Improvisation asks everyone to risk what they think they know, and offers them an opportunity – through listening – to discover something new in themselves. Jazz shines a light on what we are allowing to slip away in our brittle and fractured world, making our art form more relevant today than ever before.”
– Maria Schneider

© 2026, JazzAfterHours

Jazz through the night

Billy Hart at SMOKE/NYC
photo by Jimmy and Dena Katz

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Emerging jazz artists

David Kaneko at B-Flat Jazz Club/Tokyo
photo by Tsubasa Fujikawa Berg

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Living jazz greats

Dave Holland and John Abercrombie
photo by Roberto Cifarelli

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The freshest new jazz

Ariane Racicot
photo by Yves Couillard

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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

Jazz At Lincoln Center season 2025-26

Jazz After Hours listeners are invited to the premiere jazz institution in America this coming year for a thrilling season of music called Mother Africa.

Jazz at Lincoln Center has announced programming for its 2025-26 season of concerts at the home of JALC, Frederick P. Rose Hall, colloquially known as The House of Swing, which houses Rose Theater, the Appel Room, and Dizzy’s Club.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 38th season, Mother Africa, delves into the creative spirit that unites African and American musical traditions, and runs from July 24, 2025 to June 20, 2026. Featuring significantly more shows than last season, the organization’s 38th season includes: 19 unique weekends of Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts in the 1233-seat Rose Theater, nine concerts in the 467-seat Appel Room, and more than 350 nights of music at Dizzy’s Club, in addition to webcast performances and in-person and virtual education programs. The 2025-26 season also features tour dates worldwide by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, an ensemble of 15 virtuoso instrumentalists, unique soloists, composers, arrangers, and educators whose mandate is to coalesce and animate an unprecedented variety of styles and genres, in collaboration with noted guest artists and appearances by major figures in jazz and its related genres.

Dominating Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 38th season are concerts that explore the deep and enduring ties between jazz, the African continent, and its diaspora, a theme that the JLCO with Wynton Marsalis previously addressed in past performances:  Blood on the Fields (1996), Congo Square (2007), Ochas (2014), and the fresh big band arrangements comprising JLCO’s The South African Songbook concert (2019). The season highlights new works, commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center, from renowned jazz artists in the organization’s new The Commission Series. The new season also includes celebratory concerts to honor the centennials of three towering figures in jazz – Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, and Celia Cruz – further illuminating the far-reaching legacy of Afro-American and the African diaspora musical expression.

More 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...

Saxophonist Sonny Rollins ~ 7 September 1930 – 25 May 2026

photo by Jordi Vidal/Getty Images

With all due respect...

Multi-instrumentalist Ken Peplowski ~ 23 May 1959 – 2 February 2026

photo by Stephen Pariser

Listen to this week'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

Ron Carter and Yotam Silberstein — official studio recording of Blues for Brother Malone at Van Gelder's Studio in NJ
December 4, 2025

Ron Carter, bass
Yotam Silberstein, guitar

Composition by Yotam Silberstein
Released on JoJo Records
Recorded on December 4, 2025

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 2026.



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 right now. 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?
We'd love to hear from you.

    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.

    Hour 1

    Ryan Keberle's Collectiv do Brasil – Nana Das Águas – Here Is Donato – Alternate Side Records

    Ran Blake – The Bebopper – Voices – Tzadik

    Fergus McCreadie – Ford the River – The Shieling ~ Companion Pieces – Edition Records

    Leigh Pilzer – When It's Gone – Keep Holding On – Strange Woman Records

    Miki Yamanaka – Dancing Cats – Breathe – Cellar Music Group

    Royce Campbell and the Vosbein Magee Big Band – Vagabond – Vagabond – Max Frank Music

    Joe Webb – Uncle Paul – Neath Beat – Edition Records

    Markus Rutz – On The Bosrand – Many Moons – Third Coast Sounds

    Timo Vollbrecht – Spicy Moon – Bremen New York – Berthold Records

    Kevin Fort & Andy Brown – Chiaroscuro – Chiaroscuro – JeruJazz Records

    Hour 2

    Reggie Watkins – Blue Six – Rivers – self released

    John Lang – Trepidation – Earotica – Cellar Music

    Mark Turner – Movement 10 ~ Closure – Reflections on The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man – Giant Step Arts

    Jim Snidero – Ascent – House of Trane – Savant

    MTB – The Things That Fall Away – Solid Jackson – Criss Cross Jazz

    Matt Renzi – Your Beautiful Light Will Shine Forever – Presenza – 3 Ps Records

    Rob Dixon – The Earth, The Sky – Naptown Soul – Strikezone Records

    Mike Caudill – Conduit – Caught at Dusk – Abstract Destiny Records

    Al Foster – Old Folks – Live At Smoke – Smoke Sessions Records

    Hour 3

    Seamus Blake – Listen Here – EH! (Plays the Music of Eddie Harris) – Cellar Music

    Aaron Parks – Parks Lope – By All Means – Blue Note

    Dave Holland – The Empty Chair – Freedom Call ~ Prism Freedom – Edition Records

    Brian Bromberg – Blue in Green – LaFaro – Be Squared Productions

    Allan Harris – You Had a Change of Heart – Swingin' Love Songs – Love Productions Records

    Joey Alexander – Stella by Starlight – Celestial Keeper – Mack Avenue

    Stefon Harris – Echoes of the Lion – Legacy Dances – Motéma

    Bob Reynolds – When Your Lover Has Gone – Eddie Told Me So – NOSAHU Records

    Hour 4

    Sullivan Fortner – Sorcerer's Stick – Leave That In There – Artwork Records

    Andy Farber and His Orchestra – Feet and Frames – Early Blue Evening – ArtistShare

    New Gypsies – Mystrieuse – New Gypsies featuring Vic Juris – SteepleChase

    Ben Wendel – Mimo – BaRcoDe – Edition Records

    Roberto Fonseca & Vincent Segal – La Mar Quieta, Tu y Yo Pensando – Nuit Parisienne a la Havane – Artwork Records

    Anat Cohen and Trio Brasiliero – Rosa dos ventos – Rosa Dos Ventos – Anzic Records

    Altin Sencalar – Descarga de Dia – Natural Rhythm – Posi-Tone Records

    Thomas Fonnesbaek – Satie's Mood – In Rome – Storyville Records

    Mamiko Watanabe – The Scene Is Clean – Being Guided By The Light – Jojo Records

    Marta Karassawa – Stefan E Clarinha – Tempo Bom – Tratore