Marquis Hill/Photo: Kenneth Leftridge

Walking along Midway Plaisance in Hyde Park, you see the red-tiled roofs and magnificent Gothic spires of Ida Noyes Hall, Cobb Lecture Hall and the Rockefeller Chapel, complete with its seventy-two-bell carillon, the second-largest instrument of its kind in the world. But on September 26 and 27, the Midway will ring out with another type of music, when the Hyde Park Jazz Festival celebrates its twentieth anniversary. This year’s festival features over forty performers at eleven venues, and will be headlined by world-famous artists including Joshua Redman, Emmet Cohen, Alfredo Rodriguez and Big Chief Donald Harrison.

The lineup rivals many municipal jazz festivals, but if there’s one Chicago neighborhood up to the task, it’s Hyde Park. Rooted in jazz history, clubs like the Beehive Lounge on East 55th and the Sutherland Hotel on South Drexel hosted legends like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. They also spawned neighborhood artists like Herbie Hancock as well as 2026 festival performers Marquis Hill and Maggie Brown.

During the late 1970s, the neighborhood’s jazz identity reflected the trend of the music itself. Jazz clubs became discos, and soon after, the “Reagan Recession” stalled redevelopment. James W. Wagner formed the Committee to Restore Jazz to Hyde Park in 1995, and in 2006 it became the Hyde Park Jazz Society.

Photo: Hyde Park Jazz Festival

During that time, festival director Kate Dumbleton moved to Chicago from the San Francisco Bay Area. “There was such an astonishing and thriving history. That was the draw for me to come to Chicago, and particularly the South Side of Chicago,” Dumbleton says. “There was the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), but also the other histories of community-driven artistic practices. I saw all of the artist-driven infrastructure around the area.”

The first Hyde Park Jazz Festival was presented in 2007. It was a small neighborhood event, featuring thirteen hours of music. As the festival grew, it attracted bigger-name artists, and Dumbleton was hired as a full-time organizer in 2012.

Since its beginning, the festival has brought not only top-name jazz artists to Hyde Park, but attention to the neighborhood’s historic, architectural and cultural landmarks.

“There were places like The Velvet Lounge and Fred Anderson, Von Freeman and the New Apartment Lounge and events that Muhal Richard Abrams and the AACM organized,” says Dumbleton. “What we wanted and still want to do is support the continuity of platforms that support this history to continue. The festival is an outgrowth of this history, and it was and still is super amazing to me.”

As a true example of the festival’s dedication to the heritage of the neighborhood, this year’s event will feature performances on not only the Midway Plaisance and the newly named Pickens Stage, but at the Augustana Church (5500 South Woodlawn), the Hyde Park Union Church (5600 South Woodlawn), the Hyde Park Bank (1525 East 53rd), Rockefeller Chapel, the Logan Center (815 East 60th), the Smart Museum and the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. These venues will host two days of performances, lectures and special events.

Here are a few highlights:

Saturday, September 26

Joshua Redman/Photo: Zach Smith

Joshua Redman
10am-11am at Rockefeller Chapel

One of the true giants of contemporary jazz, Redman has eleven Grammy nominations. He’s played with McCoy Tyner, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea and Lionel Hampton and has performed on dozens of albums. His style reflects the mastery of his craft—straight-ahead jazz, fusion, touches of funk, all in a visceral sound with phrasing and embouchure as precise as a Swiss watch. The experience of this artist playing solo within the majesty of Rockefeller Chapel will be something to behold.

Bethany Pickens Soulful Coalition/Photo: Donovan Mixon

Pickens Stage Dedication Ceremony
12:30pm-1:15pm
and
Bethany Pickens Soulful Coalition
2:30pm-3:30pm at Pickens Stage (Midway Plaisance at South Ellis)

Willie Pickens’ sixty-year career saw him performing at many Chicago Jazz Festivals and appearing with international stars like Elvin Jones, Buddy DeFranco, Marian McPartland and Louie Bellson as well as local jazz stalwarts like Von Freeman, Malachi Thompson, Frank Catalano and Ari Brown. The dedication of the Pickens Stage is especially meaningful—not only was Pickens a regular artist at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, but he also launched the music program at the Kenwood Academy.

The dedication will feature his daughter Bethany Pickens along with the Soulful Coalition. Like her father, Pickens’ fingers race across the keys like water down a river. Watch her swinging, bopping and grooving on solo runs.

Joel Ross/Photo: Jati Lindsay

The Twentieth Anniversary Band, featuring Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, Junius Paul and Joel Ross
8:15pm-9:30pm at Wagner Stage (Midway Plaisance at South Woodlawn)

A native of Hyde Park, trumpeter Marquis Hill walks a cool line between mellow and intense with his soaring trumpet. Sometimes playing straight-ahead jazz, sometimes avant-garde with touches of R&B and house, Hill took the 2014 prize at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Competition. For this special presentation he will be joined by vibes master Joel Ross and Junius Paul on bass. Paul has been a frequent collaborator with AACM stalwarts including Kahil El’Zabar and the Art Ensemble of Chicago as well as artists like Donald Byrd and Wynton Marsalis. Rounding out this unique quartet is Paul’s frequent collaborator, drummer Makaya McCraven. His blend of straight-ahead jazz and hip-hop flourishes has earned the praise of the New York Times, who called him “one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality.”

Sunday, September 27

Ari Brown

Ari Brown Quintet
2pm-3pm at Wagner Stage (Midway Plaisance at South Woodlawn)

Brown began his career in rock and soul, playing sax for B.B. King and Chuck Berry. But he soon became bored with the 1/4/5 pattern and twelve-bar solos. Along with AACM artists like Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Kahil El’Zabar and with the support of Delmark Records, Brown’s creative vision was set free. Alternating between tenor and alto, his saxophones soar between gentle touches and “dangerous” sounds that crash through the mic like jagged glass. For his career he was awarded the Chicago Jazz and Creative Legacy Award, presented by Marquis Hill.

Big Chief Donald Harrison/Photo: Osmany Torres

Big Chief Donald Harrison Quartet
6pm-7pm at Wagner Stage

Harrison earned his jazz chops playing with Art Blakey’s Messengers. The New Orleans native has spent his career keeping the traditions of Congo Square, the birthplace of jazz, alive. The son of Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr., this Mardi Gras Indian began his career at the age of two, as “The Little Chief of the Wild West.” His music combines all of it—second-line marching, ragtime, Afro-Cuban, hip-hop and straight-ahead jazz that will take the festival out in second-line style.

A complete listing of festival events can be found here.

Published in the print edition of Newcity’s September 2026 issue, with the headline “Jazz Rings Out: Hyde Park Jazz Festival Turns Twenty, Honoring Roots Decades Older.”