A performance photograph by Stephen Splane showing jazz trumpeter James Suggs performing live at the Sarasota Jazz Festival inside the Hyatt Regency Sarasota in Sarasota, Florida, on March 6, 2019. Captured in a close-up shot under dramatic blue stage lighting, Suggs plays a brass trumpet angled toward the left, wearing a blue suit jacket, a white collared shirt with a dark tie, dark-framed eyeglasses, and a wristwatch on his left wrist.James Suggs at the Sarasota Jazz Festival inside the Hyatt Regency Sarasota in Sarasota, Florida on on March 6, 2019. Credit: Stephen Splane / Tampa Jazz Club

If they were still alive, Miles Davis and John Coltrane would’ve both turned 100 years old this year (May, and September, respectively). The jazz icons actually only lived for a combined 105 years, but left behind a world-changing body of work.

Drummer Jean Balduc, bassist Alejandro Arenas, and pianist John O’Leary will play alongside trumpeter James Suggs and saxophonist Jeremy Carter who told WMNF’s “Jazz In the Night” show that they’ve been working with about 50 tunes that’ll be whittled down into the setlist for this tribute.

“There’s so many great tunes on the repertoire,” Suggs said last Monday, giving a nod to the Steamin’ and Relaxin’ albums from Davis’ quintet. “We’re still filing it down. But yeah, all the classic prestige recordings.”

Tickets to see James Suggs, Jeremy Carter, and the Miles-Trane Centennial at Mainstage Theatre at Hillsborough College Ybor in Ybor City on Sunday, Aug. 23 are still available and start at $10 (free for HCC students and staff).

This article appears in August 20 – 26, 2026.

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Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief…
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