cool place. But if can only go Monday to the amphitheater, the aforementioned Louis Jones in the mix and in the middle there. And Nick Collins, my man, Nick Collins, I'm a huge fan of this band. They are just a kicking, straight-ahead band. And then John Scofield and company with special guest Nicholas Payton, that's a tough stage to beat too. So, we could probably make a case for every stage like this, but I don't want to put Chris on the spot.
Chris Collins: No, listen. That is the beauty. I mean, I'm in a fortunate position. I often likened it to when i was a kid going to used record stores and flipping through those albums and seeing something I hadn't seen and saying, "Holy cow! That cat played with that cat!" And you're sort of drawing these things out and you go home and you listen to them in different orders, it's kind of that vibe, right? Of course, as a festival director, I'm adamant that you have to open yourself up to all musical families and genres, even if it's not your center point or they're not in your family. I mean, that is an absolute requirement that really keeps everything equitable and gets you to be that much more aggressive about reaching out and listening. But at every festival, everyone asks me what the theme is, and I always say, It's great jazz!" I mean, my job is to program in such a way that it works for everyone, and there's a lot of logistics. But at the end of the day, no matter where you're sitting you're getting your things that you know, things that are complete and utter surprise and then, if you walk around even further, there's just going to be that exploration that even some of the cats you know because of the projects they're doing is going to be new to them and new to you. And I think that's the beauty of jazz. There's that spontaneous element that, look, once it goes out in the air, it's gone forever. And if you were there live, there are plenty of sets that I bemoan not being alive for. But there's going to be future generations that say, "Really? You were there at Chucho/Paquito set? You were actually there live? That must have been unbelievable!" I mean, that's what this whole art form engenders culturally and for the audience, and I'm a huge fan! In fact, one place people will definitely want to check out is our four stage this year from the Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center Detroit Jazz Hall. Each night, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we have the after-hours Midtown special. It's free. It's an indoor venue because it was specifically designed for jazz. So, it's a very special place for this music, elevating it to the highest level. But Friday night, after the outdoor stuff finishes, you go at 10:30, 10:45 starts the Emmet Cohen trio.
Michael Jewett: Amazing!
Chris Collins: The next night, Saturday, we'll have the James Carter Organ Trio at the same time. And then, capping off Sunday night at the Gretchen Valade Jazz Center, Rodney Whittaker with a whole slew of...Tim Warfield, Carol Stafford, Clarence Penn, a great band!
Michael Jewett: I was at his set playing Coltrane. I think it would have been two years ago. So, this is Rodney and his his band, his friends, his longtime collaborators, playing the music of Joe Henderson. There'll be some fireworks there to be sure!
Chris Collins: Super! And the good thing is, logistically, I hate to bring this up, but I think about this stuff. Man, what I would do if I was coming to this festival is park in Midtown for next to nothing, right, take the Q-line, which is free, right to the north end of the Jazz Fest footprint, and then at the end of night, take the Q-Line back to Midtown. You jump off at Woodward. You're a block from the Valade Center, get in for that performance, and pick up your car and drive home with no traffic. It's not a bad way to go!
Michael Jewett: The inside information you need right there! Right there! Thank you so much for taking some time to talk about all things Detroit Jazz Festival and more! Always a thrill to talk to you! I'm sure I'll see you down Labor Day weekend. We're two weeks away! It'll be here before you know it! Again, for complete information: DetroitJazzFest.org. Chris Collins, thank you so much! Happy Jazz Festival weekend coming up!
Chris Collins: Same to you! And thanks for all you do, Michael, to keep this music alive and well all year round, man! God bless you!
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