Big Ears Festival - November 11, 2025

Miles and Coltrane at 100: M.E.B / Isaiah Collier / Flying Lotus

In 2026, the world celebrates the 100th birthdays of Miles Davis...

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Miles and Coltrane at 100

Next year, the world celebrates two towering figures whose music reshaped not just jazz, but the entire architecture of sound: Miles Davis and John Coltrane, both born a century ago. At Big Ears 2026, we’ll honor this shared centennial with artists dedicated to keeping their spirit of fearless invention and deep communion alive.

Miles Electric Band

The Miles Electric Band (M.E.B.), led by his nephew Vincent Wilburn, Jr., channels that centennial energy into a vivid, forward-looking celebration. Drawing from Davis’s fusion era, this ever-evolving “all-star game” brings together players like Darryl Jones, DJ Logic, and Robert Irving III—musicians who extend Miles’ electric legacy into new territory. It’s less tribute than transmission: the sound of invention, still unfolding.

Join us in revisiting some electric Davis with Giovanni Russonello’s piece for The New York Times, “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Miles Davis’s Electric Period.”

MORE ABOUT M.E.B.

READ THE ARTICLE

Isaiah Collier Plays Coltrane

At just 27, Chicago saxophonist Isaiah Collier has become one of jazz’s most electrifying young visionaries—a modern heir to Coltrane’s intensity and depth. In an interview with PostGenre, Collier explains, “I want people to understand that if these cats were still alive, they would not hold onto the things we’re holding in high regard the same way we would. These are not sounds that belong to a specific time… I’m just a person who’s speaking in a conversation that’s been had before and adding my thoughts to it.”

His upcoming Big Ears concert honors John Coltrane’s classic quartets, breathing fresh ideas into the work while honoring Coltrane’s longstanding tradition of seeking the divine through sound.

READ THE ARTICLE

MORE ABOUT ISAIAH COLLIER

Flying Lotus

A descendant of jazz royalty—Alice and John Coltrane’s grand-nephew and Ravi Coltrane’s cousin—Flying Lotus bridges the spirit of Coltrane and Davis through the lens of 21st-century innovation. On albums like Cosmogramma and You’re Dead!, he fuses cosmic jazz, hip-hop, and electronics into a vivid, borderless vision. So it’s no surprise that, as he told GQ in 2014, his top two jazz idols are Miles and Trane themselves. We see a lineage of boundless imagination, eternal motion, and music that never stops becoming.

READ THE ARTICLE

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