The 42nd edition of Jazz em Agosto reaffirms its identity: to present the creative and original current state of jazz, a music that never ceases to metamorphose without losing its roots. The programme expresses the aesthetic diversity of today’s jazz, a natural consequence of social and technological transformations, attracting new listeners and practitioners.

The sequence of fourteen concerts opens with a historic figure in jazz innovation since the 1970s, the pianist Joachim Kühn, in a rare solo piano performance at the height of his artistry, always lucid, energetic and surprising in the wide-ranging style that defines him.

The solo piano experience continues with Pat Thomas, whose organic and inventive primacy has been widely acclaimed. Two duos reveal the power of the voice in symbiosis with double bass – Fred Moten and Brandon Lopez – while David Maranha and Rodrigo Amado explore a dimension of lingering continuity, perhaps even cosmic.

Two asymmetric quartets from New York come to the fore: Canyon, where improvisation is a labour-intensive, creative and original construction based on total empathy, and Shardik, from John Zorn’s musical family, applying spectacular effects in their fragmented, virtuosic and insolent musical discourse.

Pianist and composer Marco Barroso, directing the LUME orchestra – a leading name in Portuguese jazz that has already gained international recognition – presents a new repertoire that promises to be jubilant, while guitarist Luís Lopes joins the French quartet Bonbon Flamme, which sows a game that appears chaotic yet remains organised.

The pan-European group The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters gives free rein to empathetic improvisation, where electronic manipulation and turntablism take precedence, leading into one of today’s most recognised saxophonists and composers, the Canadian Anna Webber, based in New York, presenting her original project with a stellar quintet, Shimmer Wince.

Two further asymmetric quartets follow: the new project by drummer Ches Smith, Clone Row, featuring two outstanding guitarists and revealing a muscular aesthetic line nourished by compelling compositions; and another equally illustrious drummer, Tomas Fujiwara, who premieres a new project, Dream Up, an ensemble of percussionists offering a vibrant and global panorama.

The final two concerts of Jazz em Agosto 2026 come from two global epicentres of jazz: Chicago and Los Angeles. The Chicago Underground Duo, with Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor, expands through electronics and multimedia into an infectious and highly original discourse, while the collaborative Los Angeles quintet SML emerges as a revelation of electro-jazz and a new step in one of the aesthetic directions of jazz invented, over half a century ago, by Miles Davis.

Rui Neves

Artistic Director