I’ve been heartbroken before. Who hasn’t?
When it happens — and it will — your friends and family always offer up time as the best Band-Aid.
But I’m here to offer you a faster-acting alternative. Have you considered the sweet sonic caress of the Detroit Jazz Festival, which has healed my aching heart over the years?
I’m always finding myself in love by spring and reeling from it by Labor Day weekend, when the Detroit Jazz Festival — the largest free festival of its kind in the world — takes over downtown.
I’ve walked the festival grounds completely numb after a five-year relationship crumbled, only to be revived by saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s sounds blaring from the main stage.
Before that, I couldn’t admit to myself that music could heal my heart or anyone else’s. I was a bit skeptical that there was some higher spiritual ingredient to a smattering of notes arranged in just the right way.
But as I stood there at Campus Martius Park listening to the music, my whole perspective on the power of music changed as a sense of calm, for the first time since the breakup, finally washed over me.
Washington was just making his mark as one of the future faces of contemporary jazz, someone who could play both jazz festivals and rock clubs, bringing a new audience to one of America’s oldest musical genres.
That’s a credit to Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation Artistic Director Christopher Collins and the rest of his team, who blend the next generation of performers with the legends of jazz each year. The 2025 edition of the festival is no different, with rising saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin alongside iconic Detroit bassist Marion Hayden and 83-year-old Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés.
In fact, this year’s artist in residence at the Detroit Jazz Festival is pianist/composer Jason Moran, who was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022 and is currently artistic director for jazz at The Kennedy Center. He’ll perform three distinct sets throughout the festival’s Labor Day run, including performances with Detroit techno pioneer Jeff Mills and poet jessica Care moore, a big-band tribute to Duke Ellington, and a set featuring Grammy Award-winning artist Meshell Ndegeocello.
“The Detroit Jazz Festival is one of the best in the world, and Detroit is a music city,” Moran told me earlier this year. “So when you play for Detroit audiences, you have to bring the verve because they know. They’ve lived it.”
And the Detroit Jazz Festival has lived alongside us Detroiters, too, through the good times and the broken hearts. And it’s not just the musical factors at play here allowing the music to touch our hearts and, at times, stitch them back together.
Because the festival remains free and open to all, it looks like Detroit. It feels like Detroit. There’s no barrier to entry, so it’s a true reflection of who we are and what we love — live music, and especially jazz, on Labor Day weekend downtown. For more information, go to detroitjazzfest.org.
Ryan Patrick Hooper is the host of In the Groove on 101.9 WDET, Detroit’s NPR station (weekdays from noon to 3 p.m.).
This story originally appeared in the August 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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