The Detroit Jazz Festival, one of my favorite events of the year, returns to downtown Detroit over the Labor Day weekend.

This is the 47th year for the world's largest free jazz festival, which, as always, will take place at Hart Plaza.

There are additional performances scheduled at the Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center at Wayne State University.

Here to talk about the changes for this year's event, as well as the lineup, is Chris Collins.

He's president and artistic director of the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation.

He's joined by one of the performers, Sequoia Snyder, also known as Redwood, and Jocelyn Lewis, who goes as Jo Lewis.

She is this year's poster artist.

Welcome, all three of you, to "American Black Journal."

- Thanks, Stephen.

Great to be here, as always.

- This is my favorite show of the year.

And I probably shouldn't say that, because I'm supposed to love all the shows equally, but I do love this one just a little more.

It's always great to see you- - That's cool.

- in the studio, Chris.

- Thank you, man.

- Let's start by talking about what's different about this year's festival and what people can expect.

- Well, somewhat, we're going old school a little bit.

We are consolidating the three outside stages, as I think most people know, on Hart Plaza.

We have a great new footprint, expanded real estate.

The capacities will stay the same.

The stages will stay the same experience for artists and patrons, but we've done some amazing things, our production team, Paxahau, with sound and engineering beautiful stages.

The new stage, which is overlooking the river, is just gonna be a spectacular environment, and maintaining the intimacy of each stage, even in a large setting, which is some really tough technical backflips.

- That's pretty hard, right?

- Yeah, it is.

It is.

But it's worth doing, 'cause it's jazz, you know?

- Yeah.

Who are the headliners that people should be looking out for, other than Redwood?

- Yeah, I was gonna say.

You know, the beauty is it's... The way I have always looked at music, you know, everyone's a headliner.

- [Stephen] Yes.

- You know?

There are aspiring artists that have established themselves to a degree, and they're on their way to a new place, and Sequoia's a great example of that.

There are legendary artists, the great Ron Carter and Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Kurt Elling with... With the Yellowjackets, Kurt wrote incredible lyrics to, like, Joe Zawinul tunes (indistinct) happening.

And of course, our artist-in-residence, the great Joe Lovano, who plays on opening nights with his Paramount band, with Julian Lage.

And before that, opening the festival will be... Shannon Powell will lead our youth in a traditional New Orleans thing.

And then we have Electric Miles, which is a bunch of alums from Miles' past groups celebrating the hundred years of Miles.

And of course, we'll do something for Coltrane with our artist-in-residence at the end, but it's a plethora of established artists and new aspiring artists and then those from our youth programs, J.C.

Heard JazzWeek All-Stars, and the competition winners from our Youth Jazz Vocal Competition and Collegiate Combo, so it's a taste for everyone.

And they wouldn't be there unless they were special.

- You know, I kinda think of the festival as a celebration of jazz, of course, but it's also a celebration of our place, Detroit's place, in the jazz world, and it reflects that every year.

It's, like, us kinda showing off a bit for everybody else.

- You got it, and you know, you have to ask yourself what makes a culture.

And a culture is a living, breathing thing.

And in Detroit, the fact the urban center is a highly diverse population, amazing things have been happening here for longer than our lifetimes, the innovation and the opportunity to create at a very high level, to create ensembles.

You can do that in Detroit, but it feeds into the culture of who we are just as much as this program, 60 years, Detroit Public Television, and all the incredible legacies that make Detroit so very special.

We're... We really wanna be part of that invention and that forward movement of who we are as a culture.

And then we get to show it to the whole world via live streams, 1.5 million people, 320,000 in person.

It's a real showcase for all of us.

But it's really about sharing our culture.

- Sequoia, tell us about your music and your history here in Detroit and how exciting it must be to be on the docket at the Jazz Fest.

- Yeah, my history in Michigan started in college.

I went to Michigan State for my undergrad degree and my master's degree as well, so throughout that time, I spent a lotta time in Detroit.

As much as I could, actually, I was in Detroit, just trying to play, just trying to take in the wonderful culture, like Chris said.

And you know, I don't think there's one single factor that's been more integral to my development as an artist.

- [Stephen] Than being in Detroit.

- Than being in Detroit, yeah, than getting to play in Detroit, grow in Detroit.

I started my band here, so anybody who knows me knows how much I love Detroit.

I'm not from Detroit, but I claim Detroit as one of my hometowns.

I'm from DC, so obviously, a huge part of who I am, but I mean, Detroit is the city for me that's, you know, supported me and taken me in since I was still a kid, basically.

So it's super exciting for me to be able to bring my music to the Detroit Jazz Fest.

I've gotten an opportunity to play there several times, but this is, like, really special to me.

The festival was always my favorite time of the year.

It's always one of my favorite experiences, you know, in the years I've been alive, so I'm just... I'm really excited and, yeah, grateful.

- Talk a little more about the music that you make, what inspires it, and why people love it.

(Stephen laughs) - (laughs) Yeah, so, as I said, I studied jazz studies.

Rodney Whitaker, so my music's coming out of jazz, for sure.

I love jazz music, but I also love all Black music.

I love all types of music, so there's a lot of... I came up listening to a lotta R&B, gospel, hip-hop, even rock, which I'm getting a lot more into now.

I'm always just trying to make something that sounds and feels good.

I don't think too much about "I'm gonna make a jazz song," you know, "I'm gonna make a fusion song."

But I do find that all these different elements come out in my music, and I think people enjoy that.

- Well, I mean, I think music is not a... You can't divide music into genres, right?

- Right.

- Music is music.

It's a language, and you can kind of run across it with all kinds of different- - Absolutely.

- beats and notes and things like that, yeah.

Jocelyn, Jo Lewis, you are the person who created the Jazz Fest poster this year.

I should note that it is standing there, and in a minute, I'm gonna ask Chris to have a big unveil of your work.

But talk about, before we see it, sort of who you are and how you kinda come to this really significant work now with the Jazz Festival.

- Thank you.

I'm a Detroit native, born and raised.

Right now, I'm actually a student at Florida State University.

I'm getting my PhD in museum curation at the moment, and a lot of my research is about Black culture and Black history and all the different type of connections to the diasporas.

So I'm really interested in those things, and it really does come out in a lot of my artwork.

And how I approach this, usually, I'm a fabric artist or a mixed-media artist, but this time, I wanted to have, again, like, a more jazzy feel, total abstract or semi-abstract.

So I used a lot of different shapes and tried not to keep it so, like, figure-inclusive, just going with the wind and just feeling in the embodiment of what jazz would be, so I'm really excited about the poster reveal.

- Let's go to the moment when you knew you were creating this for the jazz festival.

What was kinda the first thought you had about what you wanted to capture with that work?

- I think my first thought was the actual expression of what I think jazz feels like.

I used to live in Brooklyn not too long ago, and we would always go to jazz nights, being really encapsulated into the music.

And I really feel like jazz is, like, a thing you have to put your whole body into to express, so when I was making this piece, I really want that to come off into the piece, like the person is the music in expressing themselves.

- Well, that's a great introduction to the unveil here, Chris, do you wanna do the honors?

- I am excited about this.

Super special.

- This is always my favorite moment on the show.

- Do we have a drum roll?

Could we get the drummer?

- [Stephen] No, we don't have a good drummer here.

- Here we go.

Ah, the 2026 Detroit Jazz Festival poster by the great Jo Lewis.

- [Stephen] Oh, look at that!

- Ooh.

- Yeah.

- [Stephen] I love that.

My goodness.

I can see, of course, notes and instruments and people.

The person figure there is super interesting as well.

- [Jo] Thank you.

- Talk us through this this poster.

- Like I stated before, I really wanted the person to be a part of the actual instrument, the music, the embodiment of, like, the sound.

And so a lot of these shapes go into each other.

They overlap.

They express some type of emphasis.

And they have a lot of, like, sharp tones or a lot of different lines but also some curvature where it shows the smoothness.

And yeah, I really wanted the person to be very much a part of the sound.

- Yeah, the person's kind of wrapped around all of the elements.

- I wanted the instrument to be with the person, like, in the person, so yeah.

- [Stephen] Wow.

Ah, that's amazing.

- Beautiful piece.

- Thank you.

- When you're making your art, how much does your history here in Detroit, do you think, influence what you're doing?

- It influences it all of the time.

- [Stephen] It does?

- A lot of my artwork is really much about Black culture and what we bring to the world and, like, how we express ourselves, our creativity, our beauty.

And I love to highlight that.

I really want my people and also Detroit people to see themselves reflected in my artwork.

So I think my artwork has exchange where a person looking at it can really feel a experience and, like, be very familiar, like, "Oh, I grew up like that.

I know what that's about," yeah, something to really feel connection to.

I think sometimes... You know, people might not feel as connected to certain artworks, but I know, with my artwork, I would love for people who look like me and also Detroiters to really see themselves in my artwork as well.

- Chris, talk about this wonderful poster.

Every year, the poster's great, but... - We're so fortunate.

We've had artists from around the world, so Jo joins a very elite group of people.

There's only 47 of these.

And each one is about finding an artist to do a piece of artwork, not a graphic poster for information, but an artwork that we can celebrate that captures the spirit.

And we reached out.

As we often do, we did an open call to artists in the Detroit area, and people sent their ideas in.

Many, many great artists, different medium, but every... It's typical that I'll come across one that really speaks to the current and, in this case, as a musician, the feeling that, you know, jazz is... It's all... Everything's wrapped and intertwined at the communication, and yet it can change and be interpreted from different perspectives.

And it captures it in every sense of the word and is very unique in its perspective and coloration and design from previous posters.

It's really gonna stand out as a singularity.

- And Sequoia, I wonder what you see in this art that might connect with your art, the music.

- [Redwood] I love it.

- [Jo] Thank you.

- I think, like Chris said, the colors really speak, like, the different colors, and how everything's kinda intersecting.

I feel that jazz has so much (tuts) interaction and just kind of unspoken communication and just so much interconnectedness, which I see.

And I love how it's... It's a bit abstract.

It's not something that... It's not something cliche that you would see, but at the same time, you're able to interpret it and connect to it, which is something I try to accomplish with my music too.

Like, I don't want it to be, you know, normal or something you would expect, but I also want you to be able to nod your head and feel it.

So I get that.

- You wanna see yourself in it or feel yourself or hear yourself in it.

- [Redwood] Absolutely, yeah, so I feel that- - And if you cross your eyes a little bit, you can see the Starship Enterprise.

I dunno.

(Stephen and Redwood laugh) - So, Chris, talk about the kind of state of the festival.

Things have changed a lot since the streaming, I feel like, has just kind of blown this up in a way that maybe we didn't expect.

- Yeah, it was about 15 years ago, and we took some funds that... Somebody talked about doing a strategic plan.

I said, "You know, I've done a lotta strategic plans.

Let's get into the streaming thing."

And so we developed a great relationship with Detroit Public Television and others and, you know, got through all the hardships of learning how to use the technology.

So by the time COVID hit, as you probably remember- - I remember.

- we were the only festival.

We did a 40-hour broadcast on safe stages.

We built, I dunno, seven miles of fiber optics.

And then now we've curtailed it.

And so it supports all of our international... We do international exchange programs, youth programs, and you could see all that culminate at the festival.

But the streaming has helped with 1.5 to 2 million viewers.

I think it's 30,000 watchable hours last year in 38 countries or something.

- Wow.

- It supports that, and to your point earlier, it becomes another avenue for us to be ambassadors of this city and for people to understand the beauty of Detroit and what's coming from here.

And that's so important, and it's important because if you can't get to the festival or if you have accessibility challenges you have access- - You can still be part of it.

- to every single show.

Detroitjazzfest.org has all the information.

In fact, the new footprint, the nice part is everything's on the same plane in Hart Plaza, and you make your way up to the Valade Center in the evening.

It's gonna be great.

But we also, because we've closed in the festival to keep it secure... We're no longer allowing our coolers, which is a big change in our culture.

- Right?

Right?

- But it's a necessity in today's world, so we hope everyone understands.

There are a few things like that, but for the most part, it's just gonna be a rocking good time.

- Talk a little about the Valade Center too, which is... What, four years now?

- Just about, and in fact, we're opening Dee Dee Bridgewater's, which is the club venue on the lower level.

- Yes.

Right?

- Dee Dee, of course, is here at the festival, so I'm sure she'll be there, and Wayne State'll be doing something special for that.

So, it's two venues: Dee Dee Bridgewater's, the club in the basement, like, a super-hip Detroit jazz club; upstairs, Detroit Jazz Hall, specifically designed acoustically for jazz, everything.

Stages, instruments were hand-selected.

The seating is special.

And those shows remain free.

They're... The Midtown After Hours Specials start at 10:30 in the evening.

Doors open 9:30, and they go till about midnight or so.

You know, a lotta stuff.

But it's really the last beautiful gift of Miss Valade to all of us.

- Yeah, and the importance of having a space that's dedicated to jazz and Detroit in this way.

I mean, it's kinda hard.

When I'm in there, it's kinda hard to imagine that we didn't have it for as long as we did.

- Well, you know, people build such places.

Oftentimes, jazz, you know, you get the second-best piano and the second- or third-best drum.

Miss Valade she really wanted to have a place that equaled everything.

And it's a testament to Wayne State too and their understanding of the urban center and what's needed to do these things on the highest possible level and provide for musicians a venue that's a hall where, 340 seats, it's fillable, it sounds amazing, and you're not trying to fill 2,000 seats in a venue that really wasn't designed for jazz.

This is a unique entity in the world and I think it'll become an important gravity point.

- We've got about a minute left.

I wanna just emphasize again the free aspect of this.

I just think that is so important.

And there just are not a lot of festivals that are able to do that, but this has always been a free- - It has.

It's very important- - content.

- part of who we are and who the city is, and accessibility is the key for everyone to be able to enjoy the music they love.

But man, there's a reason no one else is doing it at the premier level.

- (laughs) It's really hard.

- It's hard.

- It's not a given, right?

- Nearly five million a year.

There's no money from the sky, and that's why we have our Keep It Free campaign and ask people if they can donate a dollar when they can, or more.

It makes a difference, or become an Angel of Jazz because these things are the only way that our grandchildren are gonna be able to go down to the festival for free, 'cause if we can't do it that way some cat's gonna come along and say, "20 bucks at the gate," and problem solved, but problem created for a lot of other people.

- Okay, well, Chris, it's always great- - Same.

- to catch up with you about the festival.

Sequoia, it was really great to have you here.

We'll look forward to your performance.

- Thank you.

- And Jo Lewis, what a great piece of art that you've- - Thank you.

- created for this.

- Bravo.

- Thank you.

- Thanks to all three of you for being here.

- Pleasure, Stephen.

- Thank you again.