Overview The Montclair Jazz Festival is a free summer of jazz in Montclair, New Jersey, curated by the 11-time Grammy winner Christian McBride, and in 2026 the Smithsonian chose it as a collaborating festival for its 250th-anniversary Festival of Festivals. The summer opens with a run of Tuesday-night Soundcheck concerts at Wellmont Arts Plaza and ends on an August Saturday with the Downtown Jamboree, ten hours of music in the middle of town followed by a block party. Jazz House Kids produces it: the Montclair nonprofit founded by Melissa Walker, in its third decade, which puts on more than 150 free public concerts a year and teaches students from 8 to 19. On site In 2026 the Jamboree took over Lackawanna Plaza by the old Lackawanna Station. The Gotham Kings brass band paraded in at 11, and from noon two stages ran side by side: the main stage for the headliners and the Jazz House stage for the organization's own big bands, the CHiCA Power Big Band and students from its summer workshop. A vendor village carried a curated set of food and dry-goods vendors, and the program was built for families. At 8 the Jamboree turned into a block party with DJ Prince Hakim until 10. Admission stayed free, with a pay-what-you-wish Jam Pass to register. Talent and Influencers The 2026 edition honored the Miles Davis and John Coltrane centennials and the jazz cities behind them. The Jamboree main stage carried Take Me to the River New Orleans All-Stars with Cyril Neville, the Christian McBride Big Band with Bilal playing Philadelphia repertoire, Patrice Rushen, NEA Jazz Master Dianne Reeves and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. Soundcheck brought Bobby Watson and Jason Moran, the Count Basie Orchestra, Michele Rosewoman and Orrin Evans, Joel Ross' Good Vibes and Rebirth Brass Band. Earlier bills included Lisa Fischer and Grand Baton and McBride's Inside Straight in 2024, and Regina Carter, Steve Turre and Edmar Castaneda in 2023. More than 150 young artists from Jazz House programs play across the summer. Track record The festival began in 2010 as a student concert in Nishuane Park that drew a few hundred people. The 2025 Jamboree drew more than 30,000, the largest crowd it had seen, and Jazz House Kids put 2026 at more than 32,000. The 2026 edition was the 17th. Brand presence United Airlines was the official airline in 2026, with the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism, Xfinity and Optimum among the named supporters. On Jamboree day a partner can put its name on a stage, the vendor village, the family jazz zone, the finale dance party, the jazz bar or a hospitality tent, and the festival counts its reach across owned, earned, paid and social media at more than 50 million.