Live Concert Photography: Winter Jazz Fest at Webster Hall: Pete Rock with Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band, and Makaya McCraven “In These Times” 1/9/20

Live Concert Photography: Winter Jazz Fest at Webster Hall: Pete Rock with Igmar Thomas’ Revive Big Band and Makaya McCraven “In These Times” 1/9/20

Founded in 2005 Winter Jazzfest was founded to celebrate jazz as a vital, living entity — one that honors and reveres its past while embracing innovation and creativity. But at its heart, the festival is centered around several fundamental question for those who love and know jazz: “What exactly is jazz? What can jazz be — and sound like?”

Initially started as a single-night, one-stage showcase, the festival has expanded exponentially while becoming a hotbed of exciting new sonic and aesthetic developments within the jazz world: by 2017. the critically applauded festival spanned 14 stages in venues across Downtown Manhattan, Brooklyn and elsewhere, featuring over 700 artists and 150 groups from all over the world.

Winter Jazzfest has become a home for exciting and forward-thinking contemporary jazz being created and played right now, and as result it manages to attract a deeply engaged, discerning audience that includes a diverse range of fans, critics, journalists and tastemakers from across North American and over 20 countries quickly becoming a key destination for those looking for new talent and new sounds.

Although 2020 has finally come to a close, there’s something that most of us can agree on: last year was a real fucking asshole. The pandemic and my mom’s health threw both career plans and coverage plans out of the window for a variety of reasons. Originally, I was going to write an extensive review of Winter Jazzfest — but 2020; however, I took some great photos that I’ll be sharing throughout the early part of this year.

After catching bandleader, percussionist and JOVM mainstay Sunny Jain at Mercury Lounge, I went uptown — about 20 blocks or so — to Webster Hall for the first of a two star-studded nights of music there that featured the following: