Cincinnati pianist Ricky Nye is bringing his Blues & Boogie Piano Summit back to Memorial Hall this Saturday, Nov. 14, with a lineup of boogie-woogie players from around the world set to take the stage at the Anderson Theater. The show is scheduled to kick off at 8 p.m., according to a listing from Cincinnati Events.
Nye and Memorial Hall are presenting the 2026 edition together, according to the venue's own event page, which names pianist and organizer Nye alongside Chase Garrett, Mr. Boogie Woogie and Lluis Coloma as the headlining performers. The same Memorial Hall page lists Matt McCoy on bass, Jack Mansfield on drums and Eli Gonzalez on tenor and baritone saxophone as the musicians backing the pianists, though a search snippet tied to that same page appears to list a different drummer, Josiah Wolf, instead of Mansfield — a discrepancy that has not been resolved.
The Summit has a long history in Greater Cincinnati, having run annually from 1999 to 2017 before going dark and then returning in 2025, per the venue's account. The Cincy Blues Society says the event has delighted regional piano fans “for more than two decades,” and WKRC likewise described it as having done so for “more than two decades.”
A Seven-Year Gap Before the Comeback
The hiatus wasn't simply a matter of waning interest. Cincinnati CityBeat reported that the Summit was shuttered in 2018 and 2019, and then the pandemic kept it off the calendar in 2020 and 2021, as Covid, lockdowns and a battered entertainment industry provided what the outlet called “an alibi for the show's absence.” The Summit didn't resurface until 2025, when it returned to Memorial Hall.
That comeback traces back to a conversation between Nye and Memorial Hall manager Joshua Steele, who proposed splitting the financial risk of reviving the event. “Let's do it together. We'll share the risk,” Steele told Nye, according to CityBeat's reporting, to which Nye said he replied, “Sold!” Nye first organized the Piano Summit back in 1999, per the same outlet, making him the connective thread across more than a quarter-century of the event's on-and-off existence.
Last Year's Sellout Sets the Bar
Expectations for Saturday's show are buoyed by how the 2025 return played out. Memorial Hall says that edition “electrified a capacity crowd,” and the bill that night, per CityBeat, included Nye alongside Carl Sonny Leyland — a former Southampton, England resident now living in California — local blues prodigy Ben Levin, and husband-and-wife duo Ethan Leinwand and Valerie Kirchoff.
This year's touring cast brings a similarly international flavor, with Mr. Boogie Woogie and Lluis Coloma joining Nye and Chase Garrett at the keys. Doors open at Memorial Hall's Anderson Theater for the 8 p.m. show this Saturday, with the full backing band rounding out a night of blues and boogie-woogie piano.
