The A-Trane hands its stage to one artist for the entire working week, and this time it is Emma Rawicz with her Cloudwalker set, Monday through Friday at 20:30. Five consecutive nights in the same room is how a residency is supposed to work: the band loosens up, the arrangements shift, the Friday show sounds nothing like the Monday one.

Away from Charlottenburg, the Zig Zag has a Buena Vista Social Club tribute on Tuesday and Morgan James on Thursday. The Konzerthaus hosts Jong Metropole for a Young Euro Classic night. B-flat runs a different band every evening. Nine picks across seven nights.

Emma Rawicz ‘Cloudwalker’ · A-Trane · 20:30 (Mon–Fri)

Rawicz is a British saxophonist and guitarist who won BBC Young Jazz Musician in 2020, when she was twenty. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and has since built a touring career that stretches across European festivals and club dates. The A-Trane summer residency format gives her five nights to play the Cloudwalker material, which is the kind of extended run where a band stops performing the set and starts inhabiting it. Night one is the tightest version. By Wednesday the edges come off. By Friday you are hearing something that only exists because of the four nights before it. If you can only go once, go Thursday or Friday. If you can go twice, start on Monday.

Celebrating Buena Vista Social Club · Zig Zag Jazz Club · 20:00

In 1996 Ry Cooder flew to Havana and recorded a group of Cuban musicians, most of them in their seventies and eighties, who had been playing since before the revolution. The album sold over eight million copies, the documentary won every award that existed, and it revived careers that the world had forgotten. Ibrahim Ferrer was found shining shoes. Rubén González had not touched a piano in years. Omara Portuondo was still performing but to smaller and smaller rooms. The music itself, son cubano and bolero and guaracha played with absolute authority, needed no revival. It just needed a microphone. Zig Zag’s tribute nights are musician-led, not karaoke, which means the repertoire gets played rather than impersonated.

Kodo Jazz Collective · Yorckschlösschen · 20:00

The Yorckschlösschen in Kreuzberg has been booking jazz since before most of the city’s current venues existed. The room is small, the bar is three metres from the bandstand, and the sound is whatever the musicians make of it. Kodo Jazz Collective plays here on a Tuesday, which is the kind of midweek set where people show up because they want to hear music, not because it is the thing to do on a Saturday night.

Jong Metropole Symphonic Jazz Orchestra · Konzerthaus Berlin · 19:00

The Metropole Orkest, based in Hilversum, is the world’s largest professional pop and jazz orchestra. It has backed everyone from Herbie Hancock to Snarky Puppy, won a Grammy with Vince Mendoza, and collaborated with the likes of John Scofield, Al Jarreau and Caro Emerald over a history that stretches back to 1945. Jong Metropole is the youth formation, drawing young Dutch musicians into the same tradition. This is a Young Euro Classic concert in the Konzerthaus at the Gendarmenmarkt, which means a proper concert hall, proper acoustics, and a programme built for the room. Symphonic jazz in this setting is a different physical experience from a club date.

‘Orquesta de Antes’ / Argentina · B-flat · 21:00

The name means ‘Orchestra of Before,’ and if that sounds like a band with opinions about repertoire, it probably is. Argentine jazz and tango have a long, tangled history, and ensembles that look backwards tend to play the music of Pugliese, Troilo, and Piazzolla’s earlier work rather than the later avant-garde material. B-flat’s Latin bookings run deep, and a Wednesday night Argentine set at nine is exactly the kind of show you walk into without a plan and leave glad you did.

Morgan James · Zig Zag Jazz Club · 20:00

Morgan James is an American singer who came up through Broadway: she was in the original cast of Motown: The Musical and in Godspell before that. Then she pivoted into solo work that sits between soul, jazz and pop, released several studio albums, and built a parallel life on YouTube where her covers have been viewed tens of millions of times. None of that matters as much as the voice, which is the kind of instrument that makes a small room feel like a deliberate artistic choice rather than a career stage. The Zig Zag is that small room. Thursday night, 20:00.

Phillip Dornbusch Quartet feat. Mark Pringle / Daniel Nagel / Quinton Cain · Kunstfabrik Schlot · 21:00

Schlot is the kind of venue where you go for the music and discover the beer is also good. This is a quartet date with a featured lineup, which at Schlot usually means the leader brought in specific players for the night rather than calling the usual crew. Thursday at nine, and the room fills up.

Jacqueline Boulanger & Band · B-flat · 21:00

New album Reach Out. An album release show at B-flat on a Friday night is a proven format: the band is rehearsed, the setlist is tight, the room is full of people who came for the occasion. B-flat has been running these kinds of nights for decades, and the sound in the room rewards bands that know what they are doing.

Mate Cocido Group · B-flat · 21:00

Mate cocido is the tea you drink in Argentina when it is too hot for proper mate, and the name tells you roughly where the music comes from. Saturday night at B-flat, late start. The kind of set that begins after dinner and keeps you out later than you planned. B-flat has been running a different act every night this week, and the Saturday slot is traditionally the one where the room is warmest and the crowd most willing.

Nine shows, four venues, seven nights. The A-Trane owns Monday through Friday with Emma Rawicz. Zig Zag splits the midweek with a Cuban tribute and Morgan James. B-flat and Schlot fill in the rest. See you out there.