Zaccai Curtis - Piano, Luques Curtis - Bass, Jeremy Bosch - Flute, Willie Martinez - Timbales, Camilo Molina - Congas, Reinaldo de Jesus - Bongos

Zaccai Curtis - Piano, Luques Curtis - Bass, Jeremy Bosch - Flute, Willie Martinez - Timbales, Camilo Molina - Congas, Reinaldo de Jesus - Bongos

Please note:  If you do not purchase all seats at a table, other customers may be seated with you.

If you have any special requirements, please call the box office after purchasing your tickets or at least 72 hours prior to show time.

Dinner//Show packages are not being offered for this show, however we do have a menu in the jazz club.

Zaccai Curtis - Piano, Luques Curtis - Bass, Jeremy Bosch - Flute, Willie Martinez - Timbales, Camilo Molina - Congas, Reinaldo de Jesus - Bongos

Fresh off his 2025 Grammy win for Best Latin Jazz Album, pianist and bandleader Zaccai Curtis brings the exhilarating sound of Cubop Lives! to the stage. This performance features the powerhouse musicians from the award-winning recording, including Willie Martinez, Camilo Molina, Reinaldo De Jesus, Luques Curtis, and Jeremy Bosch. Expect a vibrant night of Afro-Caribbean rhythm, hard-driving swing, and the electrifying energy that made the album a Grammy standout.

Zaccai Curtis - Piano, Luques Curtis - Bass, Jeremy Bosch - Flute, Willie Martinez - Timbales, Camilo Molina - Congas, Reinaldo de Jesus - Bongos

Fresh off his 2025 Grammy win for Best Latin Jazz Album, pianist and bandleader Zaccai Curtis brings the exhilarating sound of Cubop Lives! to the stage. This performance features the powerhouse musicians from the award-winning recording, including Willie Martinez, Camilo Molina, Reinaldo De Jesus, Luques Curtis, and Jeremy Bosch. Expect a vibrant night of Afro-Caribbean rhythm, hard-driving swing, and the electrifying energy that made the album a Grammy standout.

Zaccai Curtis - Piano, Luques Curtis - Bass, Willie Martinez - Timbales, Camilo Molina - Congas, Reinaldo de Jesus - Bongos

The Vermont Jazz Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to creating, promoting, and preserving jazz for a broad constituency of artists, students, and the public through concerts, education, and workshops. Each year, the VJC hosts world-class artists and offers many educational opportunities to encourage and strengthen the jazz community for generations to come.

VJC Mission Statement

The Vermont Jazz Center is dedicated to creating, promoting, and preserving jazz for a broad constituency of artists, students, and the public through concerts, education, and workshops.

ABOUT THE CONCERT

Winter’s hottest jazz festival returns with an unforgettable weekend of music, energy, and community!

Headlining the festival is Kes and Friends, bringing their signature Caribbean sound and feel-good spirit to two exclusive concerts featuring Etienne Charles. These performances, held in Rose Theater on Thursday and the Appel Room on Friday, are included with the All-Access Pass, which gives you access to everything happening on your chosen night, including Kes’s concert with guaranteed assigned seating.

The Nightly Festival Pass (No Kes) offers access to all festival performances on your chosen night, except for the Kes concert. Experience sets celebrating the legacy of Eddie Palmieri, along with Tomeka Reid, DJ Logic, Solomon Hicks, Erena Terakubo, Gabriel Chakarji, Rajna Swaminathan, Kate Kortum, winner of the 2025 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, and more, plus the Jazz Legacies Fellowship Honors All-Star Concert, spotlighting over 15 masters of the music including George Coleman, Amina Claudine Myers, Akua Dixon, Herlin Riley, and Billy Hart.

With every space across our halls activated and buzzing, audiences can discover the full spectrum of jazz, from timeless tributes to bold new sounds, all under one roof. Choose your pass, find your rhythm, and join us for an unforgettable weekend of music!

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
TBD - Bass
TBD - Timbales
Reinaldo De Jesus - Congas
Jeremy Bosch - Flute

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
TBD - Bass
Willie Martinez - Timbales
Reinaldo De Jesus - Congas
Jeremy Bosch - Flute

JD Allen - Saxophone
Aurélien Budynek - Guitar
Zaccai Curtis - Keys
Jeremiah Kal’ab - Bass

JD Allen - Saxophone
Aurélien Budynek - Guitar
Zaccai Curtis - Keys
Jeremiah Kal’ab - Bass

JD Allen - Saxophone
Aurélien Budynek - Guitar
Zaccai Curtis - Keys
Jeremiah Kal’ab - Bass

JD Allen - Saxophone
Aurélien Budynek - Guitar
Zaccai Curtis - Keys
Jeremiah Kal’ab - Bass

JD Allen - Saxophone
Aurélien Budynek - Guitar
Zaccai Curtis - Keys
Jeremiah Kal’ab - Bass

An Afro Caribbean Jazz Experience merging Puerto Rican & Dominican Republic musical roots -- Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
Alex Apolo Ayala - Bass
Willie Martinez - Timbales
Reinaldo De Jesus - Congas

Zaccai Curtis is an acclaimed recording artist and producer, recently honored with the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. He leads his own groups, the Zaccai Curtis Quintet and Sonido Solar, and after five successful releases, is set to drop his new album, Sonoluminescence, in 2025.

Together with his brother Luques, Zaccai co-founded the record label TRRcollective, a collaborative space for musicians to produce and release their own music. He is also proud to have produced the Grammy-nominated album Entre Colegas by Andy González (2016).

Homegrown Dialogues: Womanist Perspectives on Spirit, Sound, and Sustainability

On Saturday, September 20, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music will host a daylong symposium and performances featuring award-winning vocalist and composer Andromeda Turre.(Link is external) The symposium will be convened by Dr. Mark Lomanno(Link is external), an esteemed ethnomusicologist, jazz historian, and pianist whose work critically examines the intersections between artistic performance, academic study, and sustainable community-building. The event is sponsored by the ISM’s Religion, Ecology, and Expressive Culture initiative. 

Turre was raised in the presence of jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles, and is the daughter of trombonist Steve Turre and cellist Akua Dixon. Turre’s emotionally resonant performances have captivated audiences in over seventeen countries across Europe and Asia, as well as in renowned American venues. Turre is also a prominent advocate for environmental causes, a theme which is strongly integrated into her work.

Sounds at Sunset: Reinaldo De Jesus & Rhythmic Prophecies

LOCATION: Pier 6 Picnic Tables

DATE: Friday, August 8, 2025

TIME: 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Ease into the weekend with these talented free performances, along with a beautiful sunset.

Hartford CT!

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
Luques Curtis - Bass
Willie Martinez - Timbales
Reinaldo De Jesus - Congas
Jeremy Bosch - Flute

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
Luques Curtis - Bass
Willie Martinez - Timbales
Reinaldo De Jesus - Congas
Jeremy Bosch - Flute

Saturday, June 14 · 8 - 10pm EDT. Doors at 3pm

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
Alex Apolo Ayala - Bass
Willie Martinez - Timbales
Reinaldo De Jesus - Congas
Jeremy Bosch - Flute

Ticket Link - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-zaccai-curtis-quintet-tickets-1319559872099

Saturday, June 14 · 8 - 10pm EDT. Doors at 3pm

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
Alex Apolo Ayala - Bass
Willie Martinez - Timbales
Reinaldo De Jesus - Congas
Jeremy Bosch - Flute

Ticket Link - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-zaccai-curtis-quintet-tickets-1319559872099

Zaccai Curtis - Piano
Luques Curtis - Bass
Willie Martinez - Timbales
Camilo Molina - Congas
Reinaldo De Jesus - Bongos
Jeremy Bosch - Flutes

THE LUMINOUS BLACK QUINTET

Lummie Spann / Alto Sax
Joseph Doubleday / Vibraphone
Zaccai Curtis / Piano
Dezron Douglas / Bass
Kush Abadey / Drums

The Exit Zero Jazz Festival debuted in November 2012 in the national historic landmark city of Cape May, a picturesque beach town on the very southern tip of New Jersey. The Festival takes place twice a year, Spring and Autumn, in the shoulder tourist seasons of Cape May.

The Exit Zero Jazz Festival is a 3-day musical feast featuring hundreds of musicians and thousands of visitors. Exit Zero Jazz presents international touring artists performing on the stage in Cape May Convention Hall, plus a full weekend schedule in the bars and restaurants of Cape May.

You might find yourself one minute second-lining to a New Orleans brass band, and, in the next, snaking through town behind a 22-piece Brazilian drum bloco. The joy of the Exit Zero Jazz Festival is in the discovery of incredible music and musicians you may never have known existed.

2025 GRAMMY award winning Zaccai Curtis leans into what he describes as “two sides of the same coin” within Afro-Cuban jazz: Instrumental Mambo Jazz (a phrase coined by his mentor Eddie Palmieri), and Cubop. The former fuses jazz melodies and improvisation with Mambo music, and was spearheaded in the 1940s by Mario Bauzá, the musical director of the ensemble Machito and his Afro-Cubans. Curtis delineates Cubop as “bebop composition with Afro-Cuban elements in the rhythm section,” or at least veers “more toward the bebop side” of the musical fusion. 

Albert Rivera is a saxophonist, composer, bandleader, adjunct professor at SUNY Purchase, clinician and Director Of Operations at Litchfield Performing Arts.

Born in the Bronx, NY, Albert Rivera’s musical journey began early on and flourished at Laguardia High School for Performing Arts in New York City. Albert has won awards as both a sideman and a leader. He won the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award in 2009, the 2012 Chamber Music American Residency Grant and most recently the 2021 New York City Artist Corps Grant. Critics have called him “a modern Jazz Messenger.”

As a performer, he has appeared in his hometown of New York in venues like Zinc Bar, Smalls Jazz Club, and the Blue Note. His collaborators have included Don Braden, Jimmy Greene, Claudio Roditi, Avery Sharpe, Rachel Z, and legendary pianist Junior Mance. At the Litchfield Jazz Camp and Jazz Festival, where he is the current Director of Operations, he often appears with his own group and faculty stars like Matt Wilson, Paul Bollenback and Dave Stryker.

DownBeat Magazine reported on his successful, inventive approach to career building in its March 2016 issue in “Enterprising Energy” by Ken Micallef. Critic Elliott Simon wrote “Rivera’s compositions are diverse (and his) musicians hit the pocket and sustain a powerful group dynamic.” Tony Hall, of Jazz Wise Magazine, added “Rivera has a timeless tone.”

Presented by Litchfield Jazz & New England Arts & Entertainment