Alex Skolnick Trio will play their final show of 2026 this Sunday, October 25, at New York’s historic Iridium, and the concert will be recorded for a future live release. The Testament guitarist’s jazz trio returns to the Broadway club where Les Paul held his famous Monday night residency for years, sometimes joined by surprise guests such as Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Paul McCartney.
Get tickets at The Iridium.
- Date: Sunday, October 25, 2026
- Venue: The Iridium, 1650 Broadway, New York City
- Doors: 7:30pm, showtime 8:30pm
- All ages welcome
Seven-string guitarist Ron Jackson, a friend of Skolnick’s, opens the night with a duo set alongside Alex and will later sit in with the trio. Here is a taste of what the band sounds like on that stage, from a 2018 Iridium performance:
Prove You’re Not a Robot
The trio of Skolnick, bassist Nathan Peck and drummer Matt Zebroski is touring behind Prove You’re Not a Robot, their sixth album, released in 2025. Skolnick plays everything from a vintage 1935 Gibson L-00 acoustic to a Sadowsky archtop and his signature ESP models, mixing originals with the band’s trademark reinventions of rock classics. Past albums took on Scorpions, Aerosmith and Ozzy Osbourne, and this one opened with an odd-time swing version of Tom Petty’s “Breakdown.”
“He (Skolnick) adopts a flamenco mode on ‘Armondo’s Mood,’ a clever mashup of Yes guitarist Steve Howe’s ‘Mood For A Day’ and Chick Corea’s ‘Armando’s Rhumba.'”
Bill Milkowski, Downbeat
Milkowski also described “Infinite Hotel” as the trio in “metal-bop mode” and compared the title track to Pat Metheny’s “Bright Size Life.” The band has earned praise from Billboard, Downbeat and Jazziz, and its shows draw jazz fans and metalheads alike.
From Testament to The New School
Skolnick first made his name as a teenage prodigy in Testament, bringing a new level of technique and harmony to thrash metal. He later studied jazz at The New School in Manhattan, earning a BFA and building a reputation as a true “guitarist’s guitarist.” This year Hal Leonard published his first guitar method book, Jazz-Rock Guitar Improvisation, co-written with Dave Rubin, and his first film score can be heard in the horror comedy Traction Park Massacre, directed by Douglas DiMonda and Adam Dubin, out now on Prime Video and Apple TV.
A Busy Road Ahead
Next month Skolnick heads to Mexico and South America with Testament for a month-long tour with Immolation and Municipal Waste. Before that, he and Chuck Billy join a special Metal Allegiance lineup with Troy Sanders, Mike Portnoy, Mark Menghi and Phil Demmel to support Sepultura’s final show in São Paulo on November 7. The next day Skolnick will give a guitar clinic at Rooftop Galeria do Rock. In spring 2027 Skolnick heads to Europe on a tour with Megadeth and Black Label Society, with a North American support run close to being announced, so Sunday is the last chance to see the trio for a while.
Our Take
Few metal guitarists have crossed into jazz as convincingly as Skolnick, and the Iridium is the perfect room to document it. A live album recorded where Les Paul played for decades, at the end of a year that also brought a method book and a film score, feels like a fitting snapshot of one of the most versatile players in heavy music.
Alex Skolnick Trio: Alex Skolnick (guitar), Nathan Peck (bass), Matt Zebroski (drums).
