"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the Preservation of Fire.” - Gustav Mahler

© 2025, JazzAfterHours

Jazz through the night

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Emerging jazz artists

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Living jazz greats

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The freshest new jazz

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Programmed by human intelligence

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Listen to the future of jazz

Currently, Jazz After Hours is not streaming. We will be back streaming online Friday and Saturday nights at 6P Pacific for 12 hours each night.

Please check back then. We have some great new programming planned for our next show. We hope you will connect with us then.

If you stream Jazz After Hours, please consider helping us defray the costs with a donation through the “Buy Me A Coffee” button. Thank you.

See what we just played

Jazz After Hours has a rich and storied 40 year history on public radio, but we are not about the past. Our program celebrates the new, while honoring and recognizing the roots of this music. We nurture the constant evolution of jazz and look to its future. You can hear that future in our broadcasts and now on our new streaming feature.

Browse to our Stations listing to find the program on your local public radio station. Or stream the show, weekend nights from 6P to 6A Pacific. Just click the play button.

The future of jazz is being created right now by today’s living jazz musicians. We handpick a unique cross-section of that new music for you every week.

"Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

2025 Hudson Jazz Festival

Join Jazz After Hours in Hudson NY this Fall for the return of this legacy festival of jazz music

Hudson Hall at the historic Hudson Opera House proudly announces the return of the Hudson Jazz Festival, October 3–5, 2025. The festival invites you to experience fall in the Hudson Valley with a dynamic lineup of jazz’s most exciting rising stars, including Joel Ross, Julius Rodriguez, Caity Gyorgy, and BIG YUKI—in one of the region’s most beautiful and walkable small towns.

From bold genre fusion to vintage vocal stylings, each night of the 2025 Hudson Jazz Festival offers a unique musical flavor in a weekend-long jazz flight of the freshest voices in jazz today.

Performances take place at Hudson Hall, with after-hours and free popup events at local venues and spaces across town. Set against the backdrop of peak leaf-peeping season, Hudson offers not only world-class music but also independent shops, destination dining, and stunning views of the Catskills and the Hudson River—all just a direct two-hour train ride from NYC.

Tickets and information

Philadelphia is one great jazz town. The center of that vibrant scene is Chris' Jazz Cafe

Chris’ Jazz Café is an institution in a city known for revered jazz music and musicians. It’s the longest continuously operating jazz club in the history of Philadelphia and was named one of the “100 Great Venues Around the World to Hear Jazz” by DownBeat magazine. With live performances five nights a week, the venue hosts more than 400 shows a year. As they say at the club, “every night, something tight.” Jazz After Hours highly recommends Chris’ Jazz Café in Philadelphia.

“You blows who you is.” — Louis Armstrong

With all due respect...

Drummer Al Foster ~ January 18th, 1943 - May 28th, 2025

Listen to this month's Jazz After Hours

Want to go deeper? Looking for a past show you really liked? Maybe you want to binge listen to Jazz After Hours or take us with you on your mobile device during the week. Check out our archive. Every show from 2022 through 2024 is now available to stream and we are currently filling in the archive with shows from prior years! Check back soon.

go to the archive

“A painter paints pictures on canvas. Musicians paint their pictures on silence.” — Leopold Stokowski

Your music on Jazz After Hours

Are you a jazz musician with a new record you want the world to hear? Jazz After Hours accepts submissions of new jazz for airplay. No record promoter is required to have your music considered. The only requirements: quality, musicianship and originality. Our mission is to support and encourage the creation of fresh new jazz. Your new music could be broadcast and/or streamed worldwide.

We do not accept physical copies. Only digital submissions are accepted. Submit studio quality recordings, in .wav, .mp3, .mp4, or .aiff file formats, delivered by download. Files must be properly named and accompanied by a one-sheet of information about you and your music.

Questions? Please contact us through the contact form at the bottom of this page. We look forward to hearing your new music.

Jazz After Hours Featured Video

Mehldau, McBride, and Gilmore in concert

Brad Mehldau – piano
Christian McBride – bass
Marcus Gilmore – drums

Three of the most influential musicians of their generation, sharing the stage for a single night. Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Marcus Gilmore performing at Chenery Auditorium in Kalamazoo, Michigan on April 13th, 2025. Their combined artistry is legendary. Each brings mastery to their instrument. Mehldau is a poetic storyteller on the piano, weaving classical, jazz, and even rock influences into a deeply expressive style unmistakably his own. McBride is a bass titan, effortlessly shifting between soulful grooves and electrifying solos, redefining the role of the bass in modern jazz. Gilmore carries the rhythmic legacy of his grandfather, Roy Haynes, while carving out his own path as one of jazz’s most forward-thinking drummers. For jazz lovers, this is one of those rare performances that must be experienced. The chemistry, the push-and-pull between instruments, the innovation unfolding in real time is a true celebration of the art form itself.

Programming philosophy

Jazz is yours to discover

With great affection and all due respect to its storied history and rich tradition, we think jazz music was never meant to be bronzed and put on a shelf. Captured, remembered, studied, even lionized, but not frozen in time. Jazz didn’t stop being great in 1947 or 1955 or 1968 or 1976. It’s pretty great in 2024.



Name a name, anyone in the pantheon of jazz greats. To a person, they once were young, feisty, likely impertinent. They sought to break the mold; dared to make mistakes; challenged the elders and the music that came before. That’s what jazz musicians do.



Each of those jazz musicians once had their first gig. Their first recording session. Their first breakthrough moment and their first bad review. And believe it or not, there was a joyful moment when someone played their music on the radio for the first time. For some hard-working musician, that happens almost every week on Jazz After Hours.

The point being … jazz ain’t over. Not even close.

Record stores come and record stores go. Most of them are long gone. Radio stations do the same. Technology changes, and while it closes some doors it opens many others. The critics and whiners are going to beat their chests and find every possible way to make a buck with a tired story about the death of jazz. People who haven’t bought a jazz record in 40 years are going to try to convince you that was the last great jazz. It wasn’t.

 Jazz is alive and very entertaining in 2023. We invite you to listen to what we play on Jazz After Hours and judge for yourself. 

These are the musicians you’ll be talking about for the next 20 or 30 years. They’re playing music today that is the future of jazz. It’s new, it’s fresh and it’s damn good. Don’t take our word for it. Listen each week on public radio. This is your discovery process.

Comment? Question? Programming suggestion?
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    Jazz After Hours is heard weekly on public radio across America and streaming directly from our website.
    Thank you to the countless musicians around the world playing jazz who make it possible.


    Currently, Jazz After Hours is not streaming.


    We will be back online Friday and Saturday nights at 6P Pacific to stream...