Harry Hayman Experiences the Future of Jazz: Isaiah Collier and Keyon Harrold Transform Philadelphia's Zellerbach Theatre

Some nights arrive with anticipation baked into every moment. Others reveal themselves only after the first note sounds, when you realize something extraordinary is unfolding. For Philadelphia cultural documentarian Harry Hayman, the Isaiah Collier and Keyon Harrold double bill at the Zellerbach Theatre delivered both, a rare convergence where mastery met emergence and the future of jazz announced itself without hesitation.

The evening Harry Hayman witnessed on January 24, 2026, wasn’t simply a concert. It was a crossroads moment, the kind that reminds audiences why live music matters and why Philadelphia continues earning its reputation as a vital American music city. Two artists operating at the intersection of tradition and innovation, each pulling from deep wells of Black American musical heritage while simultaneously pushing those forms into uncharted territory.

Isaiah Collier: Pure Ignition and Ancestral Connection

When Harry Hayman walked into Zellerbach Theatre at the Annenberg Center, Isaiah Collier was already on stage, saxophone in hand, quartet locked in. The 27-year-old Chicago saxophonist didn’t ease into the evening. He ignited it.

Collier’s approach to music defies easy categorization. The New York Times hailed him as “an heir apparent to both the Chicago lineage and the post-Coltrane sax tradition,” acknowledging the weight of history this young artist carries while recognizing his determination to forge new paths. As Harry Hayman observed, Collier played “as if he were channeling ancestors (including Trane) and tomorrow at the same time.”

This temporal simultaneity, reaching backward and forward at once, defines Collier’s artistic philosophy. He describes his influences as “a sonic time machine; you can’t really put a time or destination on it.” When asked about his musical direction, Collier explained: “I reach backwards, and forwards simultaneously when creating art and what is ahead of me is the past.”

The performance Harry Hayman witnessed embodied this philosophy completely. Collier’s tenor and soprano saxophone work channeled the spiritual searching of John Coltrane, whose legendary recording sessions at Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio directly influenced Collier’s 2021 album “Cosmic Transitions.” That album, recorded on Coltrane’s birthday using some of the same analog equipment that captured “A Love Supreme,” earned five stars from DownBeat and multiple Album of the Year mentions.

But Collier isn’t recreating the past. He’s interrogating it, honoring it, and transforming it into something urgent and present. His 2024 releases, both “The Almighty” and “The World Is on Fire,” earned widespread critical acclaim precisely because they refuse to treat jazz as museum music. These are living, breathing statements about the world as it exists now, with all its beauty and conflagration.

Chicago Magazine profiled Collier in March 2025, capturing his intense commitment to making music that engages with contemporary reality. “I need to make sure that the artists around me are seeing the state of the world,” Collier explained, “and are also acknowledging that this is not just making a song.” His December 2024 premiere of “The Story of 400 Years” at the DuSable Black History Museum demonstrated this commitment: a sweeping 13-movement suite incorporating dance and visual media that traces Black American history from the Middle Passage through today.

The Quartet: Creating Space for Spiritual Discovery

What Harry Hayman experienced wasn’t Collier performing for the room, it was Collier pulling everyone into a shared space and demanding presence. This approach reflects his understanding of jazz as fundamentally communal art.

Collier’s stage presence carries regal elegance. Over six feet tall, lean, with high cheekbones, he doesn’t rush or grandstand. When not playing, he listens, deeply attuned to the musicians around him. “I was never really hearing myself, I’m hearing others play,” Collier has explained. “Some people have fire, others have air. That’s how I hear. There has to be a balance.”

This listening philosophy creates performances where individual virtuosity serves collective expression. Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few, his primary ensemble, has earned recognition throughout the Chicago jazz scene and beyond for precisely this quality: technically astounding performances that never sacrifice emotional immediacy or spiritual depth for mere technical display.

The quartet Harry Hayman heard at Zellerbach operated at this level. Urgent, spiritual, unfiltered. These aren’t empty adjectives. They describe the actual experience of witnessing musicians completely committed to the moment, willing to take risks, trusting their collective chemistry to catch them when they leap into improvisational space.

Keyon Harrold: The Future of the Trumpet Made Present

When Keyon Harrold took the stage for the second half of the double bill, as Harry Hayman observed, time loosened its grip. The 45-year-old trumpeter’s approach to his instrument creates this temporal dislocation. His sound isn’t aggressive or attention-seeking. It’s warm, searching, fearless, qualities that invite listeners into intimate space even in larger venues.

Wynton Marsalis’s assessment carries significant weight: “Keyon Harrold is the future of the trumpet.” Coming from one of jazz’s most exacting voices, this endorsement acknowledges not just technical proficiency but artistic vision. DownBeat Magazine echoed this sentiment, comparing Harrold to legendary trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and confirming his position as a defining voice for his generation.

Harrold’s biography reveals an artist whose musical education spans genres and contexts most musicians never access. Born in Ferguson, Missouri, one of 16 children in a musical family, he graduated from the School of Jazz at The New School. His grandfather founded The Memorial Lancers Drum and Bugle Corps, establishing a family tradition of musical excellence that Harrold continues.

His first professional gig, on the recommendation of classmate Robert Glasper, came as a trumpeter with rapper Common. This hip-hop connection wasn’t tangential to Harrold’s jazz development. It was foundational. The experience taught him how different genres share fundamental principles, how improvisation functions across musical contexts, how melody and rhythm can serve both artistic and social purposes.

A Trumpet That Speaks: Genre Fluidity as Artistic Principle

Harry Hayman captured Harrold’s essence perfectly: “His trumpet didn’t just play melodies — it spoke.” This speaking quality, melody infused with conversational intimacy, defines Harrold’s approach across contexts.

His collaborations demonstrate remarkable range. Jazz legends like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu. Hip-hop royalty including Jay-Z (the trumpet hook on “Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)…”), Beyoncé (“Back Up”), Common, Nas, and Eminem. Rock icons Keith Richards and Jeff Beck. R&B masters Maxwell, Gregory Porter, Mary J. Blige, and Lauryn Hill. Each collaboration expanded Harrold’s musical vocabulary while reinforcing his core identity as a jazz musician.

Perhaps most significantly, Harrold supplied all trumpet playing for Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic “Miles Ahead,” matching Cheadle’s on-screen performance while also portraying the character Junior. The soundtrack won a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. This work connected Harrold directly to Davis’s legacy while demonstrating his ability to inhabit different musical personas.

What Harry Hayman heard at Zellerbach showcased this accumulated experience. Jazz braided with Afrobeat. Blues steeped in soul. Hip-hop running through its veins. These aren’t separate influences awkwardly stitched together. They’re integrated elements of a coherent artistic vision.

Harrold’s 2024 album “Foreverland”, released on Concord and earning Grammy nomination, exemplifies this integration. Collaborators include British R&B vocalist Laura Mvula, emerging singer Malaya, Common and Robert Glasper on “Find Your Peace,” and Grammy-winning artist PJ Morton on “Beautiful Day.” The album succeeds precisely because it refuses to privilege one genre over others, instead finding common ground where different traditions meet.

The Philadelphia Context: Why This Performance Matters

Penn Live Arts’ programming decision to present Collier and Harrold as a double bill demonstrated curatorial intelligence. On the surface, two jazz artists, both Midwesterners, both working within broadly similar traditions. But the pairing actually highlighted crucial tensions and connections animating contemporary jazz.

Collier, 27, represents emergence. His six albums to date, including the acclaimed 2023 direct-to-disc session “Parallel Universe” recorded at Artone studio in Haarlem, position him as heir to Chicago’s vibrant avant-garde tradition while charting new territory. WRTI’s preview described him as someone who “fully inhabits” spiritual jazz’s stated aims rather than treating it as marketing category.

Harrold, 45, embodies mastery. His decades of work across contexts, from the Cirque Du Soleil’s “Michael Jackson Immortal World Tour” to intimate performances at San Francisco’s Black Cat Jazz Club (where he recorded a live album), demonstrate an artist completely comfortable in his voice while continuously evolving.

Together, as Harry Hayman observed, they created “less like a concert and more like a crossroads — mastery meeting emergence, tradition stretching forward, the future not whispering but announcing itself.”

Philadelphia’s position in this narrative matters. The city has long served as a crucial node in American jazz history, from John Coltrane’s formative years through the Philadelphia jazz scene’s ongoing vitality. Venues like Chris’ Jazz Cafe, South Jazz Kitchen, and the Annenberg Center’s Zellerbach Theatre maintain spaces where jazz continues developing as living art.

Harry Hayman’s presence at this performance connects to his broader cultural documentation work. Through INSOMNIA PRODUCTIONS and initiatives like the Philadelphia Jazz Experience, which he founded to educate young people about jazz music and culture, he actively supports Philadelphia’s artistic ecosystem while documenting its evolution.

Both Collier and Harrold create music that engages with contemporary social reality. This isn’t incidental to their artistic practice. It’s central.

Collier has spoken explicitly about artists’ responsibilities during fraught times. “January 6 happened. Nobody said shit,” he noted, pointing out how few jazz musicians created significant work responding to that moment or other recent crises. He contrasts this silence with saxophonist Jimmy Greene’s heartbreaking response to his daughter’s death in the Sandy Hook massacre.

This commitment to engagement produced “The Story of 400 Years,” Collier’s ambitious 13-movement suite tracing Black American history. Movements address the Middle Passage, the Three-Fifths Compromise, Nat Turner’s rebellion, the Great Migration, the crack epidemic, and contemporary struggles. The piece doesn’t offer easy resolution or consolation. It demands witness.

Harrold similarly uses his platform to inspire positive change, frequently collaborating with organizations like Global Citizen and Refugee International. His “Compositions for a Cause” initiative combines artistic excellence with social action. He wrote “Refugee Song,” featuring Common and Gregory Porter, addressing the international refugee crisis.

Harrold’s most public confrontation with social injustice came in December 2020 when his 14-year-old son was assaulted at New York’s Arlo SoHo Hotel by a woman who falsely accused the boy of stealing her cellphone. The incident, captured on video showing the manager supporting the accuser without grounds, sparked national conversation about racial profiling. “I didn’t have the opportunity to be believed, and neither did my son,” Harrold said. “We were guilty then proven innocent.”

These aren’t separate from the music these artists create. The urgency, spirituality, and unflinching honesty Harry Hayman heard at Zellerbach emerges from lives lived in full awareness of social context. Jazz has always functioned this way, channeling collective experience into improvisational exploration that speaks truth even when words fail.

The Experience of Presence: Why Live Performance Matters

Harry Hayman’s description captures something crucial about exceptional live music: “This was an artist fully aware of the lineage behind him — and completely unafraid to push it forward.” This applies to both Collier and Harrold, but it also describes the audience’s experience.

Great live performance creates presence, a quality of attention that feels increasingly rare in our fragmented media environment. When Harry Hayman writes that Collier “pulled everyone into it and demanded presence,” he’s describing how exceptional musicianship creates space where normal distraction becomes impossible.

This presence has spiritual dimensions. Collier’s album “Parallel Universe” includes vocals in Yoruba inspired by legendary saxophonist Kenny Garrett. The flute he plays on “Village Song” deliberately references African village instruments, acknowledging that “the saxophone was not made in Africa so the concept of going back into the village we have to go back to our village instruments and dialect.”

The album’s recording process embraced vulnerability inherent in direct-to-disc technique, where mistakes become permanent and risk becomes opportunity. “Give me that feeling that makes me feel like I’m alive,” Collier enthused about the process. “People can tell when you’re taking chances. I know that’s what everybody is looking for.”

Harrold’s presence operates differently but achieves similar results. Where Collier ignites and demands, Harrold invites and encompasses. His distinctly warm trumpet sound simmers in the middle register, creating drama without aggrandizing, mesmerizing audiences with emotionally charged yet controlled expression.

Harry Hayman and Philadelphia’s 2026 Cultural Moment

For Harry Hayman, attending the Collier/Harrold double bill represented another chapter in his systematic exploration of Philadelphia’s cultural offerings throughout 2026. His “year of firsts” commitment, deliberately seeking new venues and experiences as the city approaches America’s 250th anniversary, recognizes that Philadelphia’s cultural vitality requires active engagement and documentation.

This approach distinguishes Harry Hayman’s cultural work. Rather than treating arts attendance as passive consumption or social performance, he engages authentically, documenting experiences with attention to both immediate impact and broader context. His observation that the evening felt “less like a concert and more like a crossroads” demonstrates this integration: recognizing the specific brilliance of individual artists while understanding their work’s relationship to larger traditions and future possibilities.

Harry Hayman’s work with the Feed Philly Coalition and the Philadelphia Jazz Experience reflects similar principles. Cultural vitality and community wellbeing aren’t separate concerns. They’re interconnected elements of healthy urban ecosystems. Supporting young musicians, educating audiences about jazz history, addressing food insecurity, documenting exceptional performances, these activities all contribute to Philadelphia’s future as a city where diverse communities thrive.

The Collier/Harrold performance exemplified what Harry Hayman seeks: authentic excellence, historical awareness, future orientation, and genuine community engagement. When he writes “anyone who was there knows: something real happened,” he’s not deploying empty hyperbole. He’s bearing witness to art that matters.

The Lineage and the Future: What Jazz Offers Now

Both Isaiah Collier and Keyon Harrold operate within jazz traditions while transforming them. Understanding what they offer requires recognizing both dimensions: deep connection to history and fearless innovation.

Collier’s forthcoming 2026 concert program will pay tribute to John Coltrane’s classic quartets. This isn’t nostalgic recreation. It’s engagement with foundational texts, asking what those recordings offer contemporary audiences while demonstrating how their principles continue generating new music.

Similarly, Harrold’s Miles Davis biopic work connected him directly to one of jazz’s most important innovators. But Harrold doesn’t simply channel Davis. He builds on that legacy, incorporating hip-hop, R&B, Afrobeat, and rock influences Davis pioneered blending.

This relationship with tradition matters because it addresses persistent questions about jazz’s relevance. Is jazz museum music, valuable primarily for historical reasons? Or does it remain a living, evolving art form capable of addressing contemporary experience?

Artists like Collier and Harrold answer definitively: jazz lives. It speaks to current moment while honoring past. It welcomes diverse influences while maintaining core principles. It challenges audiences while remaining emotionally accessible.

Harry Hayman’s description of Harrold captures this perfectly: “Being called ‘the future of the trumpet’ felt less like praise and more like confirmation.” The future isn’t distant. It’s present in every performance where artists fully commit to their vision while remaining open to possibility.

Conclusion: Witnessing the Announcement

When Harry Hayman writes “the future not whispering but announcing itself,” he acknowledges something both inspiring and intimidating. Witnessing genuine artistic breakthrough requires recognizing that comfortable categories no longer apply, that new forms demand attention on their own terms.

The Isaiah Collier and Keyon Harrold double bill at Zellerbach Theatre represented such a moment. Not because either artist lacks recognition—both have earned widespread acclaim. Rather, because their pairing demonstrated how contemporary jazz operates at its highest levels: honoring tradition while transforming it, technically astounding while emotionally immediate, individually brilliant while fundamentally communal.

Philadelphia audiences who attended experienced what Harry Hayman described: mastery meeting emergence, urgent spiritual searching combined with warm invitation, music that pulls you in and demands presence. The 7:30 start time came and went, as Harry Hayman noted, but for those present, time operated differently. Something real happened.

For Harry Hayman, documenting such moments serves multiple purposes. It celebrates exceptional artistry. It supports Philadelphia’s cultural institutions. It educates audiences about available experiences they might otherwise miss. Most importantly, it bears witness to art’s capacity to create meaning, connection, and transcendence even during challenging times.

Isaiah Collier and Keyon Harrold announced the future that evening. But they also demonstrated the enduring power of jazz’s fundamental principles: deep listening, collective improvisation, technical excellence serving emotional truth, music as vehicle for both individual expression and communal experience.

Anyone fortunate enough to be there, as Harry Hayman was, left knowing they’d witnessed something significant. The kind of performance that reminds us why live music matters, why artistic excellence deserves support, why Philadelphia’s cultural ecosystem requires active engagement from audiences willing to show up and pay attention.

The future of jazz announces itself regularly in Philadelphia. It requires only that we listen, truly listen, the way these artists demand. Harry Hayman heard that announcement clearly. His documentation ensures others can understand what they missed, and perhaps inspires them to show up themselves when the next crossroads moment arrives.

Because if the Collier/Harrold performance taught anything, it’s that mastery and emergence, tradition and innovation, past and future, exist not in opposition but in dynamic relationship. When artists fully engage that relationship, when audiences meet them with genuine presence, something real happens. Always.

This article documents one extraordinary evening in Philadelphia’s ongoing jazz renaissance, as witnessed by cultural advocate and documentarian Harry Hayman. For more of his explorations of Philadelphia’s artistic ecosystem, follow his work with INSOMNIA PRODUCTIONS, the Philadelphia Jazz Experience, and the Feed Philly Coalition.