Jessica Healey, Jalen Baker

Monks Jazz Club is celebrating ten years on Friday, September 25, with two separate sets: vibraphonist Jalen Baker takes the early show, and singer-songwriter Jessica Healey takes the late one. It's a double bill that splits the night between two different voices rather than putting them on stage together.

Baker is a Washington DC native raised in Houston who studied jazz at Columbia College Chicago and Florida State University. He's released two albums, This Is Me, This is Us in 2021 and Be Still in 2023, and he'll be leading the 7 PM set. Healey is Austin-based and works across two modes: she leads the straight-ahead Jessica Healey Quintet and an indie-pop band that played SXSW 2024; her voice has drawn comparisons to Madison Cunningham, Fiona Apple, and Corinne Bailey Rae. She'll be taking the 9:30 PM slot.

The night marks a decade for Monks itself. The East Austin listening room was founded in 2016 by Dallas native, pianist, and composer Collin Shook in collaboration with the art co-op Topology. It spent its first few years as a pop-up, playing nearly 100 concerts between 2016 and 2020, and shifted to live-streaming during the pandemic. In 2021, it moved into a permanent brick-and-mortar home at 501 Pedernales Street, where Shook has since produced more than 600 live-taping concerts. It's now a full-service bar rather than a BYOB venue, and it still enforces a whisper policy during tapings.

Doors open at 6:30 PM for the early show and 9 PM for the late one. Baker starts at 7 PM, and Healey follows at 9:30 PM. You can catch one or both.