14 Gigs To Book Now For Montreal Jazz Festival 2025
Portrait of American jazz musician Ellis Marsalis Jr (left) and his son, fellow musician Wynton Marsalis, after a rare performance as a duo at The Blue Note nightclub
Festival goers are in for a real treat when Wynton Marsalis, with 15 of today's finest jazz soloists and ensembles, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, performs a vast repertoire, ranging from rare historical compositions to original works.
AZYMUTH and Alex Malheiros performing in London
The legendary Brazilian trio will make their first-ever appearance at the Festival. Pioneers of a sound combining groove, samba and jazz-funk, Azymuth is Alex Malheiros, bass; Kiko Continentino, keyboard and Renato Massa, drums.
Makaya McCraven performs during Barcelona Jazz Festival
American drummer, composer and producer, Makaya McCraven has been described as a'beat scientist' thanks to his clever fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and electronic music. His newest album, In These Times, is the triumphant finale of a project of more than seven years in the making. McCraven says he's also 'really drawn to folk music. Music of aural tradition, music that is of the people where it's more of a collective experience of music and dance and culture that we all participate in and know as part of our being or as part of who we are.'
Samara Joy performs at the 2025 GRAMMY U Conference - Showcase on April 26, 2025 in New York City.
Bronx-born vocalist Samara Joy a rising jazz star of the new generation returns after her thrilling performance at the MJF last year. She won Best New Artist at the 2023 GRAMMY Awards and her new album, Portrait, highlights her talents as a lyricist in clever arrangements that blend her lyrics with the music of Charles Mingus, Sun Ra and her late mentor, Barry Harris.
Swedish musician Jay-Jay Johanson performs during his concert at Bobylon Bomonti in Istanbul, Turkey
Swedish singer-songwriter Jay-Jay Johanson is known for his melancholic vocals. His music has integrated the trip hop genre. For his Montreal gig, he'll be drawing from Backstage, his 15th album, a gorgeous combination of jazz, triphop and pop.
Local funk band The Brooks have cemented their reputation as a super danceable groove machine. Inspired by legends like James Brown, Fela Kuti, and Herbie Hancock, The Brooks perform a captivating mix of funk, soul, r'n'b, afrobeats and jazz.
Nas performs onstage during Hip Hop 50 Live at Yankee Stadium
Since the release of his debut album, Illmatic (1994) American rapper Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, better known by his stage name Nas has been one of Hip Hop's leading voices. He has released 14 subsequent albums, 8 of which are multi-platinum and platinum including: Nastradamus, Stillmatic, God's Son and Street's Disciple. In Montreal Nas will perform with a full symphony orchestra.
Dianne Reeves, Love Supreme Jazz Festival, Glynde Place, East Sussex
Five-time Grammy Award winning American jazz singer Dianne Reeves is one of the most versatile in the business. She's performed with Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Barenboim as well as with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. She has also been a featured soloist with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Avishai Cohen trio en concert live à 'l'Olympia' Paris, France.
Acclaimed bassist, singer, composer Avishai Cohen was a former member of Chick Corea's trio. For the festival the trio, featuring double bass, drums and piano, will be enhanced by a symphony orchestra that will perform contemporary jazz and world music compositions, orchestrated traditional Hebrew-Ladino songs, as well as classical works.
Drummer Nate Smith performs with The 8G Band on LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS
Betty Carter and Dave Holland were great influences on drummer Nate Smith and he joined Holland's quintet in 2003. In 2017, he released his first album as leader, Kinfolk: Postcards from Everywhere on Ropeadope Record. Smith fuses his original compositions with an eclectic mix of music, including everything from jazz to R&B to hip-hop to pop. His latest album, Kinfolk 2: See The Birds is the highly-anticipated follow up to his 2017 Grammy Award-nominated album.
Thomas Morgan, Bill Frisell and Brian Blade perform during the 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 27, 2025
Featuring the legendary guitarist and composer in the trio format he cherishes will be Bill Frisell, Electric Guitar; Thomas Morgan, Acoustic Bass and Rudy Royston, Drums. We can expect material from his new double album, his fourth release for Blue Note Records to be featured.
Branford Marsalis performs as part of the London Jazz Festival
The Grammy Award winner and Tony Award nominee is equally at home performing concertos with symphony orchestras and sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead but the core of his musical universe is the Branford Marsalis Quartet which is who we will hear at the Théâtre Maisonneuve at the festival.
Canadian singer Holly Cole performs live at the Goethe Theater, Germany.
Best-selling Canadian jazz singer Holly Cole will making a welcome return to the Festival this year performing a new repertoire from her album Dark Moon. Her smooth, melodious voice has earned her four JUNO Awards and the FIJM's prestigious Ella Fitzgerald Award in 2013.
Dhafer Youssef performing on stage as part of the London Jazz Festival
Nearly 20 years after his last appearance at the Festival, the master of the oud and an iconic figure in Tunisian music, will make a highly anticipated return.
Air Canada offers 12 direct flights a week from London Heathrow and direct flights from Miami, LA, San Francisco, New York and Atlanta.
Two great hotel options within a ten minute walk to the main festival venues are the 4-star Hotel Monville and 5-star Le Germain. Hotel Monville has 269 rooms with a hip urban vibe, housed in a sleek glass and concrete high-rise. Awarded a coveted Michelin Key last year, Le Germain features 136 rooms with the space, chic design and ultra comfort you'd expect from a boutique hotel.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Imagine's Long-Term Value of Limited-Time Destinations
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Imagine and Midnight Oil continue to demonstrate leadership in visual communications, thinking outside the box to immerse visitors in brands at physical locations that signify more than just merchandise on display. By teaming up with industry giants 7-Eleven and Universal Pictures, one of the most anticipated movie releases of 2025 — Jurassic World Rebirth — had a celebration as epic as the partnership itself. The groundbreaking creative campaign transformed three 7-Eleven locations into bona fide dino landmarks featuring 360-degree wraps, offering customers themed exclusives and unforgettable memories. With a global pop-up retail market on track to hit $80 billion by 2027, Imagine's novel approach of pushing captivating experiences over products checks all the right boxes. The lucrative potential of pop-ups is driven by the increasing demand from consumers for memorable, multisensory, and community-driven encounters. 83% of Gen Z and Millennials believe brands should interact more with their consumers through experiences, which explains why pop-ups that evoke emotions are outperforming their traditional counterparts that focus solely on product sales. Crafting temporary, destination-worthy spaces that go big on scent, movement, texture, and drama triggers excitement and engages audiences that crave hyper-personalized interactions. "In any marketing launch, imagery is everything,' says Mike Gade, board member of The Imagine Group. 'Transforming a retail space into a canvas for your campaign is a fast, cost-effective, and high-impact way to immerse customers in the experience in real time." Brand takeovers of exteriors are a powerful tool for maximizing the visual impact of these experiences. 70% of people can't recall the last time a brand did anything that excited them, which presents a massive opportunity to prioritize the complete reinvention of retail spaces so they create an otherworldly sense of awe. The scale, scope, and dominance of 360-degree wraps are impossible to ignore and difficult to forget, taking a familiar structure and turning it into a portal that transports audiences into a tailored brand story. Imagine's ability to execute complete, dimensional takeovers make the building itself a beacon for brands with an effectiveness that can't be achieved with conventional advertising. The limited-time activations for Jurassic World Rebirth showcased Imagine's vision for leveraging 360-degree wraps to forge connections with an audience who desire emotional engagement more than transactions. By adapting a philosophy of being a memory provider over a service provider, Imagine is putting art and craftmanship in the spotlight. 'Collaborating with brands from day one, we handle the design, creative, print, digital production, and installation of the experience,' says Don McKenzie, CEO of The Imagine Group. 'That end-to-end capability is practically unheard of in the industry. It makes us a unique strategic partner for our clients.' About Midnight Oil For 45 years Midnight Oil, an Imagine Group company, has been partnering with the entertainment industry and brands to create, adapt, and produce campaign messaging for virtually every consumer-reaching medium worldwide. Famous for its custom billboards and in the wild executions across the country, Midnight Oil has a reputation for bringing high-quality and innovative thinking to every promotional campaign. Learn more at About Imagine Imagine is an industry-leading provider of visual communications solutions. As a trusted partner to the world's most successful brands, Imagine designs, produces, and delivers beautifully crafted print and digital solutions that inspire action and get results. From concept to consumer, our end-to-end solutions include creative design, pre-media, décor, commercial print, store signage, specialty packaging, out of home, fulfillment & kitting. With a customer technology stack powered by Dotti, a single, flexible platform designed to manage even the most complex in-store marketing programs and a collection of talented designers and innovators in Imagine Studio, all backed with powerhouse print and digital production capabilities Imagine has the solution. Learn more at CONTACT: Andy House ahouse@
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Are these GenZ quirks real?
Arts & Entertainment Are these GenZ quirks real? August 19, 2025 | 11:49 PM GMT Is the generation born between 1997 and 2012 allergic to driving, glued to their headphones, and obsessed with the digital camera revival trend? Well, it seems that way.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
SaskTel ends Jazz Festival title sponsorship after nearly 30 years
The Saskatchewan Jazz Festival is searching for a new title sponsor for the first time in almost 30 years after SaskTel decided not to return as the main corporate patron of the annual summer event in Saskatoon. "It's the end of an era for us," said Shannon Josdal, executive director of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival. The festival is planning to return next summer, but it won't look the same. "It's extremely likely that there will be changes to the festival format next year in response to this change and many other factors," Josdal said. "But they will be strategic and they will be responsive and they'll be for the best." In addition to naming the festival itself after the Crown corporation, the title sponsorship gave SaskTel prominent branding placement at the multi-day festival and in promotional material throughout the year. The Jazz Festival has known SaskTel's intention to leave since at least the beginning of the year. The Saskatoon Jazz Society founded the festival in 1987 and SaskTel joined as the title sponsor in 1998. Josdal declined to discuss the agreement's details, but said SaskTel's annual sponsorship reached six-figures, but was below $200,000. "Having that title sponsorship and knowing that cash infusion is there is kind of a bedrock for an organization like ours," she said, adding that the sponsorship helped pay for year-round staff. "So it puts us into a bit of a precarious situation and seeking additional major sponsors is something that's high on our priority list." In a statement e-mailed to CBC News, SaskTel said it's still considering other sponsorship opportunities with the festival. "By evolving our sponsorship with the Jazz Festival, SaskTel is better positioned to develop sponsorship agreements with other organizations and consider supporting new events and causes across Saskatchewan," it said in the statement. "This change is in no way a reflection of the quality or impact of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, which we continue to respect and admire." SaskTel spent $3.1 million on sponsorships and donations for 1,048 non-profits and charities in the province in the last fiscal year, according to the Crown corporation's 2024-25 annual report. Festivals struggle The Jazz Festival's circumstances aren't unique. Live music events across the country are dealing with fallout from COVID shutdowns, declining ticket sales and rising costs of staging events and booking big-name acts, said Em Ironstar, executive director of the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance. In March, the Regina Folk Festival permanently shut down after a 55-year run due to financial struggles. "I don't think we can kind of discount that economic impact that these arts and culture events have in our communities," Ironstar said. "It's not just the people working at the Jazz Festival and the Folk Festival. It's also everybody that's coming into town to enjoy those things. So when we lost the Folk Festival in Regina ... we didn't have those restaurants filling up and people in hotel beds." The Jazz Festival typically generates $8 million in economic spin-offs, Josdal said. The festival moved to Victoria Park in 2023 after more than two decades at Bessborough Gardens. The financial hit to the non-profit festival isn't just in the annual sponsorship dollars. The SaskTel name is on promotional material, stage wraps and other branded items that must be replaced. In January, the City of Saskatoon awarded the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival a $72,574 cultural grant to undergo rebranding when the SaskTel sponsorship ends. The grant covers 42 per cent of the cost to rebrand, according to a city administration report.
