Every autumn, as the rain returns to Puget Sound and the evenings grow long, Seattle turns its attention to jazz. This year the ritual carried extra weight. The 38th annual Earshot Jazz Festival ran from October 1 through October 25, 2026, spreading more than thirty shows across more than a dozen venues around the city, from grand downtown theatres to intimate community stages. Its organizing theme was as ambitious as any in the festival’s long history, a celebration of the centennials of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, two musicians born in 1926 whose work did not simply change jazz but redrew its borders several times over. Around that centerpiece, the programmers assembled a lineup that stretched from devoted modern traditionalists to fearless avant garde explorers, a range that reflected both the restless spirit of the two honorees and the eclectic ear that has long defined Seattle’s jazz community.

Among the many highlights, one evening stood out as a vivid example of what Earshot does best. On October 15, Grammy winning pianist and composer Zaccai Curtis brought his acclaimed project Cubop Lives! to the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, reviving a joyous, rhythmically electric chapter of jazz history that too few listeners know by name. It was a reminder that the story of this music has always been one of collaboration, migration, and cultural exchange, and that some of its most thrilling sounds were born when musicians from different traditions found common ground on the bandstand.

A Festival Built by and for Seattle

To understand why Earshot matters, it helps to understand where it came from. The festival is presented by Earshot Jazz, the Seattle nonprofit that has championed the region’s jazz scene since the mid 1980s. What began as an effort by local advocates to document the city’s working musicians grew into a live concert series, and by 1989 that series had become a full festival. The earliest editions leaned heavily on homegrown talent, and that commitment to local artists has never wavered, even as the festival grew into an event that national touring stars now treat as an essential stop on their autumn calendars. The organization frames its mission around honoring jazz as a vital Black American art form, and that perspective shapes not only who takes the stage but how the music’s history is told.

Unlike festivals that compress everything into a single packed weekend in a field or a park, Earshot unfolds over weeks, and it does so inside the city itself. Audiences move from neighborhood to neighborhood, from historic theatres to arts institutes to clubs, and the festival becomes part of the rhythm of daily life in Seattle. That format allows for something rare: the chance to hear a towering headliner one night and a promising young bandleader the next, and to follow the threads that connect them. It also extends beyond city limits, with a long running partnership with the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art bringing concerts and programming across the water as part of the larger festival season.

Coltrane and Miles at One Hundred

Few anniversaries in jazz carry the symbolic weight of this one. John Coltrane and Miles Davis were born just months apart in 1926, and for a brief, legendary stretch in the late 1950s they stood side by side in the same band, helping to create recordings that remain foundational to anyone who loves this music. Their paths then diverged in thrilling ways. Davis pursued constant reinvention, moving through cool jazz, modal exploration, and the electric fusion experiments that reshaped popular music, always surrounding himself with young players who would go on to become stars in their own right. Coltrane pushed in a different direction, toward ever deeper spiritual and harmonic exploration, transforming the saxophone into a vehicle for something close to prayer.

Throughout 2026, concert halls and festivals around the world have marked the centennial, and Earshot’s approach was distinctly its own. Rather than staging a series of museum style recreations, the festival wove the influence of both men throughout its programming, inviting artists to engage with the legacy rather than simply reproduce it. That philosophy suited the honorees perfectly. Neither Coltrane nor Miles ever looked backward for long, and a festival that honors them by spotlighting living innovators is arguably the truest tribute possible.

Zaccai Curtis and the Living Spirit of Cubop

If any performance captured the festival’s blend of history and vitality, it was Zaccai Curtis and Cubop Lives! at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, the historic cultural anchor in Seattle’s Central District. Curtis, a native of the Hartford, Connecticut area who has long been based in New York, won the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album for the project, a recognition that brought fresh attention to a style that had largely slipped out of the mainstream conversation.

Cubop was born in New York City in the 1940s, at a moment when Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians who had settled in the city began working side by side with Black American jazz players. The result fused the sophisticated harmonies and breakneck improvisation of bebop with the layered, syncopated rhythms of Afro-Cuban music. The term itself is a contraction of Cuban and bebop, and it was used to describe the groundbreaking sound of Machito and his Afro-Cubans, among the first ensembles to marry jazz with Afro-Cuban rhythms in a sustained way. Dizzy Gillespie embraced the fusion, Charlie Parker recorded in that setting, and figures like Tito Puente carried its energy into the dance halls. For a time it was the sound of the future. Then, as styles evolved, Cubop was absorbed into the broader currents of Latin jazz and mambo, and its specific identity faded.

Curtis set out to change that. His goal with Cubop Lives! was to make a period piece that still sounded utterly contemporary, offering a new perspective on an older style he felt had not been explored as fully as it deserved. The album draws on a remarkable range of composers, including Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Drew, Ray Bryant, Hilton Ruiz, Noro Morales, and even Scott Joplin, alongside a pair of Curtis originals. Each arrangement reimagines its source material from the ground up. Even the title carries a sly bit of history, echoing the famous rallying cry that followed Charlie Parker’s death, a phrase that also inspired a celebrated composition by Jackie McLean, the saxophonist whose name is attached to the jazz program where Curtis teaches at the University of Hartford.

The band that brings this music to life is built for propulsion. Curtis anchors the ensemble at the piano alongside his brother, bassist Luques Curtis, a longtime musical partner since their days coming up together in Hartford, with a battery of three percussionists and a flutist adding color and fire. The effect is music that rewards close listening and practically demands that audiences get up and move. Curtis has spoken about how the rhythmic depth of Cubop energizes people and gets them dancing, which is exactly as it should be, since this music was born in the ballrooms of New York.

Curtis arrives at this moment with a deep résumé. He was named a Rising Star in the DownBeat Critics Poll in 2020, he leads his own groups including the Zaccai Curtis Quintet and Sonido Solar, and he is in demand as a composer and arranger for other artists. His sideman credits include work with Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Donald Harrison, and Santana, an unusually broad span that helps explain the versatility he brings to every setting. He is also a dedicated educator, and his newest album, Sonoluminescence, released in 2026, shows that his creative restlessness extends well beyond a single project.

The Headliners: Julian Lage and Dianne Reeves

The same night that Curtis took the stage at Langston Hughes, guitarist Julian Lage led his quartet at the Moore Theatre downtown, giving Seattle audiences one of the more difficult choices of the festival. Lage, a former child prodigy who has matured into one of the most admired guitarists in contemporary music, brought a band of formidable improvisers: keyboardist John Medeski, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Lage’s playing draws on jazz, folk, and Americana with equal fluency, and his long anticipated return to Seattle with this particular lineup ranked among the most talked about bookings of the autumn.

Vocalist Dianne Reeves, one of the most decorated jazz singers of her generation, brought her extraordinary range and warmth to the festival as well. Reeves has long been celebrated for a voice that moves effortlessly between jazz standards, Brazilian song, R&B, and soaring original material, and for an improvisational command that places her firmly in the lineage of the great jazz vocalists. In a year devoted to two instrumental titans, her presence was a powerful reminder of the central role singers have always played in carrying this music forward.

Masters, Ensembles, and a Mingus Celebration

Saxophonist Gary Bartz, a two-time Grammy winner whose career connects directly to the era the festival celebrated, appeared with his NTU Troop. Bartz played in Miles Davis’s band during the trumpeter’s electric period at the dawn of the 1970s, and his own music draws deeply on the traditions of Davis, McCoy Tyner, and Charles Mingus. Having a musician who actually stood on the bandstand with Miles take part in a centennial celebration gave the festival a living link to history that no tribute act could replicate.

The programming also made room for adventurous collaborations. Pianist Myra Melford, a fixture of the creative music world, introduced Splash, a new trio that continued her decades long exploration of the space where composition and free improvisation meet. And in a nod to another giant of the music, a dedicated Charles Mingus tribute brought Seattle’s own saxophone firebrand Skerik together with members of the Seattle Jazz Orchestra, celebrating the composer whose fierce, joyful, and politically charged music remains as urgent as ever.

The Next Generation Takes the Stage

A festival is only as strong as its commitment to the future, and Earshot’s 2026 lineup made a convincing case for the health of the music. Vibraphonist Sasha Berliner, one of the most exciting young voices on her instrument, brought her blend of modern jazz, electronic textures, and fluid improvisation, while fellow vibraphonist Warren Wolf offered a complementary perspective rooted in hard driving straight ahead tradition. Pianist Christian Sands, a protégé of the late Billy Taylor and a former longtime member of Christian McBride’s ensembles, showcased the dazzling technique and deep sense of swing that have made him one of the leading pianists of his generation. Contemporary jazz artist Sidney Hauser rounded out a slate of emerging talent that suggested the music’s next chapters are in very capable hands.

Woven throughout were the regional artists who give Earshot its character, from rising local bandleaders to the veteran musicians who have sustained the Seattle scene for decades. The festival’s enduring balance of national headliners and homegrown talent is precisely what distinguishes it from events that rely solely on touring stars, and it is why musicians and fans alike speak of Earshot with genuine affection.

Why Earshot Matters

In an era when so much music is consumed alone through earbuds, a festival like Earshot makes the case for jazz as a shared, communal experience. The music was born in dance halls, clubs, and neighborhood gathering places, and it has always thrived on the energy that passes between musicians and listeners in real time. By spreading its concerts across the city and devoting weeks rather than days to the music, Earshot invites Seattle to live with jazz, to wander into an unfamiliar venue, to take a chance on an artist they have never heard, and to discover the connections that run from 1940s New York to the present day.

This year’s edition did all of that while paying tribute to two men whose births a century ago forever changed the course of American music. The fitting irony is that both Coltrane and Miles would likely have been most interested not in the tributes but in the young players, the bold collaborations, and the rediscovered traditions like Cubop that made the 2026 festival so vital. Their legacy is not a set of recordings frozen in time. It is a challenge to keep searching, to keep listening, and to keep the music moving. By that measure, the 38th Earshot Jazz Festival honored them beautifully.

For those already counting the days until next autumn, the organization presents concerts and programming throughout the year, and the latest schedules are available through the Earshot Jazz website. And for fans who want to explore more of Zaccai Curtis’s work, his official website is the place to follow his performances and recordings.