HMC Presents: Miles & Coltrane at 100!

Hamilton Music Collective Presents:

Miles and Coltrane at 100!

Thursday October 1, 2026

Celebrating the 100th birthdays of jazz pioneers Miles Davis and John Coltrane, with an all-star quintet led by Pat Labarbera & Kevin Turcotte.

Pat Labarbera - saxophone

Kevin Turcotte - trumpet

Mark Eisenman - piano

Pat Collins - bass

Morgan Childs - drums

Series Tickets on sale Friday August 21 2026 9:00am

Individual Tickets on sale Friday September 4 2026 9:00am

Tickets: $45 / $25 (student)

Purchase a Series Ticket and save 15% on each show here.

Check out the rest of the fall series here.

Please choose your seats at check out!

Doors at 7:00PM, show at 8:00PM (two sets).

The Legacy of Miles Davis:

(adapted from Official Miles Davis Instagram and Mike Snider USA TODAY)

Musician, trumpeter, composer, bandleader, painter, and style icon. Miles Davis’ influence extended far beyond music: into fashion, film, visual art, and global culture. His legacy was built by constant evolution, continually challenging convention, reshaping genres, and inspiring generations of artists across disciplines.

On May 26, 1926, Miles Davis was born in Alton, Illinois; a moment that would forever alter the course of history. Davis would play with jazz giants such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Charles Mingus – before eclipsing them all to become the genre's biggest star.

Davis was a sharp dresser with a raspy voice – he got it by raising his voice after a throat operation, thus his nickname, the "Prince of Darkness." He was no saint. His wives have said he was abusive and Davis would fight addiction throughout his life.

As we celebrate what would have been his 100th year, this date becomes more than a birthday. It marks a centennial celebration that honors his extraordinary legacy and serves as the launchpad to the next hundred years of the enduring spirit of innovation, reinvention, and fearless creativity he embodied.

“He was just the coolest; when they say cool, Miles Davis has to be next to that word." - Trombone Shorty

John Coltrane's Humble Offering:

(from Coltrane 100, adapted from Ashley Kahn)

John Coltrane departed this mortal plane more than fifty years ago; today he remains among us, more alive than ever. His saxophone sound—brooding, searching, dark—is still one of the most recognizable in modern jazz.

Coltrane achieved his goal as a hard-working jazz player coming out of a proud, rooted musical tradition, paying his dues as a sideman, learning the ropes as a leader, working with primarily wordless music to convey his message. He released twenty-five albums as a leader during his lifetime, some attaining five-star, classic status: Blue Train, Giant Steps, My Favorite Things, his Grammy-nominated, “humble offering” to God, A Love Supreme. That Coltrane accomplished all he did in a mere ten years accounts at least partly for the saint-like devotion he often receives.

Miles’s shift from traditional, chord-based song forms to more open-ended, modal structures provided a needed freshness that helped improvisers avoid the same old bebop clichés. This “modal jazz” was the foundational idea to what is still Miles’s most famous album, 1959’s Kind of Blue. For Coltrane, it was like pouring high-octane into a turbo-charged engine. Liberated from the meticulous pathways in Monk’s music, he dove with gusto into the harmonic freedoms that modal jazz offered, absorbing and later developing the same ideas further in his own groundbreaking groups of the 1960s.

“Miles's music gave me plenty of freedom," he said. "It's a beautiful approach...I found it easy to apply harmonic ideas that I had." - John Coltrane

His compositions and recordings are now permanent parts of the canon of great American music, recognized by the Library of Congress, with many inducted into The Grammy Hall of Fame; all are now required study for young musicians hoping to unlock the secrets of the jazz tradition.

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Join Hamilton Music Collective for our fall jazz concert series, showcasing top Canadian and international musicians in jazz, blues, and improvised music since 2014. Step into our cozy jazz lounge at 141 Park Street, featuring a top notch sound system (brand new in 2020), wine selections, and an attentive audience. It all comes together in the perfect venue to hear world-class jazz in downtown Hamilton!

All proceeds from ticket sales support the An Instrument For Every Child (AIFEC) program.

For more information about the Hamilton Music Collective and An Instrument For Every Child visit: hamiltonmusiccollective.ca

Parking is available in the parking lots. Read more here: https://www.thegasworks.ca/parking/