Melbourne International Jazz Festival
16-25 October 2026

The entrée release from the menu of this year’s Melbourne International Jazz Festival includes nostalgia along with the new, as prominent artists make return visits.

The Bad Plus, who have evolved into a quartet since their 2008 and 2015 performances with Ethan Iverson at the piano, will bring their worldwide farewell tour to Melbourne in what will be their final Australian performance. Founding members Reid Anderson (bass) and Dave King (drums) will bow out on 21 October at the Melbourne Recital Centre with guitarist Ben Monder and saxophonist Chris Speed. The group has built a reputation for innovation, reinvention and pushing boundaries.

This closing of the band’s 26-year legacy will be bittersweet. In 2015 I wrote this about the band in piano trio format: “These guys are seamless. This is intelligent jazz, if that makes any sense, with a clear sense of humour and many a deft touch.”

Vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater will also return, making her first Melbourne appearance since her performance with Irvin Mayfield’s New Orleans Jazz Orchestra at Hamer Hall in 2015. The three-time Grammy-winning vocalist will join pianist and composer Helen Sung at Hamer Hall on 24 October. Expect a broad sweep through the Great American Songbook alongside music by Ellington, Sondheim, Michel Legrand and Paul Simon.

Pianist composer Tigran Hamasyan, whose concerts at The Jazzlab sold out during the 2017 festival, will explore jazz improvisation, progressive rock and his Armenian folk traditions, at the Melbourne Recital Centre on 23 October. Hamasyan will perform pieces from his latest release, Manifeste.

Among artists new to the festival will be blues poet and activist aja monet, making her Melbourne debut with a trio at Max Watts on 22 October. Emerging from New York’s spoken-word scene before moving into music, monet’s work blends poetry and social justice, exploring love, identity and Black resistance.

Four shows at The Jazzlab on 19 – 20 October will give audiences the opportunity to hear the Kris Davis Trio, led by Grammy-winning pianist Kris Davis with bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Johnathan Blake. Davis has become one of the defining figures of New York’s contemporary improvised music scene.

More announcements are still to come.

Performances:

• Dee Dee Bridgewater & Helen Sung — 24 October, Hamer Hall
• Tigran Hamasyan — 23 October, Melbourne Recital Centre
• The Bad Plus — 21 October, Melbourne Recital Centre
• aja monet — 22 October, Max Watts
• Kris Davis Trio — 19–20 October, The JazzLab

Tickets go on sale at 11am on Thursday 21 May.

ROGER MITCHELL