The Montco Jazz Fest celebrates its fifth anniversary by honoring a century of jazz greats
This year's jazz performances honor several musicians who would have turned 100 this year.
The Montco Jazz Fest celebrates its fifth anniversary in September — an impressive feat in a suburban county with little in the way of dedicated jazz venues. Curator Joanna Pascale decided to mark the occasion by celebrating a host of legendary musicians, all of whom happen to be commemorating an even greater landmark.
“2026 is the 100th birthday of a lot of phenomenal musicians,” Pascale pointed out while putting the finishing touches on this year’s lineup. “Since this is the fifth year of the festival, I thought we would lean into a celebratory theme.”
The centennial performances include 20-year-old, Peruvian-born vocalist Lucas Beltran paying homage to Tony Bennett; trumpeter Josh Lawrence honoring Miles Davis; Josh Lee and the Extended Family, a big band stocked with Temple alums, performing the music of Jimmy Heath; and pianist/organist Luke Carlos O’Reilly celebrating John Coltrane.
West Chester University band steps up
While all of those events pay tribute to greats who have passed, one ensemble will be on hand to throw itself a party. On Sept. 16, the West Chester University Criterions Jazz Ensemble will kick off its 100th birthday celebrations at Rivet Canteen & Assembly in Pottstown. The collegiate big band, hailing from neighboring Chester County, was formed as a ballroom dance band in the 1926-27 season, after the school — then West Chester State Teachers College — changed its rules to allow coed dancing.
“It’s the longest-running university jazz band in the States,” touted Jonathan Ragonese, director of jazz studies at WCU, who took over leadership of the ensemble in 2020. “The impressive thing is that the band was student-led until the beginning of the 1980s. I try to keep that fact at the forefront and continue to keep it as student-led as possible. I will help them run it, but it’s their band.”
The concert at Rivet will be a double centennial, as the Criterions will perform the music of trombonist, arranger, and composer Melba Liston, who was born in January 1926 and went on to work with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and Randy Weston. The party will continue in November on home turf, when the university hosts a three-day festival of its own, pairing the current Criterions with an all-star alumni band and vibraphonist Stefon Harris, premiering new music by Orrin Evans, Bob Mintzer, and former band director Bob Curnow.
The Montco Jazz Fest concert arrives just three weeks into the fall semester, during the first year in Ragonese’s tenure, when he’s seen a number of key players graduate out of the band. “I have a real pack of leaders leaving this year, five or six really strong players,” he explained. “But I still have a lot of great players, and I’m confident we’ll have a great band. My vision for the Criterions is to have it be a model of a real professional creative ensemble. We offer concerts to the public that are, I hope, at the highest artistic level possible.”
Performances span 20 local venues
This year’s Montco Jazz Fest encompasses nearly three dozen events taking place at 20 different venues, including nightclubs, restaurants, breweries, and art galleries. The music has found its way into local landmarks like the King of Prussia Mall and the Elmwood Park Zoo, while a partnership with the county’s parks department will take the concerts outside to parks in Lansdale, Montgomeryville, Plymouth Meeting, Ambler, and Wyncote.
Ambler Theater and Plymouth Township Parks and Recreation will both screen jazz-related films, while Hotel West & Main in Conshohocken will host the festival’s annual swing dance social with music by vocalist and bandleader Chelsea Reed and her Fair Weather Nine.
Pascale will leave her administrative responsibilities aside for the span of one concert on the festival’s opening night, when she takes the stage to sing with the Larry McKenna Jazz Orchestra. While McKenna would still be more than a decade shy of 100 this year, Pascale is making an exception to honor the beloved Philly saxophonist, who died in 2023. His namesake big band reunited for the first time since his passing at Chris’ Jazz Cafe in late July for his 89th birthday, and will come together again at Whites Road Park on Sept. 15.
Looking back over her own four-year history with the festival, it wasn’t just the quality of the music that stood out in Pascale’s mind.
“What I’m most proud of isn’t just the concerts themselves,” she said. “It’s watching this community grow. So many venues, artists, organizations, and forward-thinkers have collaborated to make these concerts possible, and remarkably most of them are free and accessible to everyone. At a time when funding for arts and culture continues to face cuts, I feel incredibly fortunate to be part of a community that chooses collaboration over competition, one that believes in supporting one another and investing in something larger than ourselves.”
Sept. 15-20, valleyforge.org/things-to-do