The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival returns to Tompkins Square Park for the 1st time since 2019

The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival is returning this summer to the place where it all began — Tompkins Square Park. 

The City Parks Foundation announced the lineup for SummerStage 2022 yesterday (read the full rundown here; Gothamist has a story here). 

Included in the lineup of free and benefit shows: The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on Aug. 26-28. The first two dates are in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. On Aug. 28, the festival makes its way to Tompkins Square Park from 3-7 p.m. (This show is free.) 

Here's what to expect here via the SummerStage 2022 program: 

Archie Shepp and Jason Moran are two avant-garde jazz musicians from different generations that nonetheless share a penchant for pushing the envelope. Shepp is a veteran saxophonist who has been called both a musical firebrand and a cultural radical, standing out even amongst myriad talents in the free jazz generation. Moran is pianist 37 years Shepp’s junior, with an equal respect for tradition and trailblazing. Their 2021 collaboration Let My People Go is a warm and intimate collection of duets recorded live in 2017-2018, a pristine portrait of two masters at work. 

The bill also includes the Grammy-nominated Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, who plays with a ferocious energy and deft musicality; Bria Skonberg, a Canadian jazz trumpeter and bandleader once described by The Wall Street Journal as one of the most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation; and Pasquale Grasso, a master be-bop guitarist known for elevating the instrument through his pianistic approach, showing the influence of Bud Powell and Art Tatum in a revolutionary hard-swinging way. 

An abbreviated version of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival took place last year in Harlem; the 2020 slate was cancelled with the pandemic. 

The festival started in Tompkins Square Park in 1993 ... taking place near or on Parker's birthday on Aug. 29. Additional dates were added in Harlem in 2000. 

Parker, who died in 1955 at age 34, lived at 151 Avenue B from 1950-1954. That residential building between Ninth Street and 10th Street is landmarked. 

Photo from 2019 by Steven