The Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts. Courtesy JGCFA
“People can you feel it, (Revival’s) everywhere. People can you hear it (revival’s) everywhere” – from “Revival” by Dickey Betts from Idlewild South
People felt it and heard last Friday night (September 25th), as the Riverwest Jazz Fest revived and returned with a stoked fire, boosting a collective energy.
I paraphrase an early Allman Brothers song by substituting the title verb “revival” for the lyric’s refrain verb of “love,” as the 1970 idealism (“We’re in a revolution. don’t you know we’re right?”) seems over-bullish in our politically crabbed and beleagured times. Or does it? (Discuss)
But this is my neighborhood and my hometown dammit, so I’ll feel good and celebrate it if I wanna, and this is my blog.
The Riverwest Jazz Fest had debuted in 2023 – modeled after the long-successful (and more upscale and commercially viable) one-night Bay View Jazz Fest. Then this fest disappeared, until last week and people seemed hungry for this to happen. A modest venture perhaps, but Riverwest is as richly bohemian as Milwaukee neighborhoods get (along with the East Side, with a much higher percentage of student population) and Center Street has the powerful, magnetic jazz pedigree of the original Milwaukee Jazz Gallery from the 1980s, now the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts.
The new space has sustained itself through the Riverwest Artists Association’s organizational effort as a non-profit which also sells plenty of artwork by local artists — unlike the other venues. The current members art show encompassed the space with vibrant, eccentric and beautiful imagery. 1
But no bar, only a small, stoveless kitchen. The venue’s comparative purity seems somehow apt. There’s something slightly sacred about this space, at least in my mind, even if the original revered venue did had a bar. Though greatly updated, it still has the same checkerboard stage of historic yore. (See photo at top)
That doesn’t mean in the slightest that events at the JGCA can’t be very communal, high-spirited and sometimes world-class jazz, cutting edge improv, hip-hop etc. even comedy.
(The recent concert there, a fundraiser preceding this fest, by the dazzling Cuban pianist Jorge Luis Pacheco underscored that: as astounding a pianistic performance as I’ve heard in a long time. With a strong trio, he proved the adage — I think coined by jazz piano giant Cecil Taylor – that the piano is 88 tuned drums. By turns panther-ferocious and orchid-melodic, Pacheco adds a chatty, charismatic personality and ardent singing — “Guantanamera”! — all helping his growing international stardom.)
Anyway, I went straight to the JGCA when I arrived at the Friday night jazz fest belatedly due to other commitments.
Yep, the place exuded world-class stuff, again. But it was Milwaukee-vintage with heady boosts from Madison and especially Chicago. Holding forth was the stunning Ben Dameron Quartet, led by the classically trained virtuoso guitarist-leader-composer, with his sharply electrifying, pointillistic power with swiftly able Madison-based keyboardist Nick Sanders. Fueling the fire was Dameron’s fabulously swinging drummer-partner Hannah Johnson along with monster Chicago bassist-bandleader Ethan Philion — the best rhythm section I’ve heard live in a while. 2
Ms. Johnson’s irrepressible joy in playing (and, likely, practicing like a fiend) is part of her supple gift, and radiates through her drum set. It’s as if she swimming in a pool of warm, buoyant rhythms. The guitar-drummer couple also co-lead a Milwaukee quartet called Heirloom.
A detail photo of jazz drummer Hannah Johnson. Photo courtesy Hannah Johnson
This quartet flared and sang, especially with a soulful tune once recorded by Milwaukee pianist Buddy Montgomery and his famous guitarist brother Wes.
But, as I walked up and down Center Street, the crowd snaked and billowed for the mostly free event – spiking the heart’s hope for the future of this event. The collective energy of both audiences and performers seemed mutually contageous, coverging and rising like a muscular Lake Michigan wave.
“If there is a single mantra for our efforts with the Bay View and Riverwest Jazz Fests it is commUNITY.” wrote trumpeter-bandleader and cofounder of milwaukeejazzvision.org Jamie Brewick in an email comment. “Despite the challenges facing the arts these days, our goal is to lift the scene, to be seen—and heard—and to showcase the multitude of talent that we have in our fair city.”
And as a neighborhood event, this one contained multitudes, to paraphrase Walt Whitman.
Breiwick added that an accumulation of donations was crucial to the RW Fest’s revival, a sign that Milwaukee jazzers are getting savvier at DYI event production. All featured performing musicians received stipends. However, the powerful guiding light of this event, organizationally and financially, doubtlessly is the Milwaukee Jazz Institute, formed in 2019 by the brilliant pianist-educator Mark Davis and fellow ex-Wisconsin Conservatory faculty. Thanks to MJI, jazz education thrives in this community, with regular lessons at various venues, including JGCA, and downtown.
A core of MJI faculty also comprise a superb ensemble called We Six, with collectivity as an underlying thematic.
My impression was that another key to the fest success was the presence of the newest and largest of the four venues, Diaspora MKE.
The former Company Brewing space has been since bought and occupied by the Black-owned venue, whose full name is Diaspora MKE Sports Bar and Lounge. They’re clearly striving for a broader market appeal but also hosting some live jazz, especially catering to Milwaukee’s large African-American population, which comprised more than half the Diaspora crowd. Center Street leads west directly into the middle of the inner city. And we have plenty of Black residents right here in this neighborhood. Such diversity is also the essence of Riverwest.
I missed Diaspora opener GIL Jazz, but a special band performed a tribute concert for the recently deceased city jazz “godfather” Manty Ellis, with drummer Sam Belton, a longtime Ellis sideman, manning the mike. The band included Wes-inspired guitarist John Zaffiro and soulfully animate keyboardist Jerry Weitzer, a veteran Manty and Buddy Montgomery bandmate, plus a bassist and second percussionist. They plied mostly standards, including a deliciously grooved “Poinciana.”
Meanwhile, a bevy of TVs provided a Brewers-Cardinals game near the climactic end of Milwaukee’s greatest regular season, enhancing the appeal and buzz, including a classic late-inning Brewers rally.
The venue also displays a cultural consciousness in the anti-immigrant Trump era on its Facebook page: “Diaspora MKE is Milwaukee’s premiere destination for those who seek good music, food, elevated conversation, and a community without borders.”
I missed the after-hours jam session at Diaspora. But it recalled how hometown Grammy-winning jazz trumpet hero Brian Lynch (currently recovering from cancer surgery) highlighted the debut RW Fest jam session in 2023.
My last stop was at Bar Centro, the neighborhood’s coolest jazz bar, where sultry and songful chanteuse Faith Hatch deftly wooed a warm crowd with a young battery of talented sidemen, including the versatile and gifted pianist Tael Estrema.
Milwaukee singer Faith Hatch performs with a guest vocalist and her young band in Bar Centro, at the revived 2026 Riverwest Jazz Fest. Photo courtesy Craig Johnson
Sorry for missing the fourth venue, Club Timbuktu, another hip, atmospheric space with the fiery and danceable Carlos Adames Group, and the WEPA Trio, featuring veteran guitarist Neal Davis, co-founder of milwaukeejazzvision.org.
Striving for a tad of reportorial restraint, I’ll let the Facebook enthusiasm of Milwaukee saxophonist Michael Arndt II, who played in the after-hours jam session, sum it up: “There was a beautiful, palpable energy in the air—a shared passion that you could feel the second you walked up. I have never been more proud of the Milwaukee jazz scene than I am tonight. Every single musician who took the stage didn’t just play; they stepped up to the plate and poured their entire hearts, minds, and souls into their instruments.”
Amen to that.
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- JGCA director and board president Mark Lawson is also a gallery operator at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
- Bassist-arranger Ethan Philion’s 2022 ensemble album Mediations on Mingus, was my NPR Jazz Poll choice for album of the year and was honored by a various of the poll’s critics. In 2020 Philion was a Chicago Luminarts Jazz Fellow, and in 2019 Winner of the International Society of Bassists Jazz Competition.
- This is a belated report of the Riverwest Jazz Fest, held September 25, 2026. I was working on my forthcoming book which includes much about Milwaukee jazz past and somewhat present. So, I’m including a portion of this write-up in Voices in the River: The Jazz Message to Democracy.