There’s something special happening here at the kissa nearly every night — always without a cover — from advance listens and artist appearances, to theme nights and guest selectors. Here’s a look at what’s coming up soon:
September 2026
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Mon
Verve Mondays
Elvin Jones — Dear John C.
7:45 PM
Impulse! · Verve Mondays
Cut in February 1965 while Jones was still sitting behind John Coltrane every night. The title says who it is for; Coltrane does not play on it. Jones leads from the kit with Charlie Mariano on alto, Richard Davis on bass, and his older brother Hank Jones on piano.
Free · no cover
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Tue
Listening night
Bennie Wallace with Peter Washington
7:00 PM
listening session and live performance for “French Postcard”
The tenor saxophonist joins bassist Peter Washington for an evening built around his new record, a direct-to-tape analog session engineered by James Farber and mastered by Kevin Gray. We play the record on the house system, and the players perform.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Guest selector
LUVWAVE — WEST COAST!
7:00–11:00 PM
guest selector
Cool jazz, west coast jazz, easy listening and frontier-inspired classics, from A&M, Fantasy and Pacific Jazz. LUVWAVE is a vinyl selector specializing in mid-20th century world country artists and independently produced music history. She has been spinning for 10+ years and comes to us from Joshua Tree, California.
Free · no cover
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Thu
Coltrane 100
Trane with the Miles Davis Quintet
from 5:30 PM
70th anniversary of the ‘Round About Midnight session
Coltrane as sideman, before he was Trane. The first great quintet — Miles, Garland, Chambers, Philly Joe — across Prestige and Columbia sides. Runs through happy hour.
Free · no cover
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Sun
Listening night
Moodsville — a day of ballads on the small Prestige labels
from 3:00 PM · records at 5:00
three Craft reissues, five days before they are released
Prestige started Moodsville in 1960 for slow tempos and late listening, and Swingville the same year for the swing-era players bebop had left behind. Both labels all day, alongside the wider Prestige catalog. From 5:00 PM, three reissues in full: Moodsville, Volume 1 with the Red Garland Trio and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Moodsville, Volume 8 with the Frank Wess Quartet and Tommy Flanagan, and Coleman Hawkins’ The Hawk Relaxes with Kenny Burrell and a twenty-three-year-old Ron Carter. Craft releases all three on September 18th.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Verve Mondays
Blossom Dearie — Give Him The Ooh-La-La
7:45 PM
Verve Vault · Verve Mondays
Recorded across two days in September 1957 and released on Verve the following year, with Ray Brown on bass, Herb Ellis on guitar and Jo Jones on drums. A small, high, almost conversational voice that never oversells a lyric. A quiet record that rewards a quiet room.
Free · no cover
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Tue
Coltrane 100
Blue Train: The Complete Masters
7:00 PM
69th anniversary of the session
The whole evening is the record. Original sequence first, then the alternate takes, with Lee Morgan and Curtis Fuller on the front line.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Curated night
JP Reynolds — Latin Jazz
7:00–11:00 PM
curated night · third Wednesday
JP takes the third Wednesday of every month. This one runs through Latin jazz.
Free · no cover
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Thu
Curated night
David Phillips — British jazz
7:00 PM
the first of four monthly curated nights
Sixty years of the British scene in one night — Yussef Dayes, Ezra Collective and Courtney Pine alongside Joe Harriott, Ian Carr and Don Rendell. David came up through the London jazz clubs of the mid-1980s, which is a lens nobody else on the roster has.
Free · no cover
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Sun
Listening night
Chico Hamilton at 105
from 3:00 PM
born on this date in 1921 · and the Moodsville three, revisited
Chico Hamilton was born on September 20th, 1921 — the drummer who put a cello in a jazz quintet and led one of the last great West Coast bands. His records play all day. The three Craft reissues that debuted here last Sunday get a second pass too, now that they are out in the world.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Verve Mondays
Sonny Rollins — Brass / Trio
7:45 PM
Verve reissue · two sessions, two days apart
Two bands on one record. The brass side was cut on July 11th, 1958 with Ernie Wilkins conducting his own arrangements and Nat Adderley on cornet; the trio side went down the day before, Rollins out front with nothing behind him but bass and drums.
Free · no cover
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Tue
Listening night
Chris McCarthy
5:30–7:30 PM
album release listening party for “Too Late to Quit”
The Brooklyn pianist found this room as a guest, kept coming back, and asked to bring his new record here. We play it front to back on the house system, and his pressing joins the shelves afterward. Warm Welcome happy hour runs alongside it.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Coltrane 100
Centennial Celebration
from 5:30 PM
one hundred years to the day
John Coltrane was born on September 23, 1926. Two new box sets carry the night: an early listen to Coltrane 100: Selections from 1951-1967, and the 1960-1964 mono box playing all six Atlantic albums in order. We are also giving away copies of the new Ten Speed Press book edited by Ravi Coltrane. Doors 5:30 PM, happy hour until 7.
Free · no cover
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Sat
Coltrane 100
Coltrane & Friends
from 5:30 PM
64th anniversary of the Duke Ellington & John Coltrane date
The two “John Coltrane & X” Impulse! records back to back — Duke Ellington & John Coltrane, and John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman. An early Saturday, before the guest selector set.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Verve Mondays
Mel Tormé — Swings Shubert Alley
7:45 PM
Verve Vault · Verve Mondays
Marty Paich’s Dek-tette gives him thirteen pieces of West Coast brass and reeds to sing against, and the material is all Broadway. Tormé spent a career proving he could swing harder than the Velvet Fog nickname suggested.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Listening night
Mingus Takes Manhattan
7:00 PM
the complete Birdland dates, 1961–1962, four LPs straight through
Charles Mingus worked Birdland across four runs between October 1961 and October 1962. The sets went out over the radio, the broadcasts were taped, and the tapes then sat in a Bronx basement for sixty years. New Land tracked down the original reels, cleaned and remastered them, and released them officially for the first time with the Mingus Estate. Mingus moves between bass and piano all night, in front of a rotating band that takes in Yusef Lateef, Roland Kirk, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, Pepper Adams, Charles McPherson and Dannie Richmond. We play the whole box.
Free · no cover
October 2026
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Fri
Coltrane 100
A Love Supreme, Live in Seattle
from 5:30 PM
61st anniversary of the Seattle performance
The Seattle recording as the featured listen, the original A Love Supreme alongside it, and other Impulse! Coltrane from the house shelves. It is also release day for Rhino’s six-LP Coltrane 100: Selections from 1951–1967, and the box plays tonight.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Verve Mondays
Ahmad Jamal — Ahmad Jamal ’73
7:45 PM
Verve Vault · advance listen, four days before it’s out
His first record for 20th Century, made in 1973 with Richard Evans arranging an orchestra around him and Jamal on electric piano. It opens with War’s “The World Is a Ghetto” and takes in Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” The Verve Vault reissue, cut from the original tapes at Sterling Sound, is out October 9th.
Free · no cover
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Sun
Verve Mondays
Jimmy Smith — The Champ: Live in Hermosa Beach
7:45 PM
Verve Record Club · Verve Mondays, moved to Sunday this week
Jimmy Smith at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach in March 1965, with Quentin Warren on guitar and a young Billy Hart on drums. The tapes went unreleased for sixty-one years until the Verve Record Club pressed 2,500 copies this fall. “The Sermon” and “Goldfinger” are both on it.
Free · no cover
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Tue
Listening night
Laura Elkeslassy — Ya Ghorbati يا غربتي
7:00 PM
vinyl listening party for Divas in Exile, four days after it drops
Folk and sacred music from the Maghreb, from Andalusi style to Chaabi and Francarabe cabaret, on Ayin Press. After the record, Laura and the producers take questions in the backyard.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Listening night
Nina Simone — Verve Remixed
7:00 PM
advance listen, two days before it’s out
Eight new remixes of Nina Simone from HAAi, Solomun, Mochakk, Austin Millz and others, played on their own between her original records on the house system. Omer’s Spell On You cocktail, a Sazerac riff named for the song, is on for the night.
Free · no cover
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Thu
Brewery night
Hitachino Nest Night
5:30 PM to close
Hitachino Nest x Kissa Kissa, with B. United International
Kiuchi Brewery, the Ibaraki family house behind Hitachino Nest, has been making sake since 1823. Mike Dolan of B. United, their importer, is in the room pouring Red Rice Ale and Pirika, a three-pour sake flight, and two cocktails Omer built on Kiuchi Umeshu and Mikibito. Japanese jazz on the turntables, open to close — Toshiko Akiyoshi, Hideo Shiraki, Sadao Watanabe, Terumasa Hino and more.
Free · no cover
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Sun
Listening afternoon
Miles ’56 at 70
from 3:00 PM
the 1956 Prestige marathon sessions, in order
Craft’s four-LP Miles ’56: The Prestige Recordings box, all eight sides in session order: the May and October marathon days with Coltrane, Garland, Chambers and Philly Joe, opening with a March date with Sonny Rollins.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Verve Mondays
Samara Joy — Live at the Blue Note L.A.
7:45 PM
Verve · advance listen, four days before it’s out
Her first live release, recorded during her sold-out April run at the Blue Note in Los Angeles with her septet. Five tracks, among them “’Round Midnight” and “Lush Life.” It is out October 23rd.
Free · no cover
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Tue
Guest selector
Cole Johnson
7:00–11:00 PM
guest selector
Cole Johnson, a jazz drummer who leads his own trio in Los Angeles and New York, spins records from his own collection.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Coltrane 100
Three Ways Through the Same Tune
from 5:30 PM
“My Favorite Things” at 66
One tune, three documents — the 1960 studio version and his first soprano on record, then Live At the Village Vanguard Again! and Evenings At The Village Gate with Eric Dolphy. It also opens Atlantic Week: three nights on the anniversaries of the October 1960 sessions, from Rhino’s 1960–1964 Mono box.
Free · no cover
Curated night
JP Reynolds — Wu-Tang DNA
7:00–11:00 PM
curated night · third Wednesday
The jazz records the Wu-Tang catalogue was built out of, traced back to the source. Runs after the evening’s Coltrane 100 listening session.
Free · no cover
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Thu
Listening night
Jazz Dispensary at Ten
5:30–8:00 PM
three new reissues from Craft’s Jazz Dispensary
Roger Glenn’s Reachin’, Woody Shaw’s Song of Songs and Studio G’s Nature’s World, in the label’s tenth year. Adam Ellis takes over the turntables at 8.
Free · no cover
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Sat
Coltrane 100
Atlantic Week, night two — Coltrane Plays the Blues
7:00 PM
66th anniversary of the October 24th, 1960 session
Everything that became Coltrane Plays the Blues was cut that single day at Atlantic Studios, and half of Coltrane’s Sound came out of it too — “Central Park West,” “Body and Soul,” “Satellite.” We play all of it, from Rhino’s 1960–1964 Mono box.
Free · no cover
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Sun
Coltrane 100
Atlantic Week, night three — Coltrane’s Sound
6:00 PM
closing the week: the October 26th, 1960 session
The rest of Coltrane’s Sound — “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,” “Liberia,” “Equinox,” “26-2” — all cut at the last session of that October week in 1960. From Rhino’s 1960–1964 Mono box.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Verve Mondays
Nina Simone — I Put a Spell on You
7:45 PM
Verve Mondays
Her 1965 Philips album, arranged and conducted by Hal Mooney and Horace Ott. It is the record with her “Feeling Good,” “Ne me quitte pas” and the title track. Five days before Halloween.
Free · no cover
November 2026
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Sun
Coltrane 100
The Village Vanguard, 1961 — night one
7:00 PM
four nights, played in performance order
In November 1961 Coltrane recorded four nights at the Village Vanguard. This year those dates fall on four programmable nights, so we play the box one night per night. Eric Dolphy and Reggie Workman on the stand.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Coltrane 100
The Village Vanguard, 1961 — night two
7:00 PM
the run continues in performance order
Night two of four.
Free · no cover
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Tue
Coltrane 100
The Village Vanguard, 1961 — night three
7:00 PM
the run continues in performance order
Night three of four.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Coltrane 100
The Tiberi Tapes — advance listen
7:00 PM
a document, not an audiophile pressing, and that is the point
Four LPs of Coltrane recorded by saxophonist Frank Tiberi in Philadelphia and New York clubs in the early 1960s. We play a track, then the professionally recorded version of the same tune, and let the room hear the difference.
Free · no cover
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Thu
Coltrane 100
The Village Vanguard, 1961 — night four
7:00 PM
the closing night of the run
Night four of four.
Free · no cover
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Sun
Coltrane 100
Journey, Deeply
6:00 PM
Alice Coltrane at Dix Hills, 56 years on
Journey in Satchidananda unhurried and in full, then Alice on the turntables the rest of the night, with the Dix Hills house as the frame.
Free · no cover
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Thu
Curated night
David Phillips — Jazz at the Movies
7:00 PM
three of four · jazz written for the screen
The third of David’s monthly nights: jazz written for film, from scores to soundtrack LPs.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Coltrane 100
“Alabama” at 63
from 5:30 PM
featured listen: Live at Birdland
He cut it nine weeks after the Birmingham church bombing. We play the album whole rather than lifting the track out, because the album is what carries it.
Free · no cover
Curated night
JP Reynolds — Live in Brooklyn
7:00–11:00 PM
curated night · third Wednesday
A night celebrating the vintage jazz clubs, and the records cut inside them. Runs after the “Alabama” listening session.
Free · no cover
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Sun
Guest selector
Anthony Thomas — Eclectic Jazz DJ Set
6:00–9:00 PM
guest selector
Eclectic jazz from returning guest selector Anthony Thomas, in from San Diego.
Free · no cover
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Mon
Coltrane 100
Meditations, sixty-one years on
7:00 PM
a quieter return to the record we opened with
The same pressing, a different frame — Meditations complete, with late-period selections from the house shelf around it.
Free · no cover
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Tue
Coltrane 100
Coltrane Jazz at 67, Olé at 65
7:00 PM
the two records that bracket the Atlantic years
The first Coltrane Jazz session was November 24th, 1959. Olé Coltrane closed the run, cut two days after his first Impulse! date, with Eric Dolphy credited as “George Lane.” Back to back, from Rhino’s 1960–1964 Mono box.
Free · no cover
December 2026
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Wed
Coltrane 100
“Naima” at 67
7:00 PM
Giant Steps in full, closing the Atlantic run
“Naima” was cut on December 2nd, 1959, with Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. We play Giant Steps in its entirety from the Kevin Gray all-analog mono, and the Giant Steps cocktail runs all night.
Free · no cover
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Wed
Coltrane 100
A Love Supreme, at the session
7:00 PM
62 years to the day · season finale
A Love Supreme, the studio record, with Live in Seattle alongside it, and John and Alice through to close.
Free · no cover
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Thu
Curated night
David Phillips — Jazz Jamaica
7:00 PM
four of four · Jazz Jamaica, round two
Back for a second run: Kingston-born trumpeter Dizzy Reece, tenor saxophonist Joe Harriott, and the jazz that fed the ska revolution.
Free · no cover
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Guest selector nights and Open Streets Saturdays follow below.
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