Jazz at Lincoln Center announces its inaugural Unity Festival premiering Jan. 12-13, 2024 throughout The House of Swing. Featuring 15 diverse acts — including Jazz at Lincoln Center fan favorites and artists from the global jazz scene performing across three venues: The Appel Room, Dizzy’s Club, and Ertegun Atrium – this two-day event begins at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and continues into the night.
Unity Festival presents new music from Endea Owens, Chief aTunde Adjuah, Linda May Han Oh, Bokani Dyer, Summer Camargo, Isaiah Thompson, Randy Brecker, and more.
Daypasses for Friday or Saturday serve as all-access tickets to performances in The Appel Room, Dizzy’s Club, and Ertegun Atrium. Day-pass holders may move from room to room throughout the duration of the evening. For tickets and more information, visit jazz.org/unity.
Unity Festival Line-Up:
Friday, January 12th
6:30-8:00pm
Sonido Solar: Tribute to Eddie Palmieri
Atrium
7:00-8:30pm
Scatter the Atoms That Remain feat. Billy Harper, Isaiah Collier & Randy Brecker
Appel Room
7:30-8:40pm
Isaiah J. Thompson Quartet
Dizzy’s Club
8:30-9:45pm
Endea Owens and The Cookout
Atrium
9:30-11:00pm
Chief Adjuah
Appel Room
9:15pm-10:30pm
Summer Camargo
Dizzy’s Club
10:30-11:50pm
New Jazz Underground with Abdias Armenteros, Sebastian Rios, and TJ Reddick
Atrium
11:15pm-12:30am
Sarah Hanahan Quartet
Dizzy’s Club
Saturday, January 13th
6:30-7:40pm
Isaiah Collier Quartet
Atrium
7:00-8:30PM
Linda May Han Oh Trio: feat Fabian Almazan, Obed Calvaire plus special guests Ambrose Akinmusire and Michael Mayo
Appel Room
7:30-8:45pm
Ekep Nkwelle
Dizzy’s Club
8:30-9:50pm
Bokani and Steve Dyer & Friends feat. Naledi Masilo
Atrium
9:30-11:00pm
Chief Adjuah
Appel Room
9:15-10:30pm
Stacy Dillard and Brooklyn Circle
Dizzy’s Club
10:30-11:50pm
William Parker’s Light Ensemble
Atrium
11:15pm-12:30am
Alphonso Horne & The Gotham Kings
Dizzy’s Club
About Unity Festival
For more than three decades, Jazz at Lincoln Center has fostered artistic expression, uniting generations, cultures, and perspectives. This year, the Unity Festival invites everyone – musicians, fans, students, and educators – to be part of a live, thoughtfully curated experience, celebrating these diverse creative exchanges.
Lasting Connections
Unity Festival bridges divides and uplifts intergenerational mentorship and collaboration. New York-bred ensemble Scatter the Atoms that Remain presents an electrifying partnership that spans four generations of artists and features special guests Randy Brecker and Billy Harper. Following pivotal apprenticeship gigs with Wynton Marsalis, ELEW, and Victor Lewis, the members of New Jazz Underground bond innovation and preservation.
Diverse Voices
Artists from across the country and throughout the world convene in The House of Swing to perform, collaborate, and inspire one another. Australia native-turned-New Yorker Linda May Han Oh leads her intuitive trio featuring special guests Ambrose Akinmusire and Michael Mayo. Bay Area artist and activist Elena Pinderhughes’ sonorous vocals elevate and intensify her lyrical flute playing. Representing the eclectic and virtuosic South African scene, Steve and Bokani Dyer return to Jazz at Lincoln Center alongside vocal sensation Naledi Masilo.
World-Class Artists
Jazz at Lincoln Center welcomes returning ensembles and artists appearing for the first time at The House of Swing. Advancing the rich and dynamic legacy of New Orleans, trumpet player, composer, and producer Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah stretches across styles and influences to create a sound all his. Fan favorite from Detroit — and current Harlem treasure — bassist and community organizer Endea Owens heats up the bandstand with her critically acclaimed band The Cookout. Global icon, mentor, and living hero of the music, bassist and composer William Parker redefines creative expression alongside each new generation of improvisers.
Blue Engine Showcase
Unity Festival proudly presents the dynamic voices of Blue Engine Records — the official label of Jazz at Lincoln Center — including sets from trumpet player and composer Summer Camargo, saxophonist and breakout band leader Sarah Hanahan, and American Pianists Association award and fellowship Isaiah J. Thompson.
Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2023-24 season focuses on the concept of community; the broader community of jazz; the numerous communities that nurtured its master practitioners across its timeline; the communities of consciousness that influenced these practitioners; the music’s power to bridge divides and coalesce these distinct communities; and the role of jazz — and the arts writ large — in maintaining the human connection in the digital era. Throughout its 2023-24 season, Jazz at Lincoln Center explores these subjects with concerts featuring the forward-thinking composers, virtuosic improvisers, and ingenious conceptualists that populate the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Implicitly or explicitly, season concerts, education programs, advocacy initiatives, and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra tours directly evoke themes that illuminate, as Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis puts it, the notion that, “Our music has the exceptional ability to bring people together.”
The organization’s 36th season runs from Sept. 21, 2023 to June 8, 2024 in Rose Theater, The Appel Room, and Dizzy’s Club — all at Frederick P. Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, located on Broadway at 60th Street in New York, NY. In addition to 24 unique live concerts throughout Frederick P. Rose Hall and more than 350 nights of music at Dizzy’s Club, the organization will offer webcast performances via the Jazz Live app, in-person and virtual education programs, and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis tour dates worldwide.
For a complete listing of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2023-24 season concerts, please visit jazz.org/2324season.
A very special thanks to Jody and John Arnhold for their extraordinary support of Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Leadership support for Jazz at Lincoln Center is provided by America’s Cultural Treasures, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant through the leadership and support of Senator Charles E. Schumer and the New York Congressional Delegation.
Leadership support is also provided by Howard Gilman Foundation, Inc.; the Estate of Robert Menschel; and Mellody Hobson and George Lucas.
Leadership support for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is provided by Michele and Mark Mandel, the Perry and Donna Golkin Family Foundation, and the Zou Family Fund.
The Movado Group Foundation is The Official Timekeeper of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Jazz at Lincoln Center proudly acknowledges its major corporate partners: Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Movado Group Foundation and The Coca-Cola Company.
Artists, schedules, pricing, and venues are subject to change.