DC Jazz Festival 2026: Jazz on the Waterfront
Updated: 6 days ago
By Eva Kapanadze | Front Row Jazz
When the lineup is this strong, the hardest part of a festival is choosing. DC JazzFest 2026 filled The Wharf and its surrounding stages with so much music at the same time that no one person could hear it all. Front Row Jazz was there on Saturday and Sunday, September 5 and 6, and while we could not be everywhere at once, the sets we caught were enough to remember the weekend for a long time.
Washington has always been a jazz city, and the festival wears that history with pride. By the water, with the late-summer light moving across the stages, the music felt connected to the neighborhood around it: open, generous, and full of people who came simply to listen.
The Main Stage
Joshua Redman brought his quartet to the Wharf, and it was a pleasure to see a master saxophonist in such a relaxed, open setting. His sound carries both patience and fire, and the audience gave him their full attention.
Kurt Elling, joined by the Yellowjackets in a celebration of Weather Report, showed once again how a voice can move like another instrument. It was a meeting of vocal storytelling and a band that knows how to make a groove feel like a journey.
Cory Henry and The Funk Apostles lifted the energy in the best way. Gospel feeling, deep funk, and real virtuosity came together, and the crowd responded with the kind of joy you cannot plan.
Nate Smith, the Grammy-winning drummer and bandleader, reminded everyone that rhythm is also composition. Every pattern and every pause had a purpose.
Emmet Cohen, this year's festival artist-in-residence, led his Miles and Trane at 100 project with Tivon Pennicott on saxophone, Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, Yasushi Nakamura on bass, and Joe Farnsworth on drums. It was a thoughtful way to mark a double centennial, honoring two giants while keeping the music alive and fresh in the room.
Voices and Visions
The weekend also had room for artists with very personal stories. The Bill Frisell Trio brought the guitarist's unmistakable world of jazz, folk, and open-ended improvisation, a sound so gentle and so deep that it makes a festival crowd lean in. Etienne Charles and Creole Soul carried the rhythms and colors of the Caribbean through the Wharf, and the Orrin Evans Trio, featuring Lisa Fischer, offered a rare meeting of a great piano trio and one of the most distinctive voices in music.
Ben Williams, a Washington native, performed music connected to his projects Between Church & State and I Am a Man, where family history, faith, and activism meet jazz, soul, and hip-hop. Playing it at home, in the city that shaped him, gave the set a special meaning. Isaiah Collier's Collier Plays Coltrane approached the repertoire with strong spiritual energy, and Ekep Nkwelle added another voice to a festival full of different paths.
Saxophonist Donald Harrison, an NEA Jazz Master from New Orleans, brought his own deep tradition to the weekend. And pianist Janelle Gill, a graduate of Washington's Duke Ellington School for the Arts and one of this year's festival artists-in-residence, performed with special guest Amina Claudine Myers, a moment that spoke about generations and about the future of this music.
A Festival of Choices
There were more artists than we could reach, and that is the sign of a festival doing its job. Somewhere nearby, other stages were playing music we missed, and we carry that with us as a reason to return.
DC JazzFest 2026 was a reminder of what jazz does best: it gathers people. On the waterfront, across generations, with the city around it, the music did exactly that.
Front Row Jazz was honored to be part of the weekend.
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