Jazz on the Mountain
Jan 23-26, 2026
Jazz on the Mountain
This year’s Jazz on the Mountain at Mohonk, curated by Pete Malinverni, unites jazz legends and rising stars for a weekend of pure musical brilliance.
The festival opens with award-winning vocalist Lucy Yeghiazaryan and multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson, followed by the next generation of talent in the New Jazz Ambassadors. Renowned jazz historian and GRAMMY-nominated author Will Friedwald offers an illuminating talk, while the beloved Parlor Games Jam Session keeps tradition alive, and the evening closes with Pete Malinverni’s “Invisible Cities Quintet” featuring trumpeter Wayne Tucker and saxophonist Scott Robinson.
Closing night brings the soulful baritone of Allan Harris together with GRAMMY-winning saxophonist Kendric McCallister, and the finale soars with the Helen Sung Trio. It’s three days of powerhouse performances, rich traditions, and unforgettable Mohonk magic.
Availability is limited.
For reservations, please call (855) 883-3798.
What’s Included
Your stay at Mohonk Mountain House includes access to countless activities and experiences for guest of all ages, including our indoor swimming pool, tennis courts, show gardens, and an award-winning spa. Discover all that Mohonk has to offer during your mountaintop getaway.
Entertainment
Themed Mohonk Signature Events, featuring live music and engaging performances, changing daily
Schedule of Events
This Year’s Artists
Weekend Curator,
Pete Malinverni
Pete Malinverni has a career with many facets: he’s led sixteen well-received recordings, including in solo, violin/piano duo, trio, quartet, quintet, choir and big band formats. For eighteen years he served as Minister of Music at the predominantly African American Devoe Street Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY and currently serves in that capacity at the Pound Ridge, NY Community Church and as Pianist/Conductor at the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY. He enjoys teaching, too, and is past-Chair of Jazz Studies at Purchase College (SUNY). Pete’s newest recording, “On the Town – Pete Malinverni Plays Leonard Bernstein”, featuring Ugonna Okegwo and Jeff Hamilton, was in the Top Ten for several weeks for jazz radio airplay, reaching #2 for two weeks. Copies will be available at the shows.
Allan Harris
Allan Harris, praised by The New York Times for his “formidable baritone and hushed intensity,” is one of the most captivating voices in contemporary jazz and soul. Over a career spanning four decades, he has released 14 acclaimed albums, earning his place among the great interpreters of the American Songbook while also breaking new ground as a composer and storyteller. Brooklyn-born and Harlem-based, Harris grew up on Nat King Cole, Eddie Jefferson, and Al Jarreau, but his music pulses with a modern heartbeat. His genre-defying works include Cross That River, a musical reimagining of the Black West, and Kate’s Soulfood, a tribute to his family’s legendary Harlem restaurant. His songs honor history, uplift identity, and stir the soul. From his early recordings in the ’90s to The Poetry of Jazz—which sets the words of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Shakespeare to swinging grooves—Harris continues to evolve and inspire. Whether backed by a jazz trio or a full orchestra, he commands the stage with warmth, sophistication, and undeniable truth.
Scott Robinson
Scott Robinson, one of today’s most wide-ranging instrumentalists, has been heard on tenor sax with Buck Clayton’s band, on trumpet with Lionel Hampton’s quintet, on alto clarinet with Paquito D’Rivera’s clarinet quartet, and on bass sax with the New York City Opera. On these and other instruments, he has been heard with a cross-section of jazz greats representing nearly every imaginable style of the music, from Braff to Braxton. His discography now includes more than 190 recordings. Scott has performed in some 30 nations, in such diverse venues as Carnegie Hall, the Village Vanguard, the Library of Congress, and the Vienna Opera House. Scott’s group was selected to be the closing act at the Knitting Factory’s Sun Ra Festival in New York City. Scott has also written magazine articles and liner notes, and was an invited speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus Jazz Forum in Washington, D.C.
Helen Sung
Helen Sung diverged from her classical roots after encountering jazz while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. She went on to graduate in the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (renamed the Herbie Hancock Institute in 2019) at the New England Conservatory of Music, and win the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition. With nine leader albums to her credit, she has also toured/recorded with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. A Steinway Artist and Guggenheim Fellow, “Sung plays with crisp swing and elegant invention, her rhythms drawing from the music’s blues roots – and setting listeners’ heads bobbing – while she explores her own fresh ideas, often inspired from her classical training.” (New York Times)
Lucy Yeghiazaryan
Lucy Yeghiazaryan is an American Armenian vocalist who has become a leading voice in American straight-ahead jazz by bringing the real richness of her heritage together with her love for the ultimate American art form. She is a recipient of grants from the Doris Duke Foundation, Chamber Music America and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has shared the stage with Harold Mabern, Houston Person, Grant Stewart, Terell Stafford, Bernadette Peters, Arto Tuncboyaijian and many more. She regularly works with the Emmet Cohen trio and can be found performing in and outside of The United States with regular appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, Mezzrow, Symphony Space and more.
Wayne Tucker
Wayne Tucker is a trumpeter, composer, arranger, violinist and vocalist based in New York City. He has released 4 albums under his name and performs regularly with his band, The Bad Mothas in New York City. Wayne has toured and recorded with a diverse array of notables such as jazz musicians Kurt Elling, Al Foster, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Cyrille Aimée; pop acts Taylor Swift, David Crosby, Elvis Costello, Matt Simons and Eric Hutchinson; r&b singers Ne-Yo and Gabriel Garzon-Montano; hip hop artists Jidenna and Ryan Leslie; and with the rock band Brass Against. This diversity is represented in Wayne’s group, The Bad Mothas, who’s energetic sound features an updated American Songbook, including selections by Michael Jackson or Earth Wind & Fire. Wayne continues to maintain a dedicated presence in the small clubs of New York City alongside a career which makes occasional forays into venues like Madison Square Garden, The Hollywood Bowl, and The Tonight Show, to name a few. Tucker wrote the soundtrack and co-stars in the short film Hotel Bleu.
Will Friedwald
Will Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Sun, The New York Stage Review, Vanity Fair, Playboy magazine and other publications. He is also the host of the radio show Sing! Sing! Sing! on San Diego KSDS on Saturday mornings. He also is the author of ten books including the award-winning A Biographical Guide To The Great Jazz And Pop Singers, Sinatra: The Song Is You, Stardust Melodies, Tony Bennett: The Good Life, Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies, and Jazz Singing. He has written over 600 liner notes for compact discs, received eleven Grammy nominations, and appears frequently on television and other documentaries. He is also a consultant and curator for Apple Music. Current books: The Great Jazz And Pop Vocal Albums (Pantheon Books / Random House, November 2017), Sinatra: The Song Is You! – New Revised Edition (Chicago Review Press, May 2018) and Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole (Oxford University Press, July 2020). He studied elocution with Prof. Henry Higgins and musicology with Prof. Harold Hill.
Kendric McCallister
Kendric McCallister was born in St. Petersburg FL, just at the turn of the century. Kendric is a GRAMMY award winning tenor saxophonist, an arranger and composer. Having played with Brian Lynch, Jon Faddis, Samara Joy, Pasquale Grasso, Roy Hargrove, Barry Harris and more.
Paul Gill
Paul Gill is a veteran jazz bassist celebrated for his rich tone, expressive arco solos, and commanding walking bass lines. A fixture of the New York jazz scene since 1984, he first gained recognition performing with legendary vocalist Jon Hendricks. Over the years, Gill has toured internationally with Diana Krall and shared the stage with icons including Hank Jones, Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, and Pat Martino. His versatility has led to more than 60 recordings and collaborations with ensembles such as the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra and artists like Elvis Costello and Lou Donaldson. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Gill began on electric bass at age 12 before switching to upright bass and earning a music degree from Towson University. Before relocating to New York, he honed his craft in the Baltimore–Washington D.C. jazz circuit, performing with Jim Snidero, Gary Bartz, and visiting greats like Rosemary Clooney, Benny Golson, and Stanley Turrentine.
Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson is one of jazz’s most vibrant and beloved drummers, known for his joyous swing, inventive style, and boundless humor. A GRAMMY-nominated artist and educator, Wilson has appeared on over 400 recordings alongside icons such as Herbie Hancock, Dewey Redman, Lee Konitz, and Pat Metheny. His own acclaimed projects — including Honey and Salt and Beginning of a Memory — earned multiple five-star reviews in DownBeat and spots on NPR and JazzTimes “Best of the Year” lists. Twice named “Drummer of the Year” by the Jazz Journalists Association and “Musician of the Year” in 2018, Wilson has graced the covers of every major jazz publication. Beyond the stage, he hosts Playdate with Matt Wilson on WBGO, curates the “Jazz on Stage” series at the Tilles Center, and inspires the next generation through teaching at leading institutions worldwide. With his infectious spirit and deep sense of humanity, Wilson continues to embody the joy and spontaneity at the heart of jazz.
Ugonna Okegwo
Ugonna Okegwo is one of the most distinctive and sought-after jazz bassists in the world. Critics across the globe have praised him for his rich tone, supple sense of swing, stylistic range and inventiveness. These qualities have not only earned him a place on the bandstand with jazz legends as diverse as Clark Terry, Benny Golson, Pharoah Sanders and Joseph Jarman – they have established him as one of the leading lights of a younger generation redefining jazz for the new century. Born 1962 in London to a German mother and Nigerian father, Okegwo was raised in Germany, studying with American expatriates, bassist Jay Oliver, and pianist Walter Norris. There Okegwo caught the attention of trombonist and Mingus alum, Lou Blackburn, who invited Okegwo to tour Europe with his Afro-Jazz group “Mombasa”. In 1989, Okegwo made the leap to Manhattan and began playing with musicians like saxophone legends Big Nick Nicholas, Junior Cook, and James Spaulding. Okegwo is also a bandleader taking his quartet to Europe and documented the group with a recording entitled “UOniverse” [Satchmo Jazz]. The material, which consists of his compositions and brilliantly arranged standards, draws from a wide range of influences, including jazz, African, funk, and classical music.
Aaron Seeber
Aaron Seeber, from Queens, NY is making his name as an emerging Jazz drummer in New York City. As a performer, Seeber has had the incredible opportunity to share the stage with greats Eric Reed, Pete Malinverni, Warren Wolf, Grant Stewart, Cyrille Aimée, Jeremy Pelt, Paul Bollenback, Tim Green, Ugonna Okegwo, Bruce Harris, Gary Smulyan, Mike Ledonne, Freddie Redd, Butch Warren, Chuck Redd, and many others. He has performed internationally with The Warren Wolf Trio and nationally with the GRAMMY award-winning group, The New York Voices. Aaron has played at many of the renowned venues and festivals around the world including Blues Alley, Marian’s Jazz Room (Switzerland), The Blue Note New York, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Birdland, The Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Twins Jazz, The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, The Caramoor Jazz Festival, The DC Jazz Festival and The Falcon. Seeber recently recorded his debut record “First Move” featuring Warren Wolf, Tim Green, Sullivan Fortner, and Ugonna Okegwo. It will be released May 13th, 2022 on Cellar Live Records.
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