10 days, 550+ artists, one epic Melbourne International Jazz Festival takeover - here's what's coming.
The Melbourne International Jazz Festival has just dropped a lineup that’s about to take over the entire city.
MIJF will return from 16-25 October with more than 550 artists from 18 countries across 10 days of live music.
Spanning more than 150 events at 30 venues, this year’s program promises concert halls, clubs, bars and outdoor stages packed with jazz, funk, soul, hip hop and everything in between. A huge chunk of it is free, meaning there’s more ways than ever to catch live jazz around the city without spending a cent.
Check out everything that’s on, below.
Melbourne International Jazz Festival
- 16-25 October
- various venues across Melbourne and Victoria
- Tickets here
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
These names join an already stacked bill featuring Dave Holland’s supergroup Aziza, three-time GRAMMY winner Dee Dee Bridgewater, Tigran Hamasyan, aja monet and The Bad Plus, plus The Teskey Brothers and funk legend Fred Wesley at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
The opening weekend alone is a lot to take in.
The Second Line Street Party marches along the Yarra before spilling into a free afternoon at Fed Square, while The Teskey Brothers headline the Bowl to mark 10 years since their debut album Half Mile Harvest, performing it in full alongside Fred Wesley & The New JBs and Emily Wurramara.
New for 2026 is Haus Party, a late-night rooftop takeover of Spiegel Haus blending jazz, groove, hip hop and electronic music, featuring Don Glori, Stogie T and more.
Made in Melbourne
Local jazz gets its moment too, with Asteroid Ekosystem launching new album Sounds Have Dreams at The JazzLab, bringing together pianist Alister Spence, The Necks’ bassist Lloyd Swanton and Saints founding member Ed Kuepper.
Elsewhere, composer Aaron Choulai unites the Australian Art Orchestra with Ngaiire and Joelistics for Saltwater, Sugar, a sixteen-piece work tracing Chinese, Papua New Guinean and Indigenous history through Victoria’s gold rush era.
Residencies and world premieres
The JazzLab is also hosting its biggest lineup of international residencies yet, with GRAMMY-winning pianist Kris Davis and cellist Tomeka Reid both settling in for multi-night runs. South African pianist Bokani Dyer and South Korean drummer Soojin Suh round out the bill, bringing Afro-jazz and Korean traditional influences into the mix respectively.
Opening night pairs the Joey Alexander Trio with Young Monk in a special partnership with New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, marking a rare international crossover for the festival.
This year’s program also zooms in on Japan, South Korea, South Africa and the United Kingdom, weaving artists from each region through headline sets, club nights and late-night collaborations.
The free program stretches well past the city centre, with Footscray Sunday Sessions bringing two Sundays of music to some of the west’s favourite neighbourhood venues. Families aren’t left out either, with Inside Out: Jump, Jive, Jazz returning to ArtPlay to introduce kids aged two to seven to live jazz through movement and play.
Beyond the music, South African hip hop pioneer Stogie T is running a workshop on the craft of MCing, covering everything from flow to stage presence.
The Bad Plus are also getting reflective, with founding members sitting down for a farewell conversation looking back on 26 years together as a band.
CEO and festival director Hadley Agrez says the program captures what makes jazz special, celebrating veteran artists and boundary-pushing newcomers side by side, while creating space for world premieres and rare collaborations across the festival’s ten days.
For more information, head here.
