Jazz through the night

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Emerging artists

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Living legends

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The freshest new jazz

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about Jazz After Hours

Jazz After Hours is the longest continuously running, nationally syndicated jazz program on the radio. In 2014, broadcaster and digital media artist Jeff Hanley began hosting the program, following an award winning 30 year run by the show’s creator, Jim Wilke. The four hour show celebrates and nurtures the constantly evolving music that is jazz. The music doesn’t sit still and neither does Jazz After Hours. Check out our Stations listing to find the program on your local public radio station or listen online with our on-demand streaming player. Read more >>

The Red Button

"Simple really. I love talking to musicians about music."

Jeff Hanley has worked as a broadcaster and digital media artist for 50 years. From the beginning of his long career, he has enjoyed sitting across the table (now the internet) from musicians and other artists to talk about their work. That passion continues in 2023. His immersion in audio and visual technology has allowed him to keep up with the new tools of production and the new channels of distribution, coming together here on THE RED BUTTON. These recordings are a labor of love. To watch, just click the RED BUTTON and enjoy.

More Red Button episodes are posted at The Red Button gallery.

Watch now – David Gibson on THE RED BUTTON

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. Check out our archive. Every show in 2023 now available to stream!

emerging artists and jazz greats

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 streamed worldwide on the PRX network.

We do not accept physical copies. In the interest of everyone’s health, your budget, and the environment, only digital submissions are accepted. We accept 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? Contact us through the contact form at the bottom of this page.

We look forward to hearing your new music.

Special Jazz After Hours Performance Feature

Play Video

Video from the Dave Liebman recording session at Smalls, featuring Dave Liebman – saxophones, Peter Evans – trumpet, Leo Genovese – piano, John Herbert – bass and Tyshawn Sorey – drums. Performance released as Dave Liebman: Live at Smalls. More information

SmallsLIVE Living Masters Series

Smalls Jazz Club and Cellar Music Group have released full-concert video footage from their SmallsLIVE Living Masters Series, a celebration of living jazz masters, funded entirely by grants from the SmallsLIVE Foundation and co-produced with Cellar Music Group.

Over the next few months, Jazz After Hours will feature these concerts here and on our public radio program. The full schedule includes Sheila Jordan, Tyler Mitchell and Marshall Allen, Jesse Davis, Dave Liebman, Kirk Lightsey and George Coleman. Thanks to Smalls Jazz Club in NYC and Cellar Music Group for allowing us to take you inside two of NYC’s premiere jazz venues for these special performances.

Visit Smalls and Mezzrow for more information, and don’t forget to subscribe to their live streams and vast archive of extraordinary jazz performances.

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 2023.



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 musician 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.

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.

Jazz in Motion

Video can transport you to clubs and concert stages and recording studios all over the world. It’s an opportunity to meet the jazz musicians you hear on Jazz After Hours, and to see them make the music we love. It can’t replace actually being in the room with the artists, but it’s a good start. Enjoy.

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