Burlington Discover Jazz Festival announces 2025 dates, curator, opening and closing acts
Brent Hallenbeck- Anthony Tidd will curate the 2025 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival.
- The festival will open with “Origins: Sounds and Stories of the African Diaspora” on June 4.
- The closing concert will feature Ravi Coltrane playing the music of his mother, Alice Coltrane, on June 8.
- Both opening and closing concerts will be held at The Flynn in Burlington.
Jazz musician Anthony Tidd heard last spring from Jay Wahl, executive director of the Flynn, who wanted to invite the bass player to the 2024 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival. The two had worked together when Tidd lived in Philadelphia and curated a jazz event called Sittin’ In at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where Wahl worked for 11 years before coming to the Flynn.
“I said, ‘Oh, sure, I love going to a jazz festival,’” Tidd told the Burlington Free Press in a phone conversation from Harlem, where he has lived for six years.
Wahl had in mind more than just showing his colleague a fun time in Burlington. He wanted him to help choose the lineup for the 2025 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival.
“When the time came, I guess he thought of my curation work there, the work I was doing in Philly, and thought I would be great for that in Burlington,” Tidd said.
He accepted. Tidd is the curator of this year’s festival, which opens Wednesday, June 4, and continues through Sunday, June 8. He knew soon after arriving last year in the city along Lake Champlain that it would be a great spot to oversee a jazz festival lineup.
“You’ve got the water, you’ve got all these historic buildings and venues and stuff, it’s the perfect place for a jazz festival,” according to Tidd.
Burlington Discover Jazz Festival performers: Opening and closing acts
Two performances have been announced so far, with others to be revealed later this spring. The opening-night concert is “Origins: Sounds and Stories of the African Diaspora,” which Tidd said he is assembling to show how jazz “is not a monolith” but an amalgamation of threads tied to the journey of African people. He said the concert will help tell the story of jazz and its relationship to other forms of music such as blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, hip hop and funk.
A band including Damion Reid on drums, Greg Osby on saxophone and Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet will be joined by a host of guest musicians. Tidd said Cedric Burnside, grandson of blues-guitar legend R.L. Burnside, will represent that form of music, while Fred Wesley has played in groups as divergent as Parliament-Funkadelic and the Count Basie Orchestra.
Vermont musicians taking part in “Origins” will reflect that diversity as well. Bobby Hackney Sr. was in the proto-punk-rock band Death and played in reggae group Lambsbread. His son, Julian Hackney, formed Burlington rock band Rough Francis with his brothers to perform the music of Death before growing into a group playing its own songs.
The closing-night concert features saxophone player Ravi Coltrane, whose father, John Coltrane, is perhaps the most famous saxophonist in jazz history. Ravi Coltrane will be in Burlington to play not the music of his father but of his mother, harpist Alice Coltrane. The concert, Tidd said, will focus on the “lost album” by Alice Coltrane called “Translinear Light.”
Alice Coltrane, according to Tidd, is “a jazz icon as far as I’m concerned but for various reasons never quite got her due.” Harpist Brandee Younger will join Ravi Coltrane for the performance.
“Ravi is a very unique person in that he has two giants of jazz that are his parents, which is like, wow!” Tidd said. “The idea is that we really, really, really want to dig in and help shine the light on his mother.”
What to expect from Discover Jazz Festival 2025
Tidd, who has performed with acts including The Roots and Meshell Ndegeocello, will work with the Flynn’s education department to design a curriculum for local schools before and during the festival. He said he had been to Burlington once before last year’s invitation. The musician played bass with avant-garde saxophonist Steve Coleman, who performed in FlynnSpace during the 2004 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival.
Last year, Tidd said, his visit to the festival included concerts at Waterfront Park. “An amazing setting – I love that,” he said, adding that he also loves that the lakeside shows, unlike those in the Flynn, are free to attend.
He has been back to Burlington since last year’s event and said he has been to multiple venues and met many local artists.
“It seems like it has a vibrant scene,” according to Tidd. “What I also love is the relationship of people to nature, that’s all very cool, and how close-knit the community is.”
Discover Jazz Festival 2025 opening show: Date, time, ticket prices
WHAT: “Origins: Sounds and Stories of the African Diaspora”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 4
WHERE: The Flynn, Burlington
INFORMATION: $32-$53. www.flynnvt.org
Discover Jazz Festival 2025 closing show: Date, time, ticket prices
WHAT: “Translinear Light: The Music of Alice Coltrane,” featuring Ravi Coltrane and Brandee Younger
WHEN: 6 p.m. Sunday, June 8
WHERE: The Flynn, Burlington
INFORMATION: $32-$63.50. www.flynnvt.org
Contact Brent Hallenbeck atbhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.