How do you mark Miles Davis's 100th birthday in Harlem when the most famous stage on 125th Street is closed for renovation? The Apollo and Juilliard Jazz answered by booking a four-album Miles series into a theater with 199 seats. The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is holding its own Miles 100 series in its space on West 129th Street. This fall's centennial is the closest Harlem has come to a citywide music event in years, and almost all of it takes place in rooms where the trumpet will be a few rows away.
That intimacy is a side effect of construction. The best way to plan around it is to understand why the big room is still dark.
The Sign Is Back On, but the Theater Is Still Closed
On June 10, 2026, the Apollo relit its marquee. Bevy Smith hosted, and the Marching Cobras led a procession down 125th Street. The evening also included the posthumous induction of Kiki Shepard into the Apollo Walk of Fame. President and CEO Michelle Ebanks said, "This marquee belongs to Harlem," and called the relighting a milestone "on the road to reopening The Apollo's historic theater in Spring 2027."
The building behind the marquee shut on July 1, 2025. The last in-house performance was the 2025 Amateur Night grand finale. The reopening date has moved more than once since the project was announced:
- August 2024: the design announcement projected completion in spring 2026.
- July 2025: the groundbreaking release said work would run through summer 2026.
- June 2026: the Apollo described a phased reopening "beginning in late 2026" and a public opening in spring 2027.
The Apollo's own pages don't all say the same thing yet. The visitor page still says the Historic Theater is "expected to reopen in late 2026." An August 3 release about the Apollo in the Hamptons benefit points to a 2027 reopening, while quoting Ebanks looking toward reopening "later this year." As of early October, no opening night, gala or first season for the renovated house has been announced. The Fall/Winter 2026 lineup is at the Victoria.
The project is worth the wait. It costs $64.5 million and is led by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects + Planners, with Consigli Construction as builder. The lobby will double in size and open visually to 125th Street, adding an all-day café, a bar and retail space. The Wall of Fame becomes an interactive digital installation, and the wall signed by artists stays. Twenty-nine seats move from the balcony and mezzanine down to the orchestra, so overall capacity holds steady. Amateur Night is on hold, and no return date has been announced. The Apollo's page lists no events and asks audiences to watch for pop-ups and auditions. In April, a separate "Best of The Apollo" show took the tradition to the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Four Albums, Five Days, 199 Seats
That's why the Miles centennial landed at the Apollo Stages at The Victoria, 233 W. 125th St. The building has two rooms: the Victoria Theater with 199 seats and the Jonelle Procope Theater with 99. The Apollo notes that Miles's New York years began at Juilliard. To mark his 100th birthday, Juilliard Jazz and the Apollo are staging multidisciplinary performances built around four of his landmark albums.
| Program | Dates | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Birth of the Cool | Tuesday, November 17 | 7:30 p.m. show, doors at 6:00; $25; preconcert lecture at 6:30 in the Procope Theater |
| Filles de Kilimanjaro, including music from Bitches Brew | Wednesday, November 18, and Thursday, November 19 | 7:30 p.m. show, doors at 6:00; $25 |
| Kind of Blue | Friday, November 20, and Saturday, November 21 | 7:30 p.m. Friday with a 6:30 preconcert lecture in the Procope Theater; 2:30 p.m. Saturday matinee |
Author and Juilliard faculty member Fredara Hadley moderates the November 17 lecture. The run follows the arc the Apollo itself describes, from bebop to cool jazz to post-bop to fusion, over five consecutive days, ending with a Saturday matinee. A neighbor with a free week could hear Miles's reinventions in order.
The 199-seat Victoria is about a block and a half west of the Studio Museum at 144 W. 125th St. In November, that short stretch of 125th Street will hold the centennial's main stage while the renovated Apollo next door is still closed to the public.
At the Jazz Museum, the Centennial Is a Conversation
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem sits at 58 W. 129th St., between Malcolm X Boulevard and Fifth Avenue. Trumpeter Nabaté Isles curates its Miles 100 series, which the museum describes it as bringing together "musicians, athletes, and cultural figures" to look at Miles's legacy. Where the Juilliard series plays the records, the museum's programs focus on the people around Miles.
The athlete on the schedule is Spencer Haywood, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, appearing at a Harlem Speaks conversation on Thursday, October 22, at 7 p.m. Haywood will talk about his friendship with Miles Davis and the overlap of jazz and basketball. He also hosted jazz radio shows, at KYAC in Seattle from 1971 to 1975 and at WRVR in New York from 1976 to 1978. Twelve days later, on Tuesday, November 3, at 7 p.m., the museum hosts "The Trumpet After Miles." Isles brings together five trumpeters from different generations: Eddie Henderson, Jimmy Owens, Ralph Alessi, David Adewumi and one final special guest. RSVP is free.
The panel lands two weeks before the Victoria run starts, so the two series make a natural sequence. Hear five trumpeters talk about what Miles left them, then hear Juilliard play the albums. The museum's calendar shows no Miles 100 program in December. For now, the centennial in Harlem runs from late October to the weekend before Thanksgiving.
The museum's regular calendar keeps going alongside the series, with Thursday "Live from Harlem" programs and Monday Night Jams. On Saturday, October 10, "Move and Groove" pairs a 60-minute yoga flow with pianist Maki Nientao. Doors open at 10 a.m., class starts at 10:30, and the requested donation is $20.
The Rooms That Never Needed a Renovation
The Apollo's year away also highlights how much Harlem jazz always happened in living rooms, bars and small clubs. These rooms have current schedules posted for this fall:
- Bill's Place, 148 W. 133rd St.: Bill Saxton & the Harlem All-Stars play Fridays and Saturdays at 7:00 and 9:30 p.m., with the October calendar up on the club's ticketing page.
- Marjorie Eliot's Parlor Jazz, 555 Edgecombe Ave.: Sunday concerts from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance lists the next one for October 11.
- Shrine, 2271 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.: live acts booked through October and November, the Random Strangers open jam every Monday, and the Shrine Big Band on the first Sunday of the month.
- Silvana, 300 W. 116th St.: a bill that can run from a jazz quartet to a Cuban conguera to a reggae band, followed by DJs, with live sets posted for this weekend.
These rooms fill the gaps between centennial dates. Two of the museum's programs fall on Thursday and Tuesday nights. Bill Saxton's sets cover Friday and Saturday, the Edgecombe parlor covers Sunday afternoon, and Monday offers a choice between the museum's jam and the one at Shrine. Over the next seven weeks, a Harlem resident could hear live jazz within walking distance nearly every night of the week. Most of it costs about the same as a Juilliard ticket or less.
Around the Shows
West 116th Street is a natural place for dinner before a set at Silvana. Kinne, an upscale Senegalese steakhouse from the team behind Africa Kine, opened September 14 at 205 W. 116th St., by St. Nicholas Avenue, as Eater reported.
On 125th Street, the Studio Museum in Harlem has three exhibitions running into winter. Dreams of This Future: The Collection of Peggy Cooper Cafritz runs through February 28, 2027. Geometries, with works by Julie Mehretu, Alma Thomas, Jack Whitten and William T. Williams, runs through January 31. A sustained becoming, this year's artists-in-residence show with Derriann Pharr, Simonette Quamina and Taylor Simmons, runs through January 3. On October 30, from 6 to 8 p.m., the museum hosts "Visions of the American Landscape," a screening evening with Allison Janae Hamilton and Imani Perry.
The Victoria has more in October than the Miles series. TheARTI$T plays an Apollo Music Café late-night set on October 9 at 10 p.m. Melanin Madness presents an immersive screening of Vampire in Brooklyn on October 29 at 7:30 p.m. Jordan E. Cooper's free staged reading of Sitcom on October 26 is already listed as sold out. That's a reminder that 199 seats go quickly, and the Miles dates in November will draw on the same small pool of tickets.
The Apollo's main house is set to open to the public in spring 2027 with a bigger lobby, a café on 125th Street and a reworked orchestra. Until then, Harlem's Miles Davis centennial plays to a 199-seat room on five consecutive days in November.
As a fourth-generation New Yorker who leads Rediscovering New York walking tours, I've spent years showing people how 125th Street's theaters, clubs and parlors connect, and I'm always glad to share notes on where the music is playing uptown. If you'd like to talk about Harlem's cultural calendar, or what its blocks mean for your own plans, reach out to Jeffrey Goodman. Let's Connect.
