Spring must be near, because early notes of the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival are in the air. The Flynn has announced the opening and closing shows for the jazz fest’s 43rd edition, which brings world-class music to downtown Burlington from June 3 to 7.
As in recent years, the Flynn has selected a curator to helm the festival. This year that’s MacArthur Fellow, pianist and composer Jason Moran. The 51-year-old Houston native got his start playing with jazz saxophonist Greg Osby, who asked Moran to join him on a European tour when the pianist was still a senior at the Manhattan School of Music. Signing to Blue Note Records, Moran released his debut record, Soundtrack to Human Motion, in 1999. He composed the score for a stage reading of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2018, premiering the piece at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
At a press conference at the Flynn on Tuesday, Moran announced that this year’s jazz fest begins on June 3 with a program titled “The Beat Beneath Us” on the Flynn Main Stage. Featuring dancer and choreographer Ronald K. Brown and his dance company, Evidence, the show starts with a tribute to Max Roach, the famous jazz drummer and civil rights movement icon.
Following that, tap dancer, actor and choreographer Savion Glover joins virtuoso drummer Chris “Daddy” Dave and Moran in an improvisational trio displaying the connection between movement and music.
“Music has always had a relationship with the body,” Moran said at the press conference. “We have to start the fest with that … there’s nothing more incredible than to hear a phrase of music activated by six dancers. It teaches you so much more about what the sound of music is, what it can do. Music becomes exponentially more powerful when you give it to dancers.”
Moran is particularly excited to perform with Glover and Dave. “Savion’s understanding of the history of dance, combined with my understanding of the history of the piano and Chris Dave’s understanding of the history of drumming … what comes out is incredible,” he said.
Closing out the fest this year is a program titled “A Nation Listens,” by the trio of saxophonists Mark Turner and Chris Potter, and guitarist Julian Lage. Turner opens the show performing his 2025 album Reflections on: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, inspired by a 1912 novel by James Weldon Johnson. Following that, Potter and Lage present the world premiere of a work reflecting on the legacy of the abolitionist John Brown.
“Chris Potter is an incredible saxophonist,” Moran said. “And he’s been thinking about [John Brown] for awhile. And if he’s thinking about it, but not saying it out loud, shouldn’t we give him a place to say it out loud?
“The fortunate thing about playing this kind of music is that you’re just kind of rare,” Moran added. “And if you listen to it, you’re rare as well. So it’s just a rare bunch, which makes for a great music experience.”
Tickets for both shows go on sale to the public on Friday, February 27. The rest of the festival’s lineup will be announced at a press conference on April 15.
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