The Hyde Park Jazz Festival maintains twenty-twenty vision in its 20th year
Chicago Reader
October 8, 2026
Under the long shadow of the 225-foot Obama Presidential Center, which has received more than 175,000 visitors since opening in June, lies the Midway Plaisance. For the past two decades, folks have congregated here each fall for the Hyde Park Jazz Festival.
The festival has always hosted music on the Midway, and since 2012 jazz fans have promenaded between two outdoor stages. “Jazz fans” is probably too narrow a framing, actually, given the fest’s “open borders” policy—its audience is really the public at large, many of whom end up attending via osmosis while taking the dog or the kids for a walk in reliably gorgeous fall weather.
