Detroit-bred pianist David Janeway is heading back to Ann Arbor's Blue LLaMA Jazz Club and Restaurant for two CD release tour performances on September 19, celebrating his trio's new live album, and the homecoming carries a lot more history than a typical tour stop. Janeway heard Oscar Peterson perform at Baker's Keyboard Lounge as a teenager, an experience that connected him to Detroit musicians focused on individual expression within the jazz tradition, and he's spent more than five decades building a musical voice shaped by that city's jazz community.
According to MLive, Janeway has lived in New York City for decades even as he's maintained ties to the Detroit and Ann Arbor area, and the upcoming performances mark a homecoming for him. The shows will celebrate his trio's recording Live at Blue LLaMA, which was recorded in 2024 and is now available on iTunes for $12.90. Per the same report, Janeway discovered what's described as the creative profile, a circle led by trumpeter Marcus Belgrave and tenor saxophonist Sam Sanders, whose influence helped shape his musical direction.
A Recording Rooted in a Single Night at Blue LLaMA
The album itself traces back to a specific night: as reported by Making A Scene, Live at Blue LLaMA was captured during Janeway's June 15, 2024 performance at the Ann Arbor venue, alongside bassist Robert Hurst III and drummer Billy Hart, and released in May on SteepleChase Records. The album features eight standard jazz arrangements alongside two original compositions by Janeway. Janeway's roots in Detroit's music scene, learning from Marcus Belgrave and witnessing masters like Oscar Peterson at Baker's Keyboard Lounge, heavily inform his modern straight-ahead and Latin-infused piano style, per the same outlet.
Janeway's path to the piano bench wasn't a straight line through music alone. Born in Rochester, New York, in 1955 before moving to Detroit at age five, he pursued classical piano studies in his youth while eventually building dual careers as both a professional jazz pianist and a medical doctor, according to All About Jazz. He was inspired to pursue those parallel careers in medicine and jazz by physician-musicians Denny Zeitlin and Eddie Henderson. After moving to New York City in 1978, Janeway immersed himself in the local salsa and jazz scenes, recording and performing with Orchestra Sabor, The Supremes, and veteran trumpeter Art Farmer, and he studied under pianist Albert Dailey for two years after arriving in the city.
A Trio Stacked With Midwest Jazz Credentials
Janeway won't be alone on stage. The David Janeway Trio includes bassist Rodney Whitaker, who serves as University Distinguished Professor of Jazz Bass and Director of Jazz Studies at Michigan State University, where his student ensemble Jazz Orchestra 1 took second place at the 2026 National Collegiate Jazz Championship, according to the Michigan State University College of Music. Whitaker was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024.
Rounding out the trio is drummer Ali Jackson, a Detroit native who began playing drums at age two and attended the city's Cass Technical High School. Jackson spent over a decade as the principal drum chair for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under Wynton Marsalis, and he received early mentorship from drum legends Max Roach and Elvin Jones, per the Jazz Music Institute. While Janeway spent decades based in New York City balancing music with a career as a physician, his returning performances alongside Whitaker and Jackson demonstrate deep ongoing ties to Michigan's jazz infrastructure, per the same profile.
Blue LLaMA's Place in Ann Arbor's Jazz Revival
The Blue LLaMA Jazz Club opened in March 2019 at 314 S. Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, co-founded by LLamasoft tech entrepreneur Don Hicks and artistic director Dave Sharp to combine fine dining with live jazz performances, according to the Ann Arbor Observer. Its opening filled a ten-year void for dedicated jazz venues in downtown Ann Arbor following the closures of Bird of Paradise in 2004 and the Firefly Club in 2009; before Blue LLaMA opened, local jazz shows were largely hosted in pop-up spaces and restaurants.
The two Blue LLaMA shows on September 19 start at 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. and cost $25 each, according to MLive. A writer covering the region's jazz scene might note that venues like Blue LLaMA in Ann Arbor and The Bop Stop in Cleveland act as vital regional anchors for preserving and evolving the Motor City jazz tradition. Before landing in Ann Arbor, the David Janeway Trio will perform at The Bop Stop in Cleveland on September 17, 2026, with that show starting at 7 p.m.
The Cleveland Stop and Detroit's Jazz Landmarks
The Bop Stop is a non-profit listening room donated in 2013 to The Music Settlement to support music education and therapy programs, and bar sales at the venue directly fund community music outreach, according to The Music Settlement. It's a fitting complement to the Detroit landmark that first drew Janeway into jazz as a teenager: Baker's Keyboard Lounge on Livernois Avenue, which opened in May 1934 and claims the title of the world's oldest continuously operating jazz club, famed for its Art Deco interior and piano-shaped bar, according to Atlas Obscura.
That same Detroit institution recently made local headlines of its own. Baker's Keyboard Lounge temporarily closed in May 2026 for a focused renovation of its bathrooms, stage, bar area, and patio ahead of a planned summer reopening, as Hoodline previously reported, with co-owner Jacquelyn Vaughn Whitaker overseeing the refresh ahead of the club's 93rd year. For Janeway, the tour brings his New York-built career full circle, back through the region and the venues that shaped him.
