History happens all around us all the time. It’s only with the benefit of hindsight that we look back and realize that it was history. When it’s going down In The Moment, sometimes the significance is overlooked. When, for example, Brice Rosenbloom launched NYC Winter Jazzfest in 2005 as a one-night event to spotlight underserved jazz artists, he likely didn’t imagine it would grow into “the city’s most renowned jazz festival,” as The New York Times describes it.
Winter Jazzfest 2025 runs January 9-15 and is known for its Marathon nights, where one ticket gives access to dozens of performances. Since 2023, the Marathon spans both Manhattan and Brooklyn, expanding the festival’s reach and diversity.
The Manhattan Marathon happens Friday, January 10, featuring Brandee Younger, Vijay Iyer, Christian McBride, Michael Mayo, Melissa Aldana, and more. Brooklyn’s Marathon follows on Saturday, January 12, with artists like Kneebody, Keyon Harrold, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Adam O’Farrill.
The addition of Brooklyn gave the festival a chance to expand both the musical and geographic scope of the event. “If you’re coming in from out of town, we realized this was a great opportunity to give people an easy excuse to come to Brooklyn,” says Rosenbloom.
You can hear my full, career retrospective interviews with all of those artists in the WBGO archive.
Over time, Winter Jazzfest has pivoted attention to supporting the music community and towards social justice activism.
“We began making an effort to spotlight artists who were including messages of social justice or racial justice,” Rosenbloom explains. “It has grown through the years and we really made an intentional focus on jazz and gender.”
But, as he tells me, at the heart of the festival is the music and he’s focused on supporting “artists that value improvised music and artists that are furthering the growth of Black American Music… The other great mission of our festival is encouraging discovery. ”
While music is the beating heart of the festival, the Jazz Talks Series of discussions and interviews might be considered the voice. This year’s Jazz Talks series includes WBGO’s own Angelika Beener - host of the Milestones podcast - in conversation with Strata-East Records Label founder Charles Tolliver about the legacy and the future of the label.
And the festival kicks off with another Jazz Talk, with Artist in Residence Makaya McCraven who appears in conversation with me, on Thursday January 9 at 4pm.
McCraven will put on four shows over the course of the festival, including performances at both marathons. The drummer-producer has been exploring the space between improvisation and composition, contemporary vamp based music and classic jazz for years. Speaking in 2022, he told me “We have a younger generation of musicians that have a little more space to define themselves the way they want. All the music that’s around us is flowing through us, and you can choose when you want to express that or not but you can’t find me a musician in the world that hasn’t been influenced by Rock and Roll, pop music, electronic music and technology. It’s just being present.”
Winter Jazzfest 2025 will also mark the 10th anniversary of McCraven’s album In the Moment and he says he’s themed his residency around that, both revisiting the music from throughout his career and creating new spontaneous compositions live on stage at the festival. It’s a way of looking back at the history he’s made already while making new history…In The Moment.
Winter Jazzfest is happening January 9-15 and WBGO will be there to capture it. Check out the full 2025 lineup at https://www.winterjazzfest.com/.
