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Jazz'SAlive is one of the city’s biggest jazz events and has been going on for 43 years running. It starts on Friday as the first day of a two-day event.
Mary Jane Verette is president and CEO of the San Antonio Parks Foundation, which puts on the event.
“We are in our 43rd year of bringing national, regional, and local talent to San Antonio to celebrate jazz, all genres of it, all forms of it,” Verette said. “We love to bring that out free to the public.”
They are playing on Civic Park’s big, grassy lawn at Hemisfair, and the list of performers is long and impressive.
“We open up with the Samba Vida dance performance, then by Blaque Dynamite, who is a wonderful, wonderful percussionist coming in from Los Angeles," said Verette. "We also have Yuko Mabuchi. She's a very talented, classically trained pianist who simply loves jazz. After that, we have the U.S. Air Force Dimensions in Blue Jazz Band, and then our headliner on Friday is Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra coming in from New Orleans.”
Then on Saturday the jazz continues.
“We have Billy Ray Shepard, who's very much a local favorite, followed by Magos Herrera, who is coming in from Mexico, and the Houston Tillotson Jazz Combo, which is a historically Black university that just won third place overall in a 2026 National Collegiate Jazz Competition, said Verette. "And then our headliner on Saturday evening is an icon: It's Arturo Sandoval. "
"(He's a) Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, Kennedy Center honoree, 10 Grammy awards. ... He's on his 2026 world tour, and we are one stop on that world tour here that is free and open to our citizens," said Verette
The admission is free.
There will be food and drink to purchase, and then there is also an opportunity to purchase a VIP experience, which includes reserved seating with the Nola restaurant providing dinner.
Find all the scheduling information and more here.
