Terence Blanchard isn’t your average jazz musician—the world-renowned trumpet player and festival alum is also a prolific Academy Award-nominated film composer and an exciting new voice in the opera world. For his latest album Absence, his electro-acoustic quintet E-Collective joins forces with violinist David Balakrishnan’s Turtle Island Quartet. Their Charlie Parker Jazz Festival performance will feature works from the Wayne Shorter tribute album, which features five compositions from the legendary saxophonist. They’re joined by the jazz bassist Buster Williams, who has played with a Who’s Who of jazz greats from Mary Lou Williams to Herbie Hancock, and is the subject of the JazzTimes Documentary Film of the Year, Bass to Infinity. Buster will play with his all-star quartet Something More. Vibraphonist Nikara Warren will perform her album Black Wall Street, which melds hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms into an abstract sound-collage that “take pieces of black music and give it a platform to show black musical beauty.” Vuyo Sotashe, a South African jazz vocalist, is making his mark in the New York jazz scene.

This engagement of Buster Williams & Something More is made possible through the ArtsCONNECT program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.