EVENTS

ColaJazz offers A DYNAMIC CALENDAR OF EVENTS ALL YEAR

ColaJazz offers a diverse range of performances from intimate concerts and club engagements to outdoor festivals and special events. ColaJazz presents a wide variety of shows, including highlights such as performances by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra featuring Wynton Marsalis, Live in the Lobby concerts, our popular Loft Sessions, and the Main Street Jazz Fest, among many others.

Upcoming EVENTS

Straight Up! Live at ColaJazz
Apr
26

Straight Up! Live at ColaJazz

Straight Up! is a co-led jazz trio founded by guitarist Reed Miller and drummer Andrew Kushnir, joined by bassist Sam Trapchak.

Sunday April 26th Straight Up! visits Colajazz on their “Carolina Celebration” tour with a special program of music from jazz composers of the Carolinas.

Straight Up! has spent the past five years refining a mid-century sound that honors the timeless energy of bebop and hard bop. Their music explores the harmonic and rhythmic complexity of composers like Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Randy Weston, and Bud Powell. While inspired by the legendary Poll Winners trio (Barney Kessel, Ray Brown, Shelley Manne), the trio performs compositions beyond the boundaries of mainstream guitar jazz.

$15 at the door
$5 students

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ColaJazz + Roots Fest by Palmetto Citizens
May
15
to May 16

ColaJazz + Roots Fest by Palmetto Citizens

The South’s Most Sophisticated Weekend. Jazz + Roots + Soul.

If you’re looking for the next major jazz destination in the South, you need to be in Columbia this May 15-16. ColaJazz has spent nearly a decade bringing icons like Wynton Marsalis and Kenny Garrett to our stage, and this year’s Jazz + Roots expansion is our most ambitious yet.

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ColaJazz Charity Golf Tournament
May
18

ColaJazz Charity Golf Tournament

Play a round that changes a life.

Your registration fuels jazz education, real opportunity for working artists, and concerts that bring the Midlands together. ColaJazz reaches 15,000+ students each year, delivers no-cost lessons, presents 50+ events year-round, and has paid $100K+ to local artists.

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Mary Halvorson : Canis Major
Mar
29

Mary Halvorson : Canis Major

Mary Halvorson’s Canis Major
Mary Halvorson, guitar
Dave Adewumi, trumpet
Henry Fraser, bass
Tomas Fujiwara, drums

Sunday, March 29th, 2026
701 Center for Contemporary Art
music: 7:00pm / doors: 6:30pm
701 Whaley Street, Columbia, South Carolina

Mary Halvorson is an unusual musician. It’s not just that she takes an original approach to the music she makes with her guitar. It’s that she’s able to combine innovation and musicality in a way that gets, and keeps, the attention of a wide range of listeners—from avant-garde devotees to the most casual of jazz fans, from guitar enthusiasts to new music aficionados—as well as a wide range of music critics, from whom she routinely receives effusive praise.

National Public Radio calls Halvorson “the most future-seeking guitarist working right now” and named her latest album, About Ghosts, one of the best albums of 2025. The New York Times describes her as “an unflinching original who has revealed new possibilities within the music.” She has been named in Downbeat’s “guitarist of the year” honors for multiple years and in 2019 was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant”. The critics who focus on the contemporary and experimental scene love her, too. Here’s just one of them, writing at The Free Jazz Collective: “Mary Halvorson is perhaps the most organic guitarist of my generation. Her music grows so logically and intricately yet twists and turns unexpectedly, spinning inward into knots before branching out into a glorious arbor that provides shelter to an impressive ecosystem of some of the finest musicians working today.”

Halvorson will be bringing her group, Canis Major, to Columbia’s 701 Center for Contemporary Art the evening of Sunday, March 29th, 2026. The quartet features Halvorson alongside Dave Adewumi (trumpet), Henry Fraser (bass), and Tomas Fujiwara (drums).

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JAZZ IN THE PARK
Mar
20

JAZZ IN THE PARK

On March 20, we’re bringing the heart of the jazz club to the great outdoors! Join us at Finlay Park for a night of world-class music featuring the ColaJazz Foundation.

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Concerts of all shapes and sizes.
We swing. We groove. We Jazz.

LOFT SESSIONS

ColaJazz Office Concerts

LIVE IN THE LOBBY

Community Concerts

MAIN STREET JAZZ FEST

Special Events

The driving beat in jazz performances

Smiling person holding a saxophone close to their face, wearing a suit.
Man in a suit playing a trumpet.
Two men standing in front of an abstract painting, one wearing a light blue shirt and black glasses, the other in a purple shirt and hat.
Musician playing trombone on stage with microphone

Notable artists include:

Wynton Marsalis, Chris Potter, Allison Miller, Patrick Bartley, Don Braden, Gotham Kings, Scotty Barnhart, Houston Person, Fred Wesley, Wycliffe Gordon, Don Vappie, Dr. Michael White, Jeremy Davenport, Wess Anderson, Charlton Singleton, Dr. Mitch Butler and many others

Person in a suit holding a trombone, smiling.
Smiling man wearing a gray suit and black hat holding a saxophone.