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| JazzLabSeries | |
|---|---|
| Name | JazzLabSeries |
| Location | New York City |
| Years active | 2010–present |
| Genre | Jazz |
| Founders | Unspecified |
JazzLabSeries is a curated concert and recording initiative centered in New York City that showcases contemporary jazz practitioners, experimental improvisers, and cross-genre collaborators. It presents live performances, studio sessions, and educational programming that connect artists, venues, institutions, and audiences across the jazz ecosystem. The series intersects with festivals, conservatories, record labels, and media platforms to foster new work and archival projects.
JazzLabSeries programs draw from the networks of venues such as Village Vanguard, Blue Note Jazz Club, Birdland (New York City), The Jazz Gallery, and Smalls Jazz Club. It collaborates with festivals like Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, and Montreux Jazz Festival. The initiative involves partnerships with institutions including Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Columbia University. Record labels and distributors engaged include Blue Note Records, ECM Records, Impulse! Records, Verve Records, and RogueArt. Media coverage has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, DownBeat, The Guardian (London), BBC Radio 3, and NPR.
The development of JazzLabSeries occurred alongside movements in venues like Apollo Theater, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Queens Theatre, and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Early programming drew artists associated with scenes in Harlem, Greenwich Village, Williamsburg (Brooklyn), Fort Greene (Brooklyn), and Chelsea (Manhattan). The series expanded through collaborations with presenters including Jazz at Lincoln Center, Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz (now renamed), Red Bull Music Academy, The Kennedy Center, and Southbank Centre. Funding and support engaged organizations such as National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Programming formats include residency models used by Artist-in-Residence (concept), curated evenings reminiscent of Tribute concerts, and workshop showcases akin to YoungArts. Sets range from solo recitals to large ensemble dates featuring configurations seen with groups like Charles Mingus Big Band, Maria Schneider Orchestra, Sun Ra Arkestra, and Art Ensemble of Chicago. Cross-genre collaborations mirror projects by Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman, and have included intersections with artists from Hip hop-adjacent scenes such as Kendrick Lamar, Queen Latifah, and The Roots (as performers linked to jazz projects). The series has featured themed nights honoring composers like Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Ellingtonian repertoire, and works associated with Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Performers and collaborators have included established and emergent figures connected to jazz history and contemporary practice: Wynton Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding, Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, Christian McBride, Terrace Martin, Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Wayne Shorter, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Anat Cohen, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Ambrose Akinmusire, Mary Halvorson, Ivo Perelman, Joshua Redman, Mark Turner, Joe Lovano, Geri Allen, Fred Hersch, Ravi Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, Dianne Reeves, Roy Hargrove, Tony Williams, McCoy Tyner, Mulatu Astatke, Pharoah Sanders, Charles Lloyd, Bobby Hutcherson, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Hart, Gordon Goodwin, Lee Morgan, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Sarah Vaughan, Dexter Gordon, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Nichols, Don Cherry, Sun Ra.
Releases tied to the series have taken the form of live albums, archival releases, and studio projects, sometimes issued on labels such as Blue Note Records, ECM Records, Impulse! Records, Verve Records, Nonesuch Records, Ropeadope Records, Mack Avenue Records, Concord Records, Sony Classical, Decca Records, Columbia Records, Atlantic Records, Island Records, Motown Records, RCA Records, and Universal Music Group. Recording engineers and producers associated include figures who have worked with Tommy LiPuma, Manfred Eicher, George Martin, T Bone Burnett, and Jonny Greenwood (as producers linked to hybrid projects). Archival projects invoked methodologies used by Library of Congress collections and labels such as Archie Shepp-era reissues and box sets comparable to those from Rhino Records.
Critical reception has been documented in reviews from outlets such as The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, JazzTimes, and Los Angeles Times. Impact assessments reference ties to broader trends seen in the careers of artists linked to institutions like DownBeat Critics Poll and awards such as the Grammy Awards, Pulitzer Prize for Music, and MacArthur Fellows Program. The series' role in commissioning new works echoes commissions historically undertaken by Duke Ellington and ensembles funded through programs like Meet the Composer and initiatives by National Public Radio and British Broadcasting Corporation.
Educational initiatives parallel programs at Juilliard School, Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, and outreach models used by Jazz at Lincoln Center Education. Community engagement has linked to neighborhood organizations such as Harlem School of the Arts, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, New York Public Library, The Apollo Theater Local Development, and youth programs similar to El Sistema, Dizzy Gillespie Institute-style workshops, and collaborations with universities including New York University, Princeton University, Yale University, Harvard University, Rutgers University, and University of California, Los Angeles.