Tank and the Bangas, Preservation Hall Jazz Band and soul music icon Mavis Staples will headline the 2026 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival in June. At a press conference on Wednesday, the Flynn announced the full lineup for the 43rd annual festival, which runs June 3 to 7 at various locations around Burlington and is largely free.
Musicians from the Vermont Youth Orchestra Jazz program opened the press conference with a rendition of “Parisian Thoroughfare” by Harlem composer and pianist Bud Powell. Then Flynn executive director Jay Wahl and this year’s festival curator, Jason Moran, took to the podium to detail their plans for the festival.
As previously reported, jazz fest opens on June 3 with “The Beat Beneath Us,” a fusion of music and dance featuring Moran, who is a pianist, composer and MacArthur Fellow, along with drummer Chris Dave and dancer Savion Glover. The closing show on June 7 is the a world premiere of “A Nation Listens,” a collaboration of saxophonist Chris Potter and guitarist Julian Lage. Along with Moran’s June 4 tribute to Duke Ellington, “My Heart Sings,” with the Vermont Youth Orchestra, the three shows represent the only ticketed performances of the festival, all of which are at the Flynn Main Stage.
The Friday, June 5, show at Waterfront Park features three-time Grammy -winning blues and folk singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster, followed by 2025 Grammy winners Tank and the Bangas. The New Orleans R&B outfit also won the 2017 NPR Tiny Desk Contest. Local acts Soul Porpoise, featuring Paul Asbell and Dave Grippo, and the Lara Cwass Band open the show.
TheWaterfront Park show on Saturday, June 7, serves as the festival’s flagship, headlined by Staples and Preservation Hall Jazz Band, a big band that’s been flying the flag for New Orleans jazz since tuba player Allan Jaffe formed the group in the early ’60s. The show also features Vermont-based global ensemble All the Rivers and a tribute performance to late jazz legend Eddie Palmieri, with special guests Ray Vega, Conrad Herwig and Arturo Ortiz.
There are several new features and venue collaborations this year. Among these is “Coldblooded, On Ice,” a June 7 performance at Leddy Park Arena from singer and composer Alicia Hall Moran, who is also married to curator Jason Moran, that combines ice skating and live jazz.
For the first time, the Andy A-Dog Williams Skatepark will play a part in the festival. On June 6, Moran and his band the Bandwagon will play live jazz as skateboarders hand-picked by Talent Skatepark shred. Moran grew up skateboarding as a kid in the ’80s, so the juxtaposition between music and skate culture is of particular interest.
“Skateboarders have always represented something about a rogue documentation,” Moran said. “You must create from a place that says ‘don’t create.’ And in that way, musicians and skaters always find a language together.
“It’s really important that we don’t just think of the Flynn as the only performance stage in the city,” Moran continued.
Big Joe’s, the festival’s nightly open jam, moves to the Flynn Space this year, after previously being held at the Vermont Comedy Club. In partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center, Big Joe’s will also host the Domo Branch Quartet‘s late-night residency throughout the entire festival.
One of the longest-running components of the festival is student performances. This year, 44 ensembles from 38 different Vermont schools, 993 student musicians in total, will perform.
“The population of our state is one of the smallest in the country,” Wahl said. “Fielding [almost] 1,000 musicians as part of its largest performing arts event in the state, that’s extraordinary.”
Tickets and more information about the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival are available at flynnvt.org.
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