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Weekend Tips: What to Do This Weekend in Berlin
October 9 to 11, 2026: Events, festivals, exhibitions and more things to do for your perfect weekend in Berlin. more
Jazzfest Berlin 2026: Christian Lillinger // The Tomeka Reid Quartet // CHICAGO UNDERGROUND Duo
Date details
- Date Saturday, 31/October/2026 18:00
- Venue Haus der Berliner Festspiele - Große Bühne
- Address Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin-Wilmersdorf
Public transportation
-
Underground
-
U Spichernstr.
- U9
- U3
-
U Uhlandstr.
- U1
-
U Kurfürstendamm
- U9
- U1
-
U Augsburger Str.
- U3
-
U Hohenzollernplatz
- U3
-
U Güntzelstr.
- U9
-
U Spichernstr.
-
Bus
-
Friedrich-Hollaender-Platz
- 204
- N3
- N9
- N7X
- 249
-
Lietzenburger Str./Uhlandstr.
- 249
-
U Spichernstr.
- 204
- N3
- N9
- N7X
-
Pariser Str.
- 249
-
U Uhlandstr.
- 109
- 110
- 249
- M19
- M29
- N10
- X10
-
U Kurfürstendamm
- 204
- 249
- N3
- N9
- N7X
- 109
- 110
- M19
- M29
- N10
- X10
- M46
- N1
- N2
- N26
-
Berlin, Bleibtreustr.
- 109
- 110
- M19
- M29
- N10
-
U Hohenzollernplatz
- N3
- 249
-
U Güntzelstr.
- N9
- N7X
-
Bamberger Str.
- 204
-
Theater des Westens
- M49
- X34
-
Uhlandstr./Kantstr.
- M49
- X34
-
Friedrich-Hollaender-Platz
Jazzfest Berlin 2026: Christian Lillinger // The Tomeka Reid Quartet // CHICAGO UNDERGROUND Duo
Tomeka Reid Quartet, Chicago Underground Duo, Christian Lillinger’s Open Form For Society II – Collage aus Bdrei Bildern mit Menschen auf Stühlen.
© Laurence Miner, Mikel Patrick Avery, Nadja Hoehfeld
18:30
Christian Lillinger’s Open Form For Society II
(AT, DE, IT, NO, SE, SI, US)
Uraufführung
In 2019 drummer Christian Lillinger presented the second-ever performance of his ambitious Open Form For Society at Jazzfest Berlin. Then as now, the project builds on many of the theoretical underpinnings of his long-running trio with vibraphonist Christopher Dell and bassist Jonas Westergaard, expanding them into a panoramic vista. In the trio, intricate polyrhythms and contrapuntal melodic figures emerge from endlessly morphing, criss-crossing lines: a strain of improvisation rooted in endless hours of rehearsal and research that provides a deep grounding for collective spontaneity. The Open Form For Society project collects many of the drummer’s most trusted colleagues to multiply specific instrumental voices upon rigorously developed compositions – he calls it “a radically condensed form of chamber music”. Indeed, the rhythms are taut and the intervals tight, and concentrating so many voices within these confines is a bold ploy, because it requires the musicians to listen carefully, proceeding as a single organism.
Lillinger further challenges himself by employing multiples of several instruments rather than assembling a more conventional band. There are five superb, individualistic keyboardists – Kaja Draksler, Cory Smythe, Georg Vogel, Elias Stemeseder, and Anna D’Errico – with Westergaard, Ole Morten Vågan and Petter Eldh on bass, some of it microtonal and occasionally manipulated with electronics. The group will give the world premiere of music from its remarkable second album Open Form for Society II, where the stunning execution relies on cooperation and interactive listening.
Line-up
Anna D’Errico – piano
Cory Smythe – piano
Kaja Draksler – celesta, upright piano
Elias Stemeseder – spinet, synthesizer
Georg Vogel – E-Claviton
Petter Eldh – double bass, electric bass
Jonas Westergaard – double bass
Ole Morten Vågan – double bass
Christopher Dell – vibraphone
Christian Lillinger – composition, concept, drums, electronics
20:00
The Tomeka Reid Quartet: dance! skip! hop!
(US)
A gifted composer, bandleader and improviser, Chicago cellist Tomeka Reid has experienced a steady ascent since first emerging as a close collaborator of flutist Nicole Mitchell two and a half decades ago. While she’s made a huge impact through collaborative efforts with the likes of Craig Taborn, James Brandon Lewis, Myra Melford, Mike Reed and Dave Douglas, it’s been her dazzling quartet that’s captured the full spectrum of her artistry. Joined by guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, the warm, string-driven sound is close to the leader’s heart – since 2013 she’s been organizing the Chicago Jazz String Summit to uplift the art of improvisation in that overlooked instrumental family.
Reid has been riding high on the acclaim generated by dance! skip! hop!, the fourth album from her quartet, which makes its Berlin debut with this performance. The latest release reinforces the cellist’s gift for sweet-toned, ebullient melodies while revealing a growing sense of urgency and force in her compositions, qualities deftly underlined by her versatile, highly distinctive bandmates. Reid gives her collaborators generous creative space, but the infectious sound is all her own, including bowed solos of exquisite beauty and propulsive comping that lifts up everyone’s playing.
Line-up
Tomeka Reid – cello
Jason Roebke – double bass
Tomas Fujiwara – drums
Mary Halvorson – guitar
21:30
CHICAGO UNDERGROUND Duo
(US)
Trumpeter Rob Mazurek and drummer Chad Taylor have both played Jazzfest Berlin in multiple contexts, but this appearance marks the overdue festival debut of their longest-running collaboration, CHICAGO UNDERGROUND Duo. Since releasing 12° of Freedom back in 1998, the pair has consistently sought out fresh modes of communication in its transmission of rhythm and melody. The wide-open ethos of the great Don Cherry remains an inspiration, whether his astonishing duo with drummer Ed Blackwell or the expansive, poly-stylistic practice of his Organic Music Society. Last year, Mazurek and Taylor released the remarkable Hyperglyph, their first new album in eleven years, which offered yet another bracing chapter in the duo’s shapeshifting history.
The pair has never delivered music so groovy and hard-hitting, whether it’s the driving title piece where the trumpeter unleashes a primal howl in addition to searing brass improvisations and saturated chords on an RMI electric piano, a key tool in the electric music of Miles Davis, or the needling thrum of Contents of Your Heavenly Body, the foundation for Mazurek’s fiery oratory. Some pieces ride on futuristic synth-bass ostinatos while elsewhere Taylor reaches back to Africa with his cascading kalimba and mbira lines. Many of the pieces embrace cyclical patterns, rhythmic gambits that hypnotize the listener while the musicians build atop the grooves with improvisations that feel inseparable from the limber propulsion. Meanwhile, a suite written for Mazurek’s mentor and close collaborator Bill Dixon strips away most of the electronics in favor of visceral one-to-one interplay.
Line-up
Rob Mazurek – piccolo trumpet, electronics, voice
Chad Taylor – drums
Christian Lillinger’s Open Form For Society II
(AT, DE, IT, NO, SE, SI, US)
Uraufführung
In 2019 drummer Christian Lillinger presented the second-ever performance of his ambitious Open Form For Society at Jazzfest Berlin. Then as now, the project builds on many of the theoretical underpinnings of his long-running trio with vibraphonist Christopher Dell and bassist Jonas Westergaard, expanding them into a panoramic vista. In the trio, intricate polyrhythms and contrapuntal melodic figures emerge from endlessly morphing, criss-crossing lines: a strain of improvisation rooted in endless hours of rehearsal and research that provides a deep grounding for collective spontaneity. The Open Form For Society project collects many of the drummer’s most trusted colleagues to multiply specific instrumental voices upon rigorously developed compositions – he calls it “a radically condensed form of chamber music”. Indeed, the rhythms are taut and the intervals tight, and concentrating so many voices within these confines is a bold ploy, because it requires the musicians to listen carefully, proceeding as a single organism.
Lillinger further challenges himself by employing multiples of several instruments rather than assembling a more conventional band. There are five superb, individualistic keyboardists – Kaja Draksler, Cory Smythe, Georg Vogel, Elias Stemeseder, and Anna D’Errico – with Westergaard, Ole Morten Vågan and Petter Eldh on bass, some of it microtonal and occasionally manipulated with electronics. The group will give the world premiere of music from its remarkable second album Open Form for Society II, where the stunning execution relies on cooperation and interactive listening.
Line-up
Anna D’Errico – piano
Cory Smythe – piano
Kaja Draksler – celesta, upright piano
Elias Stemeseder – spinet, synthesizer
Georg Vogel – E-Claviton
Petter Eldh – double bass, electric bass
Jonas Westergaard – double bass
Ole Morten Vågan – double bass
Christopher Dell – vibraphone
Christian Lillinger – composition, concept, drums, electronics
20:00
The Tomeka Reid Quartet: dance! skip! hop!
(US)
A gifted composer, bandleader and improviser, Chicago cellist Tomeka Reid has experienced a steady ascent since first emerging as a close collaborator of flutist Nicole Mitchell two and a half decades ago. While she’s made a huge impact through collaborative efforts with the likes of Craig Taborn, James Brandon Lewis, Myra Melford, Mike Reed and Dave Douglas, it’s been her dazzling quartet that’s captured the full spectrum of her artistry. Joined by guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, the warm, string-driven sound is close to the leader’s heart – since 2013 she’s been organizing the Chicago Jazz String Summit to uplift the art of improvisation in that overlooked instrumental family.
Reid has been riding high on the acclaim generated by dance! skip! hop!, the fourth album from her quartet, which makes its Berlin debut with this performance. The latest release reinforces the cellist’s gift for sweet-toned, ebullient melodies while revealing a growing sense of urgency and force in her compositions, qualities deftly underlined by her versatile, highly distinctive bandmates. Reid gives her collaborators generous creative space, but the infectious sound is all her own, including bowed solos of exquisite beauty and propulsive comping that lifts up everyone’s playing.
Line-up
Tomeka Reid – cello
Jason Roebke – double bass
Tomas Fujiwara – drums
Mary Halvorson – guitar
21:30
CHICAGO UNDERGROUND Duo
(US)
Trumpeter Rob Mazurek and drummer Chad Taylor have both played Jazzfest Berlin in multiple contexts, but this appearance marks the overdue festival debut of their longest-running collaboration, CHICAGO UNDERGROUND Duo. Since releasing 12° of Freedom back in 1998, the pair has consistently sought out fresh modes of communication in its transmission of rhythm and melody. The wide-open ethos of the great Don Cherry remains an inspiration, whether his astonishing duo with drummer Ed Blackwell or the expansive, poly-stylistic practice of his Organic Music Society. Last year, Mazurek and Taylor released the remarkable Hyperglyph, their first new album in eleven years, which offered yet another bracing chapter in the duo’s shapeshifting history.
The pair has never delivered music so groovy and hard-hitting, whether it’s the driving title piece where the trumpeter unleashes a primal howl in addition to searing brass improvisations and saturated chords on an RMI electric piano, a key tool in the electric music of Miles Davis, or the needling thrum of Contents of Your Heavenly Body, the foundation for Mazurek’s fiery oratory. Some pieces ride on futuristic synth-bass ostinatos while elsewhere Taylor reaches back to Africa with his cascading kalimba and mbira lines. Many of the pieces embrace cyclical patterns, rhythmic gambits that hypnotize the listener while the musicians build atop the grooves with improvisations that feel inseparable from the limber propulsion. Meanwhile, a suite written for Mazurek’s mentor and close collaborator Bill Dixon strips away most of the electronics in favor of visceral one-to-one interplay.
Line-up
Rob Mazurek – piccolo trumpet, electronics, voice
Chad Taylor – drums
Alternative events
© Quelle: Reservix-System
Thank you, Jiggs!
Danke Jiggs! Mit einem ebenso fulminanten wie wehmütigen Abschiedskonzert verabschiedet sich das LaJJazzO Brandenburg – Brandenburgs Top-Talentschmiede des Jazznachwuchses – von seinem langjährigen Bandleader, Mentor und Ausnahme-Posaunisten Prof. Jiggs... moreabout: Thank you, Jiggs!
- Date:
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- Venue:
- Schinkelhalle Potsdam
- Address:
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- Price:
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© Quelle: Reservix-System
Thank you, Jiggs!
Danke Jiggs! Mit einem ebenso fulminanten wie wehmütigen Abschiedskonzert verabschiedet sich das LaJJazzO Brandenburg – Brandenburgs Top-Talentschmiede des Jazznachwuchses – von seinem langjährigen Bandleader, Mentor und Ausnahme-Posaunisten Prof. Jiggs... moreabout: Thank you, Jiggs!
- Date:
- Saturday, 31/October/2026 19:00
- Venue:
- Schinkelhalle Potsdam
- Address:
- Schiffbauergasse 1, 14467 Potsdam
- Price:
- from €16.00
© Eventim
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- Next date:
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- Date:
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- Venue:
- Zig Zag Hall
- Address:
- EUREF-Campus 26, 10829 BERLIN
- Price:
- from €33.00
© Eventim
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- Next date:
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- Zig Zag Hall
- Address:
- EUREF-Campus 26, 10829 BERLIN
- Price:
- from €33.00
© Malwina Witkowska
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- Next date:
- Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Exit) Knarr
- Date:
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- Venue:
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- Price:
- from €23.78
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