VIsion festival 2026 - DAY 3 @ abrons art center, new york, jun 25 - ingrid laubrock’s grammy season / craig taborn & tomeka reid / shamanic principal / alexis marcelo & james brandon lewis duo
photography by © Clara Pereira / text by Filipe Freitas
Arts for Art’s 30th VISION FESTIVAL, a New York jazz landmark, is back, honoring bassist/guitarist Joe Morris with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Guided by the slogan “Art to Resist”, this year’s festival took place at the Abrons Art Center on the Lower East Side.
ingrid laubrock’s grammy season: spirit, fire, fact
Day Three began with Ingrid Laubrock’s Grammy Season, a new quartet featuring Brandon Seabrook on guitar, Shawn Lovato on bass, and Tom Rainey on drums. The original material, which will appear on the forthcoming album Spirit, Fire, Fact, alternated between acutely intense and fascinatingly melodic, texturally broadened by special guest DoYeon Kim on gayageum. Laubrock dedicated one piece to her late father, a devoted lover of literature and music, but the most memorable highlight was a beautifully crafted composition featuring Rainey on mallets.
craig taborn & tomeka reid
Pianist Craig Taborn and cellist Tomeka Reid were phenomenal, creating a mesmerizing sense of illusion through contrapuntal urgency, fluid motions, and luminous cadences, often enhanced by electronics. Technically outstanding, these two creative artists captivated from start to finish, traversing valleys of light and shadow with remarkable maturity. They concluded with a kind of Keith Jarrett-esque rhapsody that left the audience asking for more.
shamanic principal: transforming
Dancer and Arts for Art founder Patricia Nicholson joined forces with Haitian electronic music composer and beat maker Val Jeanty for a breathtaking meditation on resistance and hope.
ALEXIS MARCELO & JAMES BRANDON LEWIS DUO
They were followed by the duo of saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and pianist Alexis Marcelo, who reimagined African American hymns with their own perspective. Serene atmospheres blossomed into explosive crescendos, reaching forceful avant-garde climaxes before returning to their natural gospel-inflected balladry, illuminated by incandescent tenor saxophone lines and acrobatic harmonic maneuvers. There was even a boogie-woogie infused with Monk-like inflections, curling swing momentum, and plenty of staccato tension. This was music of tremendous impact.