Jazz festival weaves royal lineup for 2026

Tickets for the 2026 Winnipeg International Jazz Festival are on sale, with the festival’s first two headliners unveiled: the Miles Electric Band (MEB) and Jason Marsalis Quartet.

The MEB plays at the Burton Cummings Theatre on June 21; Marsalis and his quartet perform June 19 at the Desautels Concert Hall at the University of Manitoba.

Both acts are of jazz royal lineage.

This coming year would have been Miles Davis’s centennial year, so tribute concerts abound right now. But the nine-piece MEB mounts more than just a tribute, featuring members of the crew who helped Davis push his sound in a revolutionary electric direction.

“Of all the groups that were available to us, this group, in particular, with the alumni, was the most compelling, I think, in terms of presenting something for the milestone,” says Zachary Rushing, Jazz Winnipeg’s director of programming.

The Mile Electric Band’s origins reflect rich musical history. By the late 1960s, Davis worried jazz was at risk of becoming a museum piece if it didn’t adapt. And he was listening, with a complicated fascination, to psychedelic rock and pursuing a collaboration with Jimi Hendrix.

While that never materialized, owing to Hendrix’s premature death, Davis hobnobbed with a group of younger jazz musicians more at home in pop’s use of electric piano and electric guitars, such as Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and John McLaughlin.

The most famous fruit was his album Bitches Brew (1970), which responds to psychedelic rock’s use of extended improv, Afrocentric rhythms and synthetic textures by saying, hold my beer (or, if you like, electric Kool-Aid).

While fusion already existed, it now had one of jazz’s elder statesmen’s creative backing.

The MEB members who played with Davis — his longtime producer nephew Vince Wilburn Jr. (drums), former musical director Robert Irving III (keys), and several others — mostly collaborated with Davis beginning in the 1980s when he was responding to other electric and pop influences such as Prince. But Rushing suspects the MEB, which now features a DJ, may perform classic electric Davis material, as well as new compositions that aim to “push tradition forward.”

Not everyone got behind Davis’ evolution. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Jason Marsalis’ older brother, famously accused Davis of selling out — abandoning jazz’s roots in swing and acoustic instruments in favour of more fashionable, pop-friendly textures and grooves, such as funk and rock backbeats.

Whatever the ongoing tensions, these days it’s clear there’s a strong appetite for the various currents represented in this dispute: traditionalist, experimental and pop-adjacent. And in having both a Marsalis and the MEB as their headliners, Jazz Winnipeg signals this.

“It’s sophisticated arranging with that genuine New Orleans spirit of joy and celebration underneath,” Rushing says of Jason Marsalis, who’s more modern than his brother but still strongly rooted in swing, bop and foundational jazz.

Jason is one of four musical brothers in the Marsalis family, sons of famous New Orleans music educator, pianist and composer Ellis Marsalis Jr.

“Jason’s a wonderful musician. He played as a drummer professionally for a long, long time with all sorts of groups, but about 10 or 15 years ago he made a switch to primarily being a vibraphonist,” Rushing says.

While tickets are now on sale for jazz fest, summer may seem a long way off especially in light of the recent snow dump. For those itching to take in Jazz Winnipeg’s cultural offerings, Rushing highlights other upcoming events.

“We’re continuing to do Jazz at the Fort Garry through May, as we typically do in the spring, and our winter concerts are up on the website,” says Rushing who encourages Winnipeggers to go to jazzwinnipeg.com for more details about upcoming concerts and free master classes.

“So, lots of exciting stuff happening in the meantime until the jazz festival gets here.”

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