New York, NY—Caribbean mu­sic reached a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone at Jazz at Lin­coln Cen­ter as Kesthe­Band de­liv­ered a land­mark, sold-out, two-night run at the Uni­ty Jazz Fes­ti­val—set­ting a first for so­ca mu­sic with­in the fes­ti­val’s his­to­ry.

Set against the daz­zling panoram­ic views of Colum­bus Cir­cle in the heart of New York City, the per­for­mances took place at the icon­ic Fred­er­ick P Rose Hall and the Ap­pel Room, as part of Jazz at Lin­coln Cen­ter’s 38th sea­son theme, ‘Moth­er Africa’. This year’s theme ho­n­oured the glob­al in­flu­ence of Afro-di­as­poric mu­si­cal tra­di­tions and their en­dur­ing con­nec­tion to jazz.

Across both nights, KesThe­Band sur­ren­dered to dot­ing au­di­ences with an in­ti­mate, reimag­ined in­ter­pre­ta­tion of their cel­e­brat­ed cat­a­logue, trans­form­ing the House of Swing through stripped-back arrange­ments that drew from so­ca, ca­lyp­so, soul, rock and jazz. The per­for­mances bridged Caribbean mu­si­cal ex­pres­sion with jazz tra­di­tion by ho­n­our­ing an­ces­tral foun­da­tions while ex­pand­ing the bound­aries of con­tem­po­rary sound.

With soul­ful hits such as ‘Hel­lo’, ‘Fallin’ and ‘Sa­van­nah Grass’ meld­ed with clas­sic in­ter­po­la­tions that paid homage to Caribbean mu­si­cal stal­warts such as Lord In­vad­er and The Mighty Spar­row, the au­di­ence was trans­port­ed to a world of bliss­ful so­ca sounds punc­tu­at­ed by jazz in­flec­tions that echoed through the hall­ways of the House of Swing.

“I’m eter­nal­ly grate­ful for the en­tire team that made this mo­ment pos­si­ble. It’s a step in a new di­rec­tion when it comes to ap­ply­ing ca­lyp­so and so­ca as an art form in new spaces and places with con­fi­dence, pur­pose and in­ten­tion,” said Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, lead vo­cal­ist of Kesthe­Band.

“Per­form­ing at the Uni­ty Jazz Fes­ti­val for two nights has opened up an en­tire new book of pos­si­bil­i­ties for us, the way that we ex­press our­selves and the way that we move for­ward to make the world a small­er and bet­ter place by spread­ing the love of this mu­sic.”

A defin­ing pres­ence through­out the run was ac­claimed Trinida­di­an trum­peter Eti­enne Charles, whose mu­si­cal prowess el­e­vat­ed the per­for­mances in­to a pow­er­ful trib­ute to the ‘Moth­er Africa’ theme. Charles’ artistry un­der­scored the deep cul­tur­al con­nec­tions be­tween jazz and the Caribbean — adding a mag­i­cal depth and nu­ance that re­in­forced the fes­ti­val’s cel­e­bra­tion of her­itage and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“It was an in­cred­i­ble ho­n­our to once again per­form at the House of Swing,” said Eti­enne Charles. “Shar­ing the stage with my broth­er Kes and the en­tire band for this mo­ment in the fes­ti­val’s his­to­ry felt deeply mean­ing­ful, and I’m grate­ful to be part of a cel­e­bra­tion that recog­nis­es where this mu­sic comes from and where it can go.”

In a pow­er­ful nod to youth de­vel­op­ment and the fu­ture of the arts, the per­for­mances al­so fea­tured ap­pear­ances by Ab­dias Ar­menteros and Chris Lewis—two young sax­o­phon­ists emerg­ing from mem­bers of the Jazz at Lin­coln Cen­ter Or­ches­tra. Their in­clu­sion high­light­ed the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to men­tor­ship and ac­cess, em­pha­sis­ing the role of ed­u­ca­tion in sus­tain­ing mu­si­cal tra­di­tions across gen­er­a­tions.

The Uni­ty Jazz Fes­ti­val per­for­mances al­so ar­rived amid Kesthe­Band’s con­tin­ued in­ter­na­tion­al mo­men­tum, fol­low­ing the glob­al suc­cess of their hit sin­gle along­side Tano, “Rum and Co­ca Co­la”, which re­cent­ly de­buted on the Top 100 charts in over 20 coun­tries on Ap­ple Mu­sic. To­geth­er, the two nights reaf­firmed the band’s abil­i­ty to com­mand world-class stages while re­main­ing ground­ed in Caribbean iden­ti­ty.

As the 2026 head­lin­ing act, Kesthe­Band left an in­deli­ble im­print on the Uni­ty Jazz Fes­ti­val, demon­strat­ing how Caribbean mu­sic can ho­n­our its roots, in­spire emerg­ing voic­es, and res­onate with­in glob­al cul­tur­al spaces. The sold-out run not on­ly ex­pand­ed the fes­ti­val’s mu­si­cal nar­ra­tive but al­so set a mean­ing­ful prece­dent for the con­tin­ued evo­lu­tion and vis­i­bil­i­ty of the so­ca genre on the world stage.