Jazz In The Valley 2026 pays tribute to past masters and promotes both old and new at Waryas Park Poughkeepsie

August 22, 2026

2–3 minutes

By: Rudy Lu

Jazz in the Valley was created 26 years ago. It was created for a suite composed about the Hudson Valley by Randy Weston. The festival originally was performed in Highland, NY and migrated to Waryas Park in Poughkeepsie, NY in 2015.

This year’s performances presented old standards performed by Camille Thurman with the Darrell Green Quartet, compositions by Randy Weston featuring a trio of master musicians, swinging versions of Bob Dylan’s music by Javon Jackson and closing with of Latin Jazz of Zaccai Curtis.

Camille’s performances are like a double edge sword. She is a saxophonist and vocalist. She is accompanied by Darrell Green and his quartet. The quartet consisted of Amau Muata Adilifu (trumpet), Yago Vasquez(piano), Paul Beaudry (bass) and Aaron Spencer (sound engineer).

Randy Weston who would have turned 100 this year, was celebrated by a piano trio without a trap drum kit (Randy had favored using African instruments in his performances and compositions). Hartford based Sharp Radway made his debut at the festival on piano. Chief Baba Neil Clarke was on assorted percussion including congas and associated hand percussion. The inimitable Alex Blake was on bass. This was only the second performance of this trio. The first upstate. Hopefully there will be more.

Saxophonist Javon Jackson is the curator and musical director for JITV. Each year his appearance brings a different facet of jazz. This year, he and his combo have adapted the songs of Bob Dylan to jazz. After playing a brief medley of Sonny Rollins as a tribute to the recently departed Rollins, his band made sure that Dylan swung!

Jerry Menasia’s nimble fingers gave life to the music. The rhythm section consisting of Issac Levien-bass and Ryan Sands -drums displayed a command of dynamics and timing

Special guest Lisa Fischer gave life to the lyrics as well as scatted to some of the music. Lisa has used her powerful voice as a featured backup singer with the Rolling Stones on their world tours.

The inevitablility and timelessness of “The Times They Are A Changing”, “Blowing In The Wind” were sung with greater expression than the singalong nature of these anthems. The lyrics and performance of “Forever Young” brought tears to my eyes,

The closing of this festival is always the performance of a Latin Jazz band to celebrate life and the music. This year was no exception. A band led by pianist Zaccai Curtis with Reinaldo DeJesus ( flute/percussion) Camilo Molina (percussion)and Wilie Martinez ( percussion) energized the crowd with their Grammy winning release “Cubop Lives!” and their latest release “Sonoluminescence” as a gentle rain began to fall. The rain was actually refreshing, as the temperatures were comfortable.

A huge thank you goes out to the City of Poughkeepsie, Greer Smith with all the Transart Volunteers and the JITV audience which over the years has become a family.