If, like me, you love many styles of jazz, you probably look at ads for various jazz cruises and start planning or wishing. I’ve experienced six, run by Signature Cruise Company and called The Jazz Cruise. It claims to be “Straight-Ahead Jazz Heaven,” and I agree.
The ship holds about 2,200 serious fans from all over the globe who hear about 100 top-tier jazz musicians performing multiple times during a week-long cruise. (A few special stars may come in for a few or even just one performance.) Of course, musicians always love sitting in.
A stand-out feature is the big band led by the great John Clayton. Normally, he is lauded as the arranger and co-leader of the storied Clayton-Hamilton Big Band and other assemblies. In 2025, however, he made headlines for the catastrophic losses he suffered as his home with all of his instruments, and everything else burned in the Los Angeles fires. He typified the spirit of his peers when at the start of the week, as the ashes of his losses were still warm, he told the opening night audience that we were his emotional balm.
I decided to speak to some musicians for their take on the cruise, and they all had similar responses. Vocalist Catherine Russell compared performing on the cruise to a festival: “The thing is we’re all together for a whole week. That’s different, right there. Usually in a festival, you come in for a day or two and then you’re gone. You don’t get to see everybody for the whole festival.
“But, on the cruise, you get to hear people more than once, sometimes in different combinations, and in different settings, and it’s all great. We all have a really good time listening to each other from the audience and also working together. It’s a good way to get together and see a lot of musicians that you don’t see during the year. This year I heard Bill Charlap’s Trio three times, which I’ve never been able to do before. That was fantastic.”
As for the fans, she noted, “As the week goes on, I had very good, long conversations with different people, about different subjects, and enjoyed learning about their lives and careers. So, you build relationships. You may play a show in their town during the year, and they come to see you. That’s probably the most significant thing that I take away: I see those people throughout the year.”
Trumpeter Benny Benack III agreed, “The passengers are diehard fans. They would rather stay on the ship, and watch the Bill Charlap Trio play during a port stop than go on an excursion. It is always a pleasure to play for an audience that appreciates it. Some people have become close friends with some of the artists. That is something that makes it really unique because you get to engage with your favorite artists in a way that you otherwise wouldn’t. It’s a true community of people who will support the artists that they know.
“You might have the same level of great artists at the Monterey Jazz Festival or the Newport Jazz Festival in one week, but the difference is you are not also around them for 12 hours in the day. If you go to see John Clayton or Wycliffe Gordon at a jazz festival, maybe you get to shake their hand after the show, but on a ship when they aren’t performing, they are passengers like everybody else.”
Trombonist Wycliffe Gordon added that festival presenters go on jazz cruises as an affordable way to evaluate prospective performers. Staying on the topic of money, he added, “Some people say, ‘It’s expensive.’ I say, ‘Well, think about what you’re paying for. In what other situation are you going to see 10 to 20 bands, plus a group of all-stars and shows all-in-one place?’”
Trumpeter Danny Tobias noted that since he brings his wife along, the event is both a mini-vacation and a great jazz party. “You get thrown together with different musicians in different configurations. I got to play with Houston Person, and that was exciting and scary at the same time. You try to make it sound like it isn’t so much a jam session, but a little organized. That’s the trick.”
Bassist Martin Wind expanded on these themes, “Well, it’s an opportunity for the jazz community to meet. That’s the musicians and fans. It’s so much easier to get to talk to one of your musical heroes when they’re sitting at the same buffet having lunch or after the concerts. I mean, they’re not going to get off the boat. So, it is really nice to see people that I know.
“Also, you get a chance to hear some young musicians and maybe establish some new connections. So, it’s fun, but also valuable in that new opportunities might come out of people hearing you. But what really drives me, and I think most musicians, is how playing music makes us feel. I mean, we love playing music. We’re not really doing it for the effect that it has on our audience, but we want to take them along for the ride.”
Clarinetist Anat Cohen added that the cruise has other positive elements: “First of all, it happens in a period [mid-winter] when it is wonderful to get out of New York. It’s a real opportunity to hear people doing their thing in a very relaxed way because there is no travel involved once we are on the cruise. So, nobody is exhausted from just arriving and there is no stress from catching a flight and doing a sound check.”
Sherrie Maricle, drummer and leader of the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, said. “It’s very casual. Once I was sitting out on the deck and suddenly Ray Brown was sitting next to me.” Cohen added, “I sat next to Jay Livingston, the lyricist who wrote ‘Never Let Me Go,’ one of my favorite ballads. So, there is the thrilling element of meeting your idols.”
Maricle reflected, “It’s a perfect week-long party. There are all sorts of classes including fitness classes at the gym. I remember once at 2 a.m., lying out on the very top deck when we were not near any port and just staring at the stars.” Pianist Bill Charlap added, “It’s glorious to see that beautiful sea. Where else do you get that vantage point?”
Charlap reflected on the week: “There’s some magic that happens when you get so many artists together who are coming from various different worlds and experiences. It’s like a little country almost, but even more so in that everybody’s seeing everybody, morning, noon, evening and night and at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Basically, you can’t escape unless you’re really a good swimmer. Even then, there’s sharks, so you have to be incredibly brave, a good swimmer and pretty stupid. So ultimately, the sequestered nature of it can be very positive and unique.
“And, you have people who are sort of grand masters, people who are in the midpoint, perhaps, in their performing career, and then younger people who are coming up, and then younger “younger people” who are really just starting their professional careers. All of that is wonderfully exciting.
“It’s a beautiful cycle. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and it must have been. Well, you think of Coleman Hawkins playing with Sonny Rollins, or Miles Davis celebrating Louis Armstrong. They are extensions of each other, and we live within each other.”
Pianist Emmet Cohen recalled his evolving connection to the experience: “I think it began when I was 21 and part of a student group. Being around all the amazing jazz masters gave me affirmation that I belonged there. It inspired me to work hard and figure out who I was going to be as a musician.
“It’s really one of the most amazing growth experiences of my year. I get to hear all this music, play with people I usually don’t get to play with, and hear different bands play. It’s like an entire year’s worth of inspiration packaged up into a seven-day window. I always leave there so inspired.”
“I’m really excited by seeing all the friends, musicians, and people I’ve known for a long time or always wanted to meet. I’ve had so many meaningful connections there with people like Kenny Barron, Monty Alexander, Bill Charlap, or Choco Valdez, some of my all-time heroes. I’ve made so many life-long friends of people who just love the music and truly want to be around it. The outpouring of love from the fans is something that I hold close to my heart.”
Guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli, who seems to always be there with his actress and vocalist wife Jessica Molaskey reflected: “It’s fun every year, but this year was really good. I got to work with people I never work with the rest of the year—the singers, Christian McBride and John Clayton. I got to work with Ken Peplowski a couple of times. Those little group things are fun, especially our Benny Goodman show.
“Jessica and I did our Carlyle show, and it was so well received because the people were jazz fans, so they knew when you’re talking about Bobby Short or Blossom Dearie. Sometimes at the Carlyle, people were there just because it’s the Carlyle. That’s fine, but this time, they’re already inside the music, and knew exactly what page we were on. That was really enjoyable.
“And I got to see a guy win $12,500 at a poker table. There were like five people, and I never played with five people at a table. One gentleman had a royal flush, and won $12,500. He just kept saying, ‘You’re my favorite guitar player.’
“One year, it was like 11:30 to 1:30 and Ann Hampton Calloway asked me and Kurt Elling to stop in and do 10 minutes. So, Kurt and I did something of a postmodern Rat Pack thing. We sang ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ or something crazy. I sang it at one tempo; he sang it at another. And we were talking to each other like Dean and Frank, but just making it up. It was one of the best things off the top of our heads where I can’t believe we just did that.
“We got to meet a lot of people who listen to our radio show. [Radio Deluxe] That’s always fun, because our show has been on for 1,000 episodes, and we can’t even believe that we’re still on the air. So, when people say, ‘I listened to that show you did about this,’ we’re thrilled.”
Anat Cohen summed it up succinctly: “In all ways the cruise is a fantastic experience.”
Schaen Fox is a longtime jazz fan. Now retired, he devotes much of his time to the music. Write him at foxyren41@gmail.com.
