Two things anchor the week. At A-Trane, Judy Niemack spends five straight nights singing Miles Davis for the trumpeter’s centennial, a different band behind her every evening. On Saturday, guitarist Tal Arditi pulls Tim Ries, the Rolling Stones’ saxophone player, onto the Zig Zag stage. In between there is a tentet that has spent twenty-five years setting poetry to music, a Detroit pianist who has recorded with Carl Craig and turned up in a Wes Anderson film, and the oldest big band at Cambridge. Here is where to be, Wednesday through Sunday.

UniBigband Berlin · Kunstfabrik Schlot · 20:00

The big band of Berlin’s Collegium Musicum opens the week at Schlot under Martin Gerwig, and the program is a wide swing through the form: the great Swing-era classics, dance numbers from the 1950s, and the band’s own fresh arrangements. Schlot has been one of the city’s dependable jazz rooms for decades, an unpretentious Mitte cellar where student energy and serious playing meet. Doors open an hour before the music. For a big-band night this early in the week, it is a soft, generous way in.

Judy Niemack, Singing Miles · A-Trane · 20:30

Judy Niemack was Warne Marsh’s first vocal student. He handed the teenager solos by Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge and Lester Young and told her to treat her voice like a horn; he called improvising “instant composition,” and she has been doing exactly that ever since. She moved to Berlin in 1995 and became the first professor of jazz voice in Germany, at the Hanns Eisler school, and along the way wrote lyrics to more than a hundred tunes by Monk, Bill Evans and Pat Metheny. This week she gives Miles Davis five nights for his hundredth birthday, a new ensemble each evening built around Yuriy Seredin, Doug Weiss and Marc Michel with rotating trumpet guests. Wednesday is night two; the residency runs nightly through Saturday. If you care about the lineage that runs from Tristano and Marsh into the present, this is the room.

Robins Nest Jam Session · b-flat · 21:00

Robin Draganić’s midweek jam is a b-flat institution, the kind of open session where the first set is the working band and the rest of the night belongs to whoever brings an instrument and the nerve to sit in. Doors at 20:00, music at 21:00, in the club’s warm Mitte cellar. Come to play, or come to watch the city’s players find each other in real time.

Internationaler Jazz Workshop Berlin 2026 · Kunstfabrik Schlot · 20:00

Schlot hosts the newcomer-and-teacher concerts of the Internationaler Jazz Workshop Berlin, a week where emerging players share the bill with established ones. Thursday brings the Newcomer ensemble followed by the Līva Strazdiņa and Dirk Strakhof Quintett and the Anna Wohlfarth and Paul Peuker Quintett, three groups in one night mapping where contemporary European improvisation actually sits right now. It is the sort of program that rewards curiosity: you will not know every name on the poster, and that is the point.

Kelvin Sholar Trio · b-flat · 21:00

Kelvin Sholar came up in Detroit, won the Michigan Bach competition at sixteen, then spent years moving between worlds most pianists never touch: he led and arranged Carl Craig’s “Versus” ensemble on a two-year tour, has recorded with Q-Tip and sung on stage with Stevie Wonder, and turned up last year in Wes Anderson’s film “The Phoenician Scheme.” At b-flat he strips all of that back to the classic piano trio, joined by bassist Charles Sammons and drummer Eric Vaughn, sophisticated harmony and tight three-way conversation in an intimate room. Doors 20:00, music 21:00.

Thärichens Tentett · Zig Zag Jazzclub · 20:00

For twenty-five years Nicolai Thärichen has bent ten of Berlin’s best players into something no other German band quite does: poetry set to music. Shakespeare, Ringelnatz and Hugo Ball meet arrangements that swell into a thundering big band one moment and thin to chamber music the next, with Michael Schiefel, one of the country’s most inventive jazz singers, out front. The band was born in 1999 out of a commission that fell through, which pushed Thärichen to record only his own arrangements with his own musicians; seven partly ECHO-awarded albums later, the Süddeutsche Zeitung called them “without competition.” At Zig Zag they get a full evening. Come for the writing.

The Creole Madcats · Yorckschlösschen · 20:00

Swing in its most danceable form lands at the Yorckschlösschen, the storied Kreuzberg pub that has kept live jazz and blues going for decades. The Creole Madcats bring crackling saxophones, hot rhythm and the unbridled joy of a real swing band, and the room turns into a dance floor whether you planned on it or not. Free-spirited, warm, and the kind of Friday that ends better than it started.

Salvo / Jowett / Banner / Bryant · Sowieso · 20:00

For the other end of the spectrum, Sowieso in Neukölln is Berlin’s home for free improvisation, and this quartet is built for it: Sofia Salvo’s baritone saxophone, Megan Jowett’s viola, James Banner’s double bass and Dae Bryant’s drums, four voices weaving intricate harmony and open-form risk across a single evening. No standards, no net. If you want to hear players think out loud, this is your Friday.

Tal Arditi feat. Tim Ries (Rolling Stones) · Zig Zag Jazzclub · 17:00

Tal Arditi has been a fixture of the Berlin scene since he moved here from Tel Aviv at eighteen; he recorded his debut, “Portrait,” live at A-Trane, and spent two years playing with Flora Purim and Airto Moreira, whose Grammy-nominated “If You Will” he plays on. Tonight, in a project led by pianist Uri Gincel, he shares the Zig Zag stage with Tim Ries, the saxophonist who has toured with the Rolling Stones since 1999 and turned their catalog into jazz on two “Rolling Stones Project” albums alongside Bill Frisell, John Scofield and Norah Jones. Modern jazz, an international top-line, and a genuinely rare bill. Note the early 17:00 start and plan your evening around it.

Olya Lukachova Band · b-flat · 20:00

Later on Saturday, b-flat gives its stage to the Olya Lukachova Band, contemporary jazz laced with world-music color in the club’s intimate Mitte setting. Doors 19:00, music 20:00, tickets around twenty euros. A clean, well-played Saturday night if the Zig Zag bill has left you wanting more.

Fitz Swing, Big Band der University of Cambridge · Kunstfabrik Schlot · 19:00

Sunday belongs to a curiosity worth catching: Fitz Swing, the oldest big band at Cambridge, running since 1990, brings its players to Schlot for a night of Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald and the swing-era book, plus the funk and Latin numbers that keep a student band loose. They have toured to Berlin before. Authentic big-band sound, young energy, and a Sunday evening that swings harder than a Sunday has any right to.

Les Colorés Jazz Kréol · b-flat · 21:00

Close the week at b-flat with Les Colorés Jazz Kréol, an international quartet rooting jazz in the biguine and zouk traditions of the French Caribbean, folding soul and funk into freshly arranged standards and originals built to move you. Drummer Hervé Hartock leads, with Samuel Appapoulay on keys. It is warm, danceable, and a fitting last word on a week that ran from Miles Davis to Shakespeare to the Rolling Stones.

Twelve shows, six venues, five nights. Pick one, pick three. See you out there.