Village Vanguard broadcasts tonight

The Village Vanguard is broadcasting live again tonight, extending a digital jazz program from the same Greenwich Village basement that opened in 1935. (villagevanguard.com) The club’s current schedule lists the Brad Mehldau Trio at Village Vanguard from April 21 through April 26, 2026, with two sets nightly during the run. Its website also maintains a dedicated “Livestream Archives” section alongside ticketed in-person shows. (villagevanguard.com 1) (villagevanguard.com 2) Village Vanguard sits at 178 Seventh Avenue South in Manhattan and has operated continuously since Max Gordon opened it on February 22, 1935. The club shifted to a primarily jazz format in 1957 after earlier years that included folk and poetry. (arts.gov) (wikipedia.org) That history gives the broadcasts extra weight because the room has long served as a recording site as well as a club. The National Endowment for the Arts describes it as the longest-running jazz club in New York City, and the venue still anchors a weekly Monday residency by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra that began in 1966. (arts.gov) (villagevanguard.com) The live-stream model also follows a recent precedent at the club. Columbia University station WKCR carried a six-hour live broadcast from the Vanguard on February 22, 2025, for the venue’s 90th anniversary, airing from 6 p.m. to midnight. (cc-seas.columbia.edu) For listeners outside New York, that means a room built for about 123 seats can now reach far beyond the West Village without changing the stage lineup. The National Endowment for the Arts notes the club’s triangular basement layout and small scale as part of the place that jazz audiences know by name. (arts.gov 1) (arts.gov 2) Tonight’s stream does not replace the old ritual at the Vanguard so much as duplicate it in another format: one band, two sets, one basement room, and a much larger audience. (villagevanguard.com 1) (villagevanguard.com 2)