UNESCO International Jazz Day in Tangier 2024 with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Abdellah El Gourd, courtesy of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz

The story of jazz in Chicago really starts in 1922. That’s when King Oliver brought his Creole Jazz Band, featuring Baby Dodds, Johnny Dodds, Lil’ Harden and a young trumpeter named Louis Armstrong, to the Lincoln Gardens at 459 East 31st Street. This was the unofficial beginning of Chicago jazz and the Roaring Twenties, the era that put the Windy City on the map.

The party continues over a century later: On April 30, the eyes and ears of jazz aficionados worldwide will be trained on Chicago, as an All-Star Global Concert at the Lyric Opera House will be streamed on YouTube, with watch parties around the world. But this is just the final act of a monthlong musical celebration with Chicago as the global host city for UNESCO’s International Jazz Day, which features more than twenty-five concerts, workshops and educational programs. The partnership between UNESCO and the Chicago Jazz Alliance runs April 1 through May 2 at venues across the Chicago area, including Ravinia, the Logan Center for the Arts, Reggie’s, the Jazz Showcase, Epiphany Center for the Arts, DuSable Museum, Chicago Symphony Center and more.

UNESCO International Jazz Day in Abu Dhabi, April 2025, with Herbie Hancock, courtesy of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz

International Jazz Day was the brainchild of jazz legend and Chicago native Herbie Hancock. The first festival was held in 2012, with events in Paris, New York and New Orleans. Host cities in the years since have included Istanbul, Beijing, Abu Dhabi, Havana and St. Petersburg, with New York and Washington D.C. having hosted in the U.S. But this will be the first time Chicago has hosted.

“Almost two years ago there was a discussion between Herbie Hancock and Governor Pritzker and others, that the hope would be that one of the events would be in Hancock’s hometown,” Tony Karman, executive director of the Chicago Jazz Alliance and Expo Chicago founder says. “That triggered a request from a number of individuals, led by Kurt Elling, as part of a group of civic leaders to put in a bid. In April of last year Chicago was notified that we won.”

That was the first of many long days and nights of emails, texts, phone calls and meetings for this enormous undertaking. Unlike many past host cities’ governments, including Abu Dhabi and even Beijing, the current leadership of the United States was not willing to commit financial resources for such a cultural event.

Micah Collier, Jeremiah Collier, Kurt Elling, Thaddeus Tukes at International Jazz Day Press Conference, January 2026/Photo: Justin Barbin

“In every other country in the world that has an interest or has been chosen to host such an event—when the state department or the emir says that they want to have something or they want to host a cultural event—they just write a check or they already have it in their national budget,” says Elling, who is the co-artistic director of International Jazz Day.

The bid was not undeserving. Chicago’s history of creation and support of jazz has been as strong and continuous as an Art Blakey beat. Beginning with the days of Armstrong, Chicago has produced native jazz artists whose styles have contributed mightily to the genre’s canon. This includes Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa, who combined jazz with big band music on songs like the immortal “Sing, Sing, Sing,” and the piano work of Lennie Tristano, whose introduction of 7/4, 9/8 and 13/8 time sequences on songs like “Turkish Mambo” paved the way for both cool and avant-garde jazz.

This tradition was then propelled by artists like Phil Cohran, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Malachi Thompson, Kahil El’Zabar and others, whose founding of the AACM revolutionized jazz in the 1960s. Other local jazz greats include Sun Ra, Ramsey Lewis, George and Von Freeman, as well as Kurt Elling and Herbie Hancock, who are co-artistic directors of International Jazz Day.

“I am so excited that Chicago, my hometown, is hosting International Jazz Day 2026,” Hancock says. “It was in my high school auditorium that I discovered jazz, an event that sparked a lifelong passion and commitment to this powerful art form. Jazz opened the doors to creativity, self-expression and freedom, and it is my hope that this day will inspire young artists the way I was in my formative years.”

The festival will present a special tribute to Hancock at the Hyde Park High School auditorium on Wednesday, April 29. Other educational events and workshops include the Jazz Institute of Chicago hosting the Jazz In the Chi Festival for Young Jazz Artists at Whitney Young High School on Saturday, April 25. Both events are a nod to the ongoing contributions the Chicago Public Schools have made to the art form.

The jazz alumni of CPS include Gene Krupa (Bowen H.S.); Benny Goodman (Harrison H.S.); Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz and William Russo (Senn); and Muhal Richard Abrams, Gene Ammons, Nat King Cole, Bo Diddley, Dinah Washington, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Milt Hinton, the Freeman brothers and many more under the tutelage of “Captain” Walter Dyett at DuSable and Wendell Phillips High Schools. Other notable Chicago natives and CPS alums who went on to become jazz greats include Roscoe Mitchell (Englewood) and Anthony Braxton (Chicago Vocational).

There are more links between homegrown talent and jazz that will be highlighted on International Jazz Day. Ernest Dawkins, a CPS teacher, will premiere a new work honoring Civil Rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer at the Hamilton Park Cultural Center. Saxman Isaiah Collier, a graduate of the Chicago High School for the Performing Arts and the 2024 Chicago Tribune Jazz Artist of the Year, will host a matinee performance at the Logan Center for the Arts on May 1, followed by a “Tribute to the Classics of John Coltrane” performance there that same evening.

UNESCO International Jazz Day 2015 Paris Pop-Up concert, courtesy of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz

Joel Ross, who also graduated from the Chicago High School for the Performing Arts, will add his grooving vibes to the festival, while Marquis Hill (Kenwood Academy) will be blasting high notes from his trumpet. Jahari Stampley (Hyman G. Rickover Naval Academy High School), who won the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Piano Competition in 2024, will be featured prominently too. The festival will also feature the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, led by Orbert Davis, reworking the Miles Davis and Gil Evans breakthrough composition, “Sketches of Spain,” on April 27.

The festival’s sounds will reach across Chicago’s neighborhoods, including Austin’s Town Hall Park and the Chicago West Community Music Center at the Garfield Park Conservatory. Expanding on the historical context, there will be a panel discussion of the South Side Jazz Legacy and the Great Migration at the Compassion Baptist Church, as well as many more events about Chicago’s jazz heritage and talent.

“With the help and dedication of the wonderful people at the Chicago Jazz Alliance we have worked together to incorporate as many local working musicians and venues as we can possibly muster into action,” says Elling. “Chicago is one of three home or origin cities for jazz music. Obviously, it started in New Orleans, but it came up through Chicago, which has always been one of the primary root cities. This continues today, in a wide and expansive array of styles of players, clubs and concert venues—a very forward-thinking jazz community and a vast array of talented artists.“

More of the talented artists involved in the event include Terence Blanchard, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jacob Collier, Béla Fleck, Renée Fleming, Bobby Watson, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Christian McBride and Bobby Broom, along with performances by Hancock and Elling.

“Bringing this event to Chicago took a group of dedicated volunteers and professionals who stuck their necks out to raise the money. It’s kind of like bringing the Olympics to town,“ Elling says. “But Chicago definitely deserves such an event, and we all have to congratulate the entire team, the Chicago Jazz Alliance, which includes a large amount of very competent administrators and jazz aficionados, and of course the artists.”

Venues and events may be subject to change. More information at internationaljazzday.com