Brick Lane Jazz Festival returns for its fifth edition across 12 stages in Brick Lane and Shoreditch, keeping the walkable format that lets you move between the Old Truman Brewery, Village Underground, Ninety One Living Room, Rich Mix and 93 Feet East in minutes. New for 2026 is a daytime conference programme running through the centre of the weekend, adding focused talks, workshops and mentoring sessions to a festival that has grown from four venues in 2022 into a 12-space platform for East London’s jazz and grassroots music community.
The first headline bookings show the range. Brian Jackson brings his 1970s work with Gil Scott-Heron alongside recent solo material, with Rhodes, flute and direct political songwriting in the same set. Joe Armon-Jones, founding member of Mercury Prize-winning Ezra Collective, leads a group built on dub basslines, broken-beat drums and hip-hop inflections, drawing from his Brownswood and AQUARii catalogue. French-Senegalese singer anaiis makes a UK debut with Grupo Cosmo, the São Paulo musicians she recorded a Brazilian–R&B crossover album with last year. The broader programme spans Afro-soul from Berlin’s Jembaa Groove, batida and kuduro from Lisbon’s Nídia & Valentina, South London broken beat from Footshooter, and Latin jazz from BONITA, alongside rising UK players including saxophonist Maddy Coombs and Genevieve Namazzi Quartet.
The conference takes place at Flow State Hub, an open-plan warehouse in Ely’s Yard, with evening networking at Juju’s Bar & Stage. Speakers include Gary Crosby, from Tomorrow’s Warriors, Ahnansé of Steam Down, Brownswood Recordings‘s Valentine Comar, Tru Thoughts co-founder Robert Luis, DJs, broadcasters and curators Tina Edwards and Rohan Rakhit, and Women in Jazz, who will also run one-to-one mentoring sessions. Across panels and workshops they draw on experience in artist development, independent labels, live programming, radio and community organising, with a clear focus on practical routes into the industry for emerging musicians and workers. Alongside the talks and mentoring, National Jazz Archive joins as Cultural Partner with exhibits and a pop-up shop, while One Jazz Radio broadcasts live from the hub across all four days.
With the new conference and a deeper 2026 line-up, Brick Lane Jazz Festival now reads as both a multi-venue celebration and a working platform for London’s jazz and grassroots music community.
