JLCO Welcome and One-on-One with Wynton Marsalis

Part 1,2,3 of this year’s Essentially Ellington competition is online and will be up for a week – have a look!

Essentially Ellington Competition 2013 (Part I)

Essentially Ellington Competition 2013 (Part II)

Essentially Ellington Competition 2013 (Part III)

Wynton Marsalis and the JLCO ran an open rehearsal of next year’s Essentially Ellington charts. Listen to the music, and hear what they have to say about it!

Open Rehearsal with the JLCO

Wynton Marsalis, Ron Carter, and all EE judges discuss what they heard in the bands this year, and announce the Top 3 bands. Have a look!

Essentially Ellington 2013 – Announcement of Top 3 Bands

Essentially Ellington 2013 – Full photo report

Essentially Ellington Welcome and Cheer Tunnel

Essentially Ellington Competition Part 1

Essentially Ellington Competition Part 2

Essentially Ellington Jam Session and Competition

Essentially Ellington Competition, Final Concert, and Awards

Download a complete transcript (PDF) of Wynton’s Speech at University of Vermont’s Commencement 2013

Video: University of Vermont’s Commencement 2013

The main ceremony, with Wynton as commencement speaker, will begin at 8:20 a.m. on the University Green. Wynton will start speaking at 9am EDT.
Watch him live on http://live.vpt.org/uvm/uvm-main.html

“We are honored by the generous support we’ve received from our corporate sponsors and individual donors since establishing this movement four years ago, but we still have a long way to go,” said Paul Caccamo, founder and executive director for Up2Us. “Our gala is an opportunity for those who believe in the power of sports to inspire the next generation of youth to come together and make a difference in the lives of millions of kids.”

Individual tickets start at $500 and tables of ten begin at $10,000 and are available for purchase at www.up2us.org

The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a VIP reception; followed by dinner and the program at 7:30 p.m. Up2Us will also honor three coaches from its Coach Across America program. These coaches will be acknowledged for their exceptional service and dedication to counseling and supporting at-risk youth. After the formal program, the event will continue with desserts, cocktails and dancing.

Read more about Kareem Adbul-Jabbar, Wynton Marsalis and More Set for Up2Us Inaugural Gala by broadwayworld.com

The Chick Corea Festival includes a command performance by Corea himself and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in Rose Theater on May 16, 17 and 18.

What:
Chick Corea and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

When:
May 16, 17 and 18 at 8pm

Where:
Rose Theater

LIVE webcast on:
http://wyntonmarsalis.org/live

Free Pre-Concert Discussion at 7:00pm nightly
Chick Corea reconnects with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in a reprise of their highly acclaimed collaborations in 2011, performing deeply original arrangements by JLCO members of Corea’s masterful songbook. This interplay showcases Corea’s singular abilities as a musical storyteller, with vocabulary that contain a global range of references. Bach and bebop, Bartok and the blues, Mozart and montunos, Ravel and rumba, Stravinsky and samba, all tempered with the language of swing and the Spanish Tinge.

New York, NY (May 12, 2013) Tonight, Jazz at Lincoln Center proudly announced the high school jazz bands in the nation who took the highest honors at the prestigious 18th Annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival (EE) at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

After a packed three days of mentoring, jam sessions, and workshops, EE culminated with tonight’s final concert, where the top-placing bands each performed with a Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) member. The second half of the final concert featured the world renowned JLCO with Wynton Marsalis – whose members served as mentors for the finalist bands throughout the weekend – performing a repertoire of tunes made famous by Duke Ellington.

Each band was chosen by a panel of judges composed of distinguished jazz musicians and historians: Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Artistic and Managing Director Wynton Marsalis; composer, conductor, and Ellington authority David Berger; composer and arranger Rich DeRosa; educator and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra member Victor Goines; and bassist extraordinaire and educator Ron Carter.

At the awards ceremony, Wynton Marsalis presented awards to each of the 15 finalist high school jazz bands. Doug Tidaback, director of Tucson Jazz Institute, accepted the 1st place trophy and an award of $5,000. Julius Tolentino, director of Jazz House Kids, accepted the 2nd place trophy and an award of $2,500. Scott Brown, director of Roosevelt High School, accepted the 3rd place trophy and an award of $1,000. Dillard Center for the Arts, directed by Christopher Dorsey, received honorable mention and an award of $750. The remaining eleven bands were each awarded certificates of merit and cash awards of $500. All monetary awards are to be used for improving the jazz education programs of each respective high school.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 18th Annual
Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival Awards

First Place
Tucson Jazz Institute, Tucson, AZ

Second Place
Jazz House Kids, Montclair, NJ

Third Place
Roosevelt High School, Seattle, WA

Honorable Mention
Dillard Center for the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL

SECTION AWARDS
Outstanding Sections
Rhythm
Jazz House Kids

Reeds
Outstanding Saxophone Section
Beloit Memorial High School
Garfield High School
Community Arts Program
Rio Americano High School
Roosevelt High School
Dillard Center for the Arts
Lexington High School
Honorable Mention
New World School of the Arts

Clarinet
Edmonds-Woodway High School

Brass
Outstanding Trombone Section
Roosevelt High School
Tucson Jazz Institute

Trumpet
Garfield High School
Badger High School
Roosevelt High School
Tucson Jazz Institute

Brass
Rio Americano High School

SOLOIST AWARDS
Piano
Outstanding Soloist
Kyra Silbernagel, Sun Prairie High School
Jack Swiggett, Garfield High School
Isaiah Thompson, Jazz House Kids
Franchesca Romera, New World School of the Arts
Evan Tarrh, Lexington High School
Alex Olsen, Foxboro High School
Joey Cozza, Rio Americano
Daniel Arthur, Roosevelt High School

Bass
Outstanding Soloist
Sam Olson, Sun Prairie High School
Alex Warshawsky, Jazz House Kids

Guitar
Outstanding Soloist
David Zyto, Jazz House Kids
Josh Bermudez, New World School of the Arts
Henry Lunetta, Rio Americano High School
Honorable Mention
Kevin Scollins, Foxboro High School

Drums
Outstanding Soloist
Aaron Crawford, Beloit Memorial High School
Luke Woodle, Roosevelt High School
Honorable Mention
Nick Adair, Foxboro High School
Paul Slater, Rio Americano High School

Clarinet
Outstanding Soloist
Kyle Brooks, Edmonds-Woodway High School
Dexter Callender III, Community Arts Program
Honorable Mention
Laura Kidder, Badger High School
Crissy Cavallaro, Foxboro High School

Alto Saxophone
Outstanding Soloist
Tim Leslie, Beloit Memorial High School
Aaron Reihs, American Music Program
Nathan Altman, Sun Prairie High School
Zoe Obadia, Jazz House Kids
Julian Lee, Jazz House Kids
Sarah Clausen, Badger High School
Emery Mesich, Rio Americano High School
Anna Dolde, Roosevelt High School
Alan Acosta, Tuscon Jazz Institute
Honorable Mention
Ariel Loud, Garfield High School
Markus Howell, Dillard Center for the Arts
Kira Daglio-Fine, Lexington High School

Tenor Saxophone
Outstanding Soloist
Rony Gimenez, Beloit Memorial High School
Jack Ferguson, Jazz House Kids
Nathan Rice, Jazz House Kids
Lucas Bere, Rio Americano High School

Doubler
Outstanding Doubler
Isak Washburn-Gaines, Garfield High School, on Clarinet and Tenor
Honorable Mention
Angie Jepsen, Foxboro High School, on Flute and Alto

Tripler
Outstanding Tripler
Robbie Lee, Tucson Jazz Institute, on Piano, Vocal, and Saxophone

Trombone
Outstanding Soloist
Charlie Sommers, Badger High School
David Ayala, Badger High School
Taylor Young, Dillard Center for the Arts
Sam Chess, Tucson Jazz Institute
Honorable Mention
Connor Hargus, Garfield High School
John Colan Bukowski, Community Arts Program

Trumpet
Outstanding Soloist
Noah Conrad, American Music Program
Wallace Roney, Jazz House Kids
Anthony Hervey, Dillard Center for the Arts
Fernando Ferrarone, Community Arts Program
Andrew Stephens, Rio Americano High School
John Otten, Roosevelt High School
Noah Halpern, Roosevelt High School
Jeffrey Gustaveson, Roosevelt High School
Alex Melnychuk, Tucson Jazz Institute
Honorable Mention
Carter Hall, New World School of the Arts

Vocal
Honorable Mention
Isabella Yanke, Badger High School

The Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Soloist Award
Coleman Hughes, Jazz House Kids

In the spirit of creativity and continuing the jazz legacy, Jazz at Lincoln Center also recognized Devon Gillingham, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, as the winner of the first Essentially Ellington Gerhard W. Vosshall Student Composition/Arranging Contest. Each submission was critiqued by composer, arranger, and Ellington authority David Berger, and the winning selection was recorded by the JLCO at their annual Essentially Ellington recording session on May 9, 2013. In addition, the winning composer received a cash prize, a composition lesson with David Berger, and a trip to New York City to observe the JLCO recording session and the 2013 Essentially Ellington Competition & Festival. The Contest was made possible through a generous gift from the Vosshall family in honor of their father Gerhard W. Vosshall.

The three-day festival began on Friday, May 10, with the finalist bands’ arrival at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home, Frederick P. Rose Hall. The students made their way to Rose Theater for a “One on One with Wynton Marsalis” through a congratulatory “cheer tunnel” of staff members, musicians, and press. Friday events included section workshops, rehearsals, a banquet dinner, and jam sessions with members of the JLCO. Saturday, May 11, kicked off with a JLCO open rehearsal, followed by Competition Part I. Competition Part II and Competition Part III took place on Sunday morning, May 12. On Sunday night, at the Concert and Awards Ceremony in Rose Theater, the three top-placing bands performed two tunes, with their choice of a JLCO member as guest soloist. The JLCO then performed the 2013-14 Essentially Ellington repertoire: the music of Duke Ellington and Gerald Wilson. The concert culminated with the awards ceremony honoring outstanding soloists and sections, and the top-placing bands.

In celebration of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 25th anniversary, the 18th annual Essentially Ellington repertoire honored the music made famous by Duke Ellington. The 2012-13 Essentially Ellington repertoire included Billy Strayhorn’s “Blood Count,” Clarence and Spencer Williams’ “Royal Garden Blues,” and Duke Ellington’s “Bonga,” “Echoes of Harlem,” “Lightnin’,” and “Second Line.”

The 2013 Essentially Ellington Finalists: American Music Program, Portland, OR; Badger High School, Lake Geneva, WI; Beloit Memorial High School, Beloit, WI; Community Arts Program, Coral Gables, FL; Dillard Center for the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL; Edmonds-Woodway High School, Edmonds, WA; Foxboro High School, Foxboro, MA; Garfield High School, Seattle, WA; Jazz House Kids, Montclair, NJ; Lexington High School, Lexington, MA; New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL; Rio Americano High School, Sacramento, CA; Roosevelt High School, Seattle, WA; Sun Prairie High School, Sun Prairie, WI; Tucson Jazz Institute, Tucson, AZ.

As part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s goal to make the organization’s productions as globally accessible as possible, the entire Essentially Ellington 2013 Competition and Festival was live webcast at jalc.org/ee.

An Essentially Ellington Competition & Festival photo gallery and recordings of the competition performances will be available on jalc.org/essentiallyellington.

Background/Statistics:
The Competition & Festival is the culmination of the year round Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Program (EE), which also includes regional festivals, teaching resources, a summer Band Director Academy, newsletters, and more.

• This year, for the first time, band directors received access to charts and other JALC resources available through instant digital download.

• By the end of this year, JALC will have distributed 15,000 newly transcribed scores.

• JALC has sent over 135,000 free copies of 104 previously unavailable big band scores by Duke Ellington and other seminal composers.

• Throughout March and April, JALC sends, free of charge, a professional jazz musician to each of the 15 finalist band schools to lead an intensive day-long workshop of rehearsals, lessons, and master classes. The free clinics are part of the rich 18-year history of this unique music education program, which, by the end of this school year, will have reached more than 450,000 students in more than 4,000 high schools across all 50 United States, Canada, and American schools abroad.

• 252 finalist bands have traveled to New York City to participate in the annual Competition & Festival.

• This year 2,000 high schools in the United States, Canada, and American schools in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Columbia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom will receive Essentially Ellington materials.

• This year, 96 bands entered the competition by submitting a recorded performance of three tunes performed from JALC’s Essentially Ellington library.

For more information including background, history, photos, and audio recordings of the Essentially Ellington 2013 repertoire, and more, visit: www.jalc.org/ee

Founding leadership support for
Essentially Ellingtonis provided by
The Jack and Susan Rudin Educational and
Scholarship Fund.

Major support is provided by
The Con Edison Community Partnership Fund,
Anonymous,  Jody and John Arnhold,
Alfred and Gail Engelberg, Augustine Foundation,
Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation,
Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation,
Mericos Foundation,  Jennifer and Michael Price,
Donald and Darlene Shiley,
The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, 
and the Vosshall Family.

Friday, May 10
2:00 – 3:00pm
Welcome and One on One with Wynton Marsalis

Saturday, May 11
11:00am – 12:15pm
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra w/ Wynton Marsalis Open Rehearsal

2:30pm – 6:30pm
Competition Part I: Seven bands perform

Sunday, May 12
10:00 – 11:30am
Competition Part II: Four bands perform

1:00 – 2:30pm
Competition Part III: Four bands perform

4:00pm
Announcement of three top-placing bands

7:30pm
Concert and Awards Ceremony

WHERE
Join us in the hall or tune in to our live webcast at wyntonmarsalis.org/live

WHEN
April 25, 26 at 8pm
April 27 at 2pm and 8pm
Rose Theater

The show, “A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Story,” marks the first time Mr. Sondheim, one of musical theater’s great lyricists and composers, and Mr. Marsalis, the master jazz trumpeter, have worked together.

The conceit of the show is that Mr. Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will arrange and interpret about two dozen of Mr. Sondheim’s romantic songs, all of which have some connection to New York City.

While the 15-piece band plays, singers will appear on sets evoking the city’s famous locales, like Central Park and Wall Street, alternating with a set of a simple apartment with a bed and a chair. That more intimate space, mentioned in the title, is a nod to Mr. Sondheim’s song “Broadway Baby.”

The show will run for seven performances from November 13 to November 17. The performance on November 14 will serve as the entertainment for City Center’s annual Gala. A dinner will be held afterwards at the Plaza Hotel.

The collaboration is the brainchild of Peter Gethers, a novelist and editor who is a friend of Mr. Sondheim’s and a fan of Mr. Marsalis. Mr. Gether said he woke up one morning last October and thought he had never seen a first-rate jazz band perform Mr. Sondheim’s work. “I thought ‘That’s something I would pay a lot of money to see,’” he said.

Mr. Gether proposed the idea to Mr. Sondheim and to Jack Vertiel, the artistic director at New York City Center Encores! It was Mr. Vertiel who presented the concept to Mr. Marsalis, with whom he had worked in 2011 on the “Cotton Club Parade,” an celebration of Duke Ellington’s songs at City Center.

Though the general outline of the show has been sketched out, Mr. Gether said the production is still in the early stages. Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Marsalis have yet to settle on a set list or to hire vocalists, and it remains unclear if they will choose Broadway performers, jazz singers or some combination. Some of the songs might also be done as pure instrumentals, he said.

At Sanders Theatre on Wednesday, Marsalis and a band of all-star musicians both discussed and demonstrated how to achieve that balance in “At the Speed of Instinct: Choosing Together to Play and Stay Together,” the fourth of Marsalis’ six-part lecture series at Harvard that began in 2011. Coming just two day’s after Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, the performance provided a collective respite for the campus.

“No one knows better than Wynton that art and music are for times of sorrow as well as celebration, that the community they build is more important than ever as we turn to one another for comfort and for strength,” President Drew Faust said at the start of program. “He shows us that music is a means of capturing human experience that connects us to something larger than ourselves.”

“No one knows better than Wynton that art and music are for times of sorrow as well as celebration,” said President Drew Faust at the start of the program.

Marsalis and his band began the night by playing a piece that Marsalis had written earlier that day to commemorate the city’s, and the country’s, anguish over the bombings.

“Sometimes the expression of grief is such a heavy feeling that only playing will suffice,” said Marsalis, managing and artistic director of jazz at Lincoln Center.

Jazz’s ability to resonate with people in times of deep sadness — or carefree happiness — stems in part from its ability to both harness and transcend time, to capture a moment and build on it through improvisation, he said.

“Ours is a time-obsessed time,” he said. “The art of jazz is the mastery of time, thousands of decisions made in an instant for the duration of a song. When we play, there is a supreme cognizance of the present, of the energy in being present, and of the intensity of presenting a collective insight into successive moments of present-ness.

“Hmm, that’s a mouthful,” he added.

Jazz musicians’ constant adjustments, their awareness of things changing from moment to moment, make jazz unique among Western dance music, he said.

“Together, you discover that adjusting to one another is as important a skill as soloing,” he said.

Jazz offers other unexpected lessons as well, he said: that sometimes the best solution to a group’s problem is not to play, that sometimes “you can create more freedom by sacrificing your own.”

With its intense focus on time, jazz teaches that “everyone lives with their own relationship to time,” he said. “Jazz people will never press you about where you were or who you were with or what time you did this or that.”

And in a nation that is engaged in constant battles over cultural change, jazz offers “the art of managing change without losing the focus on substance.”

As technology takes over more and more aspects of daily life, he said, jazz can remind Americans to connect with each other, and to their musical and cultural history. After all, you can’t play good jazz without being rooted in the moment and focusing on your fellow musicians — a rare thing in an era when much of popular music can be produced without two musicians ever setting foot in the same room, he added.

“Jazz teaches you how to be a person, and how to ripen your personhood through empathy,” Marsalis said. “Even at its most complex, it tells you: Everything is going to work out because we’re going to make it work out.”

In the performance’s second half, Marsalis and his band — tenor saxophonist Walter Blanding, bassist Carlos Henriquez, drummer Ali Jackson, and pianist Marcus Roberts — brought Marsalis’ insights to life.

They walked the audience through four foundational jazz styles (swing, blues, Afro-Cuban Hispanic, and ballad), stopping after each one to explain how they had played off the others, had read their decisions, and had reacted to where the improvisation was headed.

Often, that means listening with as much intensity as you play, the musicians said. In a way, the band’s playing amounted to a conversation that none but the most trained members of audience could understand.

“It’s like if you’re talking to somebody — they want to talk too,” Roberts said.

Blanding agreed that listening was crucial.

“That collective intelligence matters,” Blanding said. When he isn’t playing sax, he said, he could start thinking about what he’d play next. But that approach doesn’t always work: “When you try to reattach yourself to what’s happening [with the rest of the band], you often find yourself out of place.”

The band’s instinctual interactions require a “tremendous amount of concentration,” Marsalis said, that can take years of practice for its members to master. It also requires humility and restraint, especially from the rhythm section, Jackson said.

“Drums have a lot of power, so you have to be sensitive about the use of the power,” he said. “It’s like if a king just killed his whole community — there’d be nobody to worship him.”

The band, and the audience, laughed. “That was a real look into the psychology of a drummer,” Marsalis said.

Source: harvard.edu

Photos by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer When it comes to playing together, listening is crucial, Wynton Marsalis told the students attending his master class at the Boston Arts Academy. The trumpeter also nudged the young players to listen to each other, and to simply “play soft.”

As many parents can attest, rousing a child from sleep to make it to the bus stop can be a difficult task. Doing so during a vacation week would seem near impossible. But on Thursday, a group of students from Boston and Cambridge happily rose from bed and made it to class. The reason? Wynton Marsalis was in the house.

For an hour and a half the famous trumpeter conducted a master class at the Boston Arts Academy, the city’s only public high school for the visual and performing arts.

Double bass player Daniel Winshall, a 15-year-old from Jamaica Plain, was running behind for the session and feared his teacher would yell at him for being late. Instead, Marsalis singled out his playing.

“My man on the bass, you are an unbelievable bass player. I’ve got to give you an A-plus, plus, plus, plus, plus,” said Marsalis, who joked about taking Winshall on the road. “You are for real, man.”

Since 2011, Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, has wowed audiences at Harvard with a six-part lecture-concert series, “Hidden in Plain View: Meanings in American Music.” On Wednesday at Sanders Theatre, he delivered the fourth installment, looking at collaboration and improvisation.

Education is important to the jazz great — in his role at Lincoln Center he acts as a mentor and rehearses and performs with student musicians — and in all his visits to Harvard he’s made time to engage with local students and fans. Thursday morning he was in full teaching mode, listening to jazz ensembles from the Academy and the Berklee City Music program and offering advice.

“I am going to joke around with y’all and mess with you,” he told the students. “It’s all out of love.”

The trumpeter was true to his word, offering encouragement but not hesitating to gently reprimand the young players for not being familiar with some of the early recordings of the music they were playing, sometimes even the artists themselves.

“How many people actually know the style of this band?” he asked a group on stage who had just played the standard “All of Me,” about Count Basie’s famous orchestra from the 1950s. “Don’t lie, ’cause I’m going to ask you to name some of the albums.” No hands went up.

“You are not going to sound good playing this music without listening to it,” he said, urging the students to not only listen to original and early recordings but to research and learn about expert musicians and their styles.

When it comes to playing together, listening is crucial, said Marsalis, who also nudged the young players to listen to each other, and to simply “play soft.”

“One of the many things you learn about playing jazz is how to play in balance. What does playing in balance mean? Shhhhh.”

Faraday Julien Fontimus waited anxiously for Marsalis to arrive for the class. When it happened, just before 10 a.m., he was almost too excited to look, briefly covering his face and turning to the wall in disbelief. A longtime fan, the 18-year-old trumpeter, who plans to attend Berklee College of Music, hopes to follow in Marsalis’ footsteps and become a music educator.

“He teaches how much jazz can affect one person’s life,” Fontimus said, adding, “I want to be able to give that on to my own students in the future.”

Fontimus was in the audience in Sanders Theatre the night before, carefully studying Marsalis’ movements, hoping to “snatch something that he does with his hands,” and observing the intensity he brings to the stage.

During the class Marsalis urged the young trumpeter to study the music.

“You’ve got a lot of feeling, you’re lovable … I don’t know you but I want to hug you,” said Marsalis. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to know the chords for this tune. … You need to get with the rhythm section and learn these chord changes. … I want the level of your playing to be up on the level of your humanity.”

Afterward, Fontimus remained upbeat, despite the critique.

“It was very fun, it was very informative and it added a lot to my playing, and now I have a lot of stuff to practice. … He showed that he loves us. He is enthusiastic for the music. I am not taking it to heart. I know what to do now to become a better musician and luckily, in the future, if we meet again, he will hear the difference.”

Marsalis told the students to practice the rhythms and the dynamics of every piece before trying to play it through, to learn notes backwards and forwards, and to be accurate. And play without music, Marsalis added. Develop your ear, he told the students, by trying to repeat jingles and everyday tunes.

Marsalis also encouraged the students to play as much as possible and to work on perfecting their character as much as their musicianship. “Try to find gigs, because there’s an axiom that says what you do is what you will do. If you complain, you’re going to complain. If you don’t practice, you’re not going to practice. If you whine, you are going to whine. If you work gigs, you are going to work gigs.

“You are always making yourself into you,” Marsalis added. “At every moment, you are making yourself into yourself. So if you have a work ethic, you are going to have a work ethic. So the things you want to do and be, do that right now.”

Marsalis tapped 16-year-old bassist Christoff Glaude to help him make a point about chord progressions. Glaude admitted to being nervous. But his fear quickly subsided, he said, as the pair started to play.

“It felt good because me and him kind of connected. When you play music … you have to kind of feel the other person. I kind of felt what he was playing and I tried to have a conversation through music.”

Source: Harvard Gazette

Twenty high school student musicians from the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) who meet the program admission requirements will be selected to comprise the JLCYO. The musicians will be provided with the opportunity to enhance their musical education with the finest professional training and performance opportunities. Applications are due on Friday, May 10th.

Members of the JLCYO will rehearse weekly, learning big band repertoire and performance techniques from JLCYO Director Vincent Gardner, members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and JALC Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis. The JLCYO, collaborating with professional artists and a choir of high school singers from New York City public schools, will perform sacred music by jazz legend Duke Ellington at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage on Sunday, March 23, 2014, as part of a year-long creative learning project exploring Ellington’s music, developed in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.

“We are thrilled to partner with Jazz at Lincoln Center for Ellington’s Sacred Music, our creative learning project next season,” said Sarah Johnson, Director of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. “The project will engage talented high school musicians from throughout the New York area and we are particularly excited that the Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra will provide continued year-round musical opportunities and instruction for the participating instrumentalists.”

Click here for more information about eligibility and admission requirements for the JLCYO

Marsalis’ fourth lecture, “At the Speed of Instinct: Choosing Together to Play and Stay Together,” will begin at 7 p.m. and include musical illustrations by acclaimed musicians, including: Walter Blanding (tenor sax); Ali Jackson (drums); Carlos Henriquez (bass); and Marcus Roberts (piano). For the first time in the series, the event will be live-streamed at harvard.edu/livestream

“We will discuss and demonstrate the techniques, concepts, methods, opportunities and objectives that encourage spontaneous, intelligent and cohesive group decision-making in our music,” Marsalis said. “We will also illuminate how each member of the quintet asserts, accompanies and adjusts to balance the freedom of improvisation with the sacrificial demands of finding and maintaining our common rhythm, known as swing.”

Marsalis’ lecture series, sponsored by the Office of the President and Provost, launched in April 2011 before a capacity crowd with “Music as Metaphor,” a two-hour journey through the history of American music, punctuated with performances by renowned bluegrass and jazz musicians. He returned to campus in September 2011 with a team of dancers for his second lecture, “The Double Crossing of a Pair of Heels: The Dynamics of Social Dance and American Popular Musics,” which traced the evolution of American social dance from the Charleston to the fox trot and the tango to the twist. His third lecture, “Meet Me at the Crossroads,” examined the roots of American music.

“Wynton’s presentations over the past two years have been unforgettable for all of us who have experienced them,” Harvard President Drew Faust said. “I am delighted that his magical weaving of music, dance, and the evolving arc of inclusiveness and justice in American history will this time be available to a wide audience through the internet.”
In addition to his lectures, Marsalis has engaged in dialogue with students across the University and throughout the community, teaching a master class at a local high school, engaging in a panel discussion about education and the arts at the Graduate School of Education, and speaking at the Harvard Innovation Lab about the artist as an entrepreneur.

A native of New Orleans, Marsalis is one of the nation’s most highly decorated cultural figures. In addition to winning nine Grammy® awards, he was the first jazz musician to receive the Pulitzer Prize for music. His international accolades include an honorary membership in Britain’s Royal Academy of Music, the highest decoration for a non-British citizen, and the insignia Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest distinction. He has more than 70 albums to his credit, which have sold more than 7 million copies, including three Gold records. Marsalis is also the first jazz artist to perform and compose across the full spectrum of jazz: from its New Orleans roots to bebop and modern jazz. He has expanded the vocabulary of jazz by creating an expansive range of new music for everything from quartets to big bands and symphony orchestras, and tap dance to ballet and modern dance. This vital body of work places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers. He was recently named a CBS News Cultural Correspondent. Harvard awarded him an honorary doctorate in Music in 2009.

Tickets for Marsalis’ lecture at Sanders will be free. They will become available for the Harvard community April 9 and for the public April 11. Information on obtaining tickets can be found at http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/boxoffice/

Wynton Marsalis is the latest artist to be added to our fourth-floor Enduring Traditions permanent exhibition. Four Enduring Traditions pods, lined with unique artifacts and oversize imagery, beckon you to explore the history of some of America’s most significant musical traditions: pop, folk, sacred, classical, blues, and jazz. Inside, vintage footage and interviews with a broad spectrum of musical artists capture the essence of the music.

Other recent additions to these musical time capsules serve to highlight the careers of three distinguished artists and to showcase each artist’s contributions to R&B, soul, gospel or blues. Also on display in the Enduring Traditions exhibition are GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award winners Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, and GRAMMY Award-winning blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dudamel Gustavo and more.

• Full score (PDF Download – print at home) $25
• Full set of parts and score (PDF Download – print at home) $75
• Full set of parts and score (Printed, bound and shipped by Subito music) $120

Two of the most thoughtful people in the American arts came together at Joe’s Pub for this Public Forum Duet: Wynton Marsalis (Pulitzer and Grammy-winning composer, musician, author, and Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center) and Suzan-Lori Parks (Topdog/Underdog, Porgy and Bess, Master Writer Chair of The Public Theater).

Bill Frisell joins the organization as curator of the new Roots of Americana Series wherein Frisell and an array of guest musicians explore the intersections of rock, country, jazz and blues.  The new season also ushers in the A Side/B Side Series that spotlights two extraordinary contemporary artists over the course of one weekend in The Allen Room.  On each evening, two separate performances will take place, with one featured artist performing at 7pm, and a second featured artist performing at 9:30pm.  Tickets are sold separately for these events.  Vijay Iyer and the Sun Ra Arkestra with Marshall Allen are among the many rising young musicians and established artists performing on the Jazz at Lincoln Center stages for the first time.

The remarkable Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis embarks on two new tours:  Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration U.S. Tour with Chorale Le Chateau conducted by Damien Sneed; and Big Band Holidays U.S. Tour with special guest Cécile McLorin Salvant.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Education initiatives continue to expand in 2013-14.  e-Jazz Academy, an online portal that provides informative and visually engaging educational video lessons accessible via web and mobile devices, launches this season.  Popular programs, including WeBop! for toddlers and Swing University for adults, continue in Frederick P. Rose Hall.  Newer programs for school-aged children extend to the outer boroughs and with new partners:  Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra in partnership with Carnegie Hall, and Jazz For Young People on Tour in public and charter schools throughout New York City.  The Essentially Ellington program continues to offer free and instant downloads of charts and resources to band directors worldwide.

In 2012-13, Jazz at Lincoln Center pioneered a new program allowing jazz fans worldwide free, easy access — on any computer or mobile device — to watch live, HD-quality webcasts from every hall in Frederick P. Rose Hall, located in the heart of Columbus Circle, and from the newly-opened Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha in Qatar.  The organization also pioneered a new collaborative model for artists whereby Jazz at Lincoln Center gives the audio and video rights of these webcasts to the artists who perform them.  The program exceeded expectations, with 36,000 viewer-hours watched by 42,000 unique visitors from 144 countries during the 6-month pilot program (of select performances) alone.  In the 2013-14 season, Jazz at Lincoln Center will deepen its commitment to this important new program by webcasting the majority of its concerts, and continuing to innovate and expand distribution and marketing partnerships to the benefit of jazz, the artists who play the music and venues globally who present it.  Click here for the latest schedule of upcoming live JALC webcast concerts.

“Our 25th anniversary gave us the opportunity to reflect on our many achievements.  This season is a response to that reflection,” said Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis.  “We are affirming the quality and diversity of jazz in the now.  We will be featuring the music of Christian McBride, Vijay Iyer, and Cécile McLorin Salvant, and celebrating legends Ahmad Jamal and Dave Brubeck.  We will reflect on the career of pioneering jazz impresario George Wein and initiate a call for new standards with the original compositions of Carlos Henriquez and Guillermo Klein.  Always reaching out to the universe of great musicians whose music is inspired by jazz, we’re looking forward to playing with Pakistan’s Sachal Jazz Ensemble and welcoming legend Hugh Masekela for his 75th birthday.  As always, our centerpiece is the phenomenal musicians of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.  Victor Goines and Ted Nash will premiere new music and the great arrangers in our band will write new arrangements for our contemporaries.   Jazz at Lincoln Center board, staff, artists, and partners aim to deliver on one promise this season:  everyone who comes to our hall will leave feeling good.”

Highlights of the 2013-14 season include:

• OPENING NIGHT:  Ahmad Jamal and Wynton Marsalis with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Manolo Badrena and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra alumni Herlin Riley and Reginald Veal in Rose Theater.
• NEW:  In JLCO Hostsconcerts, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is paired with Christian McBride, Kenny Garrett, Mulgrew Miller and Kurt Rosenwinkel to collaborate on and celebrate those artists’ works.  
• Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s first time collaboration with Sachal Jazz Ensemble in Music of Pakistan; and JLCO Fresh Sounds premieres new music by Ted Nash and Victor Goines.
• NEW:  Bill Frisell curates Roots of Americanaseries which includes Gershwin & Beyond, The Bristol Sessions,and Electric Guitar in America.
• NEW:  A Side/B Side series features Vijay Iyer Trio/Billy Childs Jazz Chamber Ensemble with Ying Quartet, New Jazz Standards/Nuevo Jazz Latino and Jim Hall:  Modern Jazz Guitar/Chris Potter’s Underground Orchestra in The Allen Room.
• Dave Brubeck Festivalincludes Family Concert:  Who is Dave Brubeck, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in Rose Theater, and Eric Reed in the New York City debut performance of “Real Ambassadors” in The Allen Room.    
• Hugh Masekela:  Celebrating 75 Years in Rose Theater; George Wein:  The Life of a Legendand Sun Ra Turns 100:  Sun Ra Arkestra with Marshal Allen in The Allen Room.
• Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration, Wynton Marsalis’ composition in honor of the Harlem church’s 200th anniversary, returns to Rose Theater with Jared Grimes and Chorale Le Chateau conducted by Damien Sneed.
• Holiday Concerts:  Big Band Holidayswith the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Cécile McLorin Salvant in Rose Theater and Ring in the Swing: A New Year’s Eve Dance Party in The Allen Room. 
• Valentine’s Day concerts feature Dianne Reeves.
• Maria Schneider Orchestra; Bobby McFerrin; Tomatito: An Evening of Flamenco; and Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Esperanza Spalding, Leo Genovese Quartet in Rose Theater
• Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club; Catherine Russell, Brianna Thomas and Charenee Wade in Ladies Sing the Blues; Joshua Redman Quartet; Beyond Jobim:  New Voices of Brazil; John Pizzarelli Quartet with special guest Jane Monheit in The Allen Room
• Michael Feinstein curates the Jazz & Popular Song series and features Legends of the Jazz Age, Music of George Gershwin,and Music of Cole Porter in The Allen Room.
• Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola hosts the fourth annual Generations In Jazz Festival in September.  Specialty programming in the club complement the season’s Dave Brubeck Festival, Sun Ra Arkestra with Marshall Allen, Bobby McFerrin and Hugh Masekela concerts.  In addition to live sets nightly, Late Night Sessions take place on Tuesday-Saturday.  Vocalist Michael Mwenso hosts Late Night Sessions on Thursday and Saturday.  Access live webcasts of select Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola performances at 7:30pm and 9:30pm EST via jalc.org/live.
• NEW Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis Tours: European Tour in July, 2013; Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration U.S. Tour with Chorale Le Chateau conducted by Damien Sneed in October, 2013; Big Band Holidays U.S. Tour with special guest Cécile McLorin Salvant in December, 2013.
• Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha continues to host world class jazz artists on its stage and in education programs around Doha, Qatar.
• Jazz For Young People® family concerts:  Jazz Meets Gospelhosted by Damien Sneed, and Who is Dave Brubeck featuring Wynton Marsalis.
• Education programming continues and expands: 
• NEW:  e-Jazz Academy Online Learning offers students free online lessons with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members, family jazz activities, and jazz history lessons 
• Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra in partnership with Carnegie Hall 
• Middle School Jazz Academy at Frederick P. Rose Hall and in Brooklyn
• Expanded WeBop class offerings at Frederick P. Rose Hall
• Jazz for Young People on Tour in New York City schools
  
  

TICKET INFORMATION

Subscriptions
Beginning today, subscriptions will be available for renewal for all Rose Theater and The Allen Room packages (subscription packages offer a 10-15% discount on all single ticket prices).  To ensure retention of their same seats, current subscribers may renew today through April 12.  New subscriptions may be purchased beginning April 9. 

The new Take 3, 4, 5 Series offers subscribers the flexibility and freedom to choose any performance in Rose Theater or The Allen Room.  Subscribers can choose three, four, five or as many as ten concerts at a 10% discount.  Exceptions may apply.

The Hang Set is a subscription series for under-40 social urbanites that offers a three-concert package at one great price.  Featuring pre-concert parties with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, and concert tickets, the Hang Set is an excellent opportunity for culturally-savvy young professionals to mingle and hear great music.  For more details on how to become a Hang Set member, please visit jalc.org/hangset.  

Becoming a subscriber is the best way to lock in the best seats at the guaranteed best prices for the entire season, as single ticket prices will increase at a later date based on demand.
To order a subscription beginning April 9 or to request information, please call the Subscription Services hotline at 212-258-9999, e-mail
or visit jalc.org/subs
For more information on 2013-14 season subscriptions, go to jalc.org/subs.
Membership Discount
Jazz at Lincoln CenterMembers (individuals who donate $50 or more to JALC) receive 50% off tickets to Jazz at Lincoln Center produced shows in Rose Theater and The Allen Room on the day of the event.  Tickets must be purchased at the Jazz at Lincoln CenterBox Office.  Members must show their valid membership card to receive this discount.  Limit two discounted tickets per member.  Subject to availability. 
Pricing
Ticket prices for Rose Theater are $10, $30, $50, $75, $95 or $120 dependent upon seating section, except where noted below:
- Jazz for Young People® tickets in Rose Theater are $12, $20 or $28

- Ticket prices for The Allen Room are $75 or $55, dependent on seating section for the 7pm sets and $65 or $45, dependent on seating section for the 9:30pm sets. 
- Ticket prices for Jazz & Popular Song shows are $55, $75 or $95.
- Ticket prices for Ring In The Swing:  A New Year’s Eve Dance Party are $325 per person and include live music, open bar, and Southern style buffet dining.

Note: Hot Seats, $10 seats for each Rose Theater performance (excluding Jazz for Young People® concerts and other performances as specified) and select 9:30pm performances in The Allen Room (excluding Jazz & Popular Song concerts), are available for purchase to the general public on the Wednesday prior to each performance.  Subject to availability. Available only for select Allen Room shows; please call 212-258-9800 for available Hot Seats performance dates.

Hot Seats are available only by walk up at the Box Office.  Maximum of two tickets per person.

*Please note that a $2.00 Jazz at Lincoln Center Facility Fee applies to ALL ticket purchases, with the exception of $10 Hot Seats.  A $7 handling fee also applies when purchasing tickets from CenterCharge or a $6 handling fee applies when purchasing tickets via jalc.org.

-Swing University classes are $125 -$250.

All single tickets for The Allen Room and Rose Theater can be purchased through jalc.org 24 hours a day or CenterCharge at 212-721-6500, open daily from 10am to 9pm.  Tickets can also be purchased at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office, located on Broadway at 60th Street, ground floor.  Box Office hours:  Monday-Saturday from 10am to 6pm (or 30 minutes past curtain) and Sunday from noon to 6pm (or 30 minutes past curtain). 

Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, one of the three main performance venues located in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home, Frederick P. Rose Hall, produces world-class jazz performances nightly and welcomes locals and visitors alike to enjoy the city’s best music, food and libations.  The intimate 140-seat jazz club is set against a glittering backdrop with spectacular views of Central Park. There are student rates and special Monday Night Presentations.  Tony Bennett calls Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola “the best jazz room in the city.”  Reservations: 212-258-9595 or 212-258-9795 and Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.

Single tickets go on sale August 12. 

MasterCard® cardholders receive special benefits throughout Jazz at Lincoln Center’s new season, including a pre-sale purchase opportunity of concert tickets from July 29-August 11, 2013; 5% off single tickets to Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts in Rose Theater and The Allen Room; and 10% off in Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (offers subject to change).*
Jazz at Lincoln Center proudly acknowledges its major corporate partners: Bloomberg, Brooks Brothers, The Coca-Cola Company, Con Edison, Entergy, HSBC Bank, Qatar Airways, MasterCard, The Shops at Columbus Circle at Time Warner Center, and SiriusXM.

MasterCard® is the Preferred Card of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Qatar Airways is a Premier Sponsor and Official Airline Partner of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

*Offers subject to change

Jazz at Lincoln Center
2013-14 CONCERT SEASON

JULY 2013

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis tours Europe

SEPTEMBER 2013

Generations In Jazz Festival in Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola

Ahmad Jamal & Wynton Marsalis (Opening Weekend)
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Ahmad Jamal, Herlin Riley, Reginald Veal
September 19-21, 2013
Rose Theater, 8pm
Exactly five years after he launched the 2008-09 Jazz at Lincoln Center Season, grandmaster pianist and NEA Jazz Master Ahmad Jamal, still in prime form in his ninth decade, does the same for the 2013-14 edition. A leading architect of Miles Davis’ ‘50s quintet and a universal influence on piano trio vocabulary through his use of real-time cues, bass vamps, and intoxicating rhythms, Jamal will embed his quartet, comprising Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra alumni Reginald Veal (bass) and Herlin Riley (drums), along with Manolo Badrena (percussion), within the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. They will perform new arrangements of his works that employ Jamal’s innovative conception.
Tickets Start at $30

Gershwin & Beyond 
Featuring Bill Frisell, Sam Amidon, Jason Moran, Alicia Hall Moran
September 20-21, 2013
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
In presenting Gershwin & Beyond, the first of the three concerts he’s curating for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Roots of Americana series during the 2013-14 season, guitar icon Bill Frisell’s intention is, in his words, “to explore the beginnings of American music—the backbone—up through George Gershwin and beyond.” To join him in this endeavor, which will span music by William Billings, Stephen Foster, and Charles Ives, as well as  Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Frisell is joined by three fellow master deconstructionists of American vernacular song—vocalist-banjoist-guitarist-pianist-fiddler Sam Amidon, pianist-composer Jason Moran from the Bandwagon, and mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran.
Tickets Start at $45

OCTOBER 2013

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis tours Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration throughout East Coast, Southeast, Midwest U.S. with Chorale Le Chateau conducted by Damien Sneed

George Wein: The Life of a Legend
Featuring Howard Alden, Randy Brecker, Anat Cohen, Lewis Nash, Lew Tabackin and Peter Washington
October 3-4, 2013
The Allen Room, 7pm
If he hadn’t decided to invent the modern jazz festival fifty-nine years ago in Newport, Rhode Island, George Wein might have become better known for his skills on the piano. Still going strong in his ninth decade, Wein celebrates his 88th birthday in The Allen Room with the latest in a long string of all-star groups, featuring tenor saxophonist Lew Tabackin, trumpeter Randy Brecker, clarinetist Anat Cohen, guitarist Howard Alden, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Lewis Nash.  With New York Times jazz journalist (and Wein’s biographer) Nate Chinen hosting the proceedings, Wein will swing firmly in the here-and-now, and retrospect on his life and times with stories and photos from his personal collection.
Tickets Start at $65

Sun Ra Turns 100: Sun Ra Arkestra with Marshall Allen
October 5, 2013
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
To celebrate the centenary of Sun Ra (May 22, 1914-May 30, 1993), born Herman Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, Jazz at Lincoln Center turns over The Allen Room to the Arkestra that the sui generis musical eccentric organized sixty years ago as a platform to render a vision that simultaneously drew on the ancient and the modern. Sun Ra incorporated elements drawn from black vaudeville, modern dance, Egyptian cosmology, Eastern philosophy, numerology, surrealism, kitsch, and the Bible to serve a corpus that deployed African rhythms, atonal melodies, electronic timbres, raw blues expression, unfailing swing, and one-for-all discipline drawn from the big bands that Ra internalized in his youth. Sun Ra lives on in the current edition of the Arkestra, led by alto saxophonist-woodwindist Marshall Allen, who entered Sun Ra’s orbit in the latter ‘50s, and is himself approaching his tenth decade. It will be a show to remember.
Tickets start at $45

Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club  
Featuring Omara Portuondo, Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabal, Barbarito Torres, Eliades Ochoa
October 11-12, 2013
Rose Theater, 8pm
Since the aggregation of Cuban all-stars known as the Buena Vista Social Club last visited the United States, in 2003, such iconic founding members as guitarist-vocalist Compay Segundo, vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer, and pianist Rubén González have passed away. On this weekend’s engagement in Rose Theater, the current 13-piece iteration—featuring first-generation luminaries like vocalist Omara Portuondo, trumpeter Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabal, laúd player Barbarito Torres, and trombonist-vocalist Jesus “Aguaje” Ramos, and recent recruits like singer Carlos Calunga and pianist Rolando Luna—animates the various stylistic tributaries that feed Cuba’s extraordinary 20th century musical legacy with passion, taste, and an “it’s all modern” sensibility.
Tickets Start at $30

Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration  
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Chorale Le Chateau, Damien Sneed  
October 24-26, 2013
Rose Theater, 8pm
Since Wynton Marsalis composed and recorded In This House, On This Morning two decades ago, he has remained committed to projecting a theme of universal humanism—and raising a joyful noise—while reflecting the form of the African American church service. Never has Marsalis coalesced the codes of sacred and secular expression more successfully than with the 2008 extended work Abyssinian Mass, commissioned to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Abyssinian Baptist Church on West 138th Street in Harlem. This weekend, Jazz at Lincoln Center revisits this masterwork in Rose Theater, augmenting the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis with the 70-voice gospel choir, Chorale Le Chateau, conducted by Damien Sneed and a tap dancer.
Tickets start at $30

NOVEMBER 2013

Ladies Sing The Blues
Featuring Catherine Russell, Brianna Thomas, Charenee Wade, Vince Giordano
November 8-9, 2013
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
Ample doses of soul-searing real talk and late night innuendo will fill the air, as vocalists Catherine Russell, Brianna Thomas, and Charenee Wade channel the independent, liberated spirits of 1920s blues divas Bessie Smith (“the Empress of The Blues”), Mamie Smith (“the Queen of the Blues”), and Ma Rainey (“the Mother of the Blues”), and of the legendary “cakewalking baby” crossover singer Ethel Waters. Framed by idiomatic arrangements from the era culled by Music Director Vince Giordano, these here-and-now exemplars of blues royalty will address this important strain of American music from a 21st century perspective.
Tickets Start at $45

Family Concert: Jazz Meets Gospel  
Featuring Damien Sneed
November 9, 2013
Rose Theater, 1pm & 3pm
A mainstay of Jazz at Lincoln Center programming since the early ‘90s, the popular Jazz for Young People Series teaches key musical concepts and other fundamentals via hour-long, interactive, family-friendly concerts that illuminate the subject at hand with a light, amusing touch. The subject of the first of two family concerts of the 2013-14 season is “Jazz Meets Gospel,” in which the dynamic young pianist and conductor Damien Sneed explores the deep and soulful connections between these two iconic genres, which such timeline-spanning giants as Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Wynton Marsalis have synthesized in works that rank with the finest of their respective canons.
Tickets Start at $12

Music From Pakistan
Featuring Sachal Jazz Ensemble, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
November 22-23, 2013
Rose Theater, 8pm
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis collaborate with the Sachal Jazz Ensemble, master musicians from Pakistan who incorporate ancient instruments, such as sitar, sarod, tabla, and dholak with the sounds and rhythms of iconic jazz repertoire. This collaboration is JALC’s latest installment in a string of cross-cultural investigations, touching upon Ghana and Spain, among others, through which the organization actualizes its mission to make jazz available globally by interfacing the sounds of jazz, grounded firmly in American values of blues and swing expression, with an international array of musical languages and configurations. 2012 Oscar-winning film director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is currently filming a documentary about this remarkable ensemble, and these performances will be filmed as the conclusion of the 2014 film release.
Tickets Start at $30

Jim Hall: Modern Jazz Guitar/ Chris Potter’s Underground Orchestra
November 22-23, 2013
Featuring John Abercrombie, Peter Bernstein, Scott Colley, Jim Hall, Lewis Nash, Chris Potter
Jim Hall Trio: November 22, 7pm; November 23, 9:30pm
Chris Potter’s Underground Orchestra: November 22, 2013: 9:30pm; November 23, 7pm
The Allen Room
At 82, the universally influential guitarist Jim Hall, recently appointed Chevalier by France’s prestigious Order of Arts and Letters, remains committed to experimentation and boundary-breaking in his musical production. Hall performs with his exemplary trio (Scott Colley on bass and Lewis Nash on drums) and in two- or three-guitar configurations with Peter Bernstein and John Abercrombie, both distinguished acolytes from subsequent generations. For the “B side” performance, protean saxophonist Chris Potter, whose plugged-in Underground quartet is one of the freshest units of jazz today, will present an expanded version with acoustic elements.
Tickets Start at $45

DECEMBER 2013

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis tours Big Band Holidays Southeast, East Coast U.S. 

Big Band Holidays  
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant
December 12-14, 2013, 8pm
December 14, 2013, 2pm
Rose Theater
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performs choice instrumental arrangements from the books of such key Swing Era units as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. Performing the band singer function is the sensational 23-year-old 2010 Thelonious Monk Competition winner Cécile McLorin Salvant, whose ability to refract the styles of such iconic performers of that era as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Valaida Snow with 21st century freshness, expressivity, and soulfulness gives new meaning to Marsalis’ mantra “all jazz is modern.”
Ticket s Start at $30

JANUARY 2014

JLCO Fresh Sounds: Ted Nash & Victor Goines
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra
January 17-18, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
On this evening, Jazz at Lincoln Center presents new, commissioned works by reed section members Ted Nash, a key contributor since 1999, and Victor Goines, who has been with JALC since the beginning. Following his acclaimed 2007 Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra release Portrait In Seven Shades, Nash leads the band through a new suite entitled “The Presidential Suite,” comprising six pieces inspired, he relates, by “important and inspiring speeches by world leaders” that “use the intonation—the ups and downs of the voice—to form the thematic material, and the spirit and message to shape the intensity of the arrangements.”  For the occasion, Goines presents “Crescent City,” a meditation on New Orleans, his home town.  The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra serves as the basis and context of these new works.
Tickets Start at $30

Bill Frisell: The Bristol Sessions
Featuring Bill Frisell, Buddy Miller and Carrie Rodriguez
January 17-18, 2014
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
Coinciding with New York Guitar Festival Week, the second installment of Bill Frisell’s Roots of Americana series features the eminent guitarist with singer-guitarist-songwriter Buddy Miller, with whom he collaborated on the 2011 CD Majestic Silver Strings, and vocalist-fiddler Carrie Rodriguez, out of Austin, Texas, with whom he toured in early 2012 after guesting on two recordings documenting her long-haul duo partnership with “Wild Thing” scribe Chip Taylor.  After they celebrate the moment that is thought of as the beginning of “country” music—the 1927 recordings in Bristol, Tennessee where The Carter Family and Jimmie Rogers recorded for the first time—things will, Frisell states, “just go on from there.”
Tickets Start at $45

Bobby McFerrin: spirityouall
Featuring Bobby McFerrin
January 24-25, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
Appearing at Jazz at Lincoln Center for the second consecutive season, Bobby McFerrin presents a performance that springboards off his new recording spirityouall, on which the sui generis vocalist re-imagines the American tradition, both via iconic songs like “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands” and “Every Time I Feel The Spirit” and with original tunes that explore his everyday search for grace, wisdom, and freedom. On this project, McFerrin—joined by his band and backup singers, while inviting extensive audience participation—brings to the party his roots in rock, folk, funk, and bluegrass, without abandoning his fearless improvisational approach or his never-ending exploration of the human voice.
Tickets Start at $30

Vijay Iyer Trio/Billy Childs Jazz Chamber Ensemble with Ying Quartet  
January 24-25, 2014
Vijay Iyer Trio: January 24, 2014, 7pm; January 25, 9:30pm
Bill Childs Jazz Chamber Ensemble: January 24, 2014, 9:30pm; January 25, 7pm
The Allen Room
Featuring Brian Blade, Billy Childs, Scott Colley, Stephen Crump, Marcus Gilmore, Vijay Iyer and the Ying String Quartet
For this weekend’s installment of the A Side, B Side series, Vijay Iyer and Billy Childs, each a virtuoso pianist and composer of originality and broad scope in his own right, present their respective conceptions on separate shows. A front-runner in numerous critics’ polls in recent years, Iyer undertakes his Jazz at Lincoln Center debut with his working trio of bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore. A three-time GRAMMY® winner, Childs makes his first Jazz at Lincoln Center appearance since an October 2004 performance celebrating the opening of Frederick P. Rose Hall. For round two, he deploys a quartet with all-stars Scott Colley on bass and Brian Blade on drums, augmented by the Ying String Quartet.
Tickets Start at $45

FEBRUARY 2014

Joshua Redman Quartet 
Featuring Aaron Goldberg, Gregory Hutchinson, Joshua Redman and Reuben Rogers
February 7-8, 2014
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
Whether the instrument in question is the tenor or soprano saxophone, Joshua Redman, now entering his third decade as a professional improviser, is as individualistic a voice as his generation has produced. This weekend, Redman, a thematic improviser par excellence, showcases his extraordinary tone, and his penchant for creating elegant melodies within challenging structures and infusing them with emotional content. Propelling the flow and detailing the nuances are his working quartet—pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, each a partner of long-standing.
Tickets Start at $45

Dave Brubeck Festival: Family Concert: Who is Dave Brubeck?  
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
February 8, 2014
Rose Theater, 1pm & 3pm
When his sons—who themselves would become professional musicians—were young, the late great pianist-composer Dave Brubeck (1920-2012), whose mother was a piano teacher, used a variety of approaches to instruct them, among them disguising himself as an mustached, absent-minded alter ego by the name of Professor Nooseknocker. For its second Jazz For Young People concert of the 2013-14 season, Jazz at Lincoln Center brings out the heavy artillery—the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis—to bring forth its own two decades of experience in presenting interactive, amusing, family-friendly shows to introduce and illuminate Brubeck’s extraordinary life to young and old alike.
Tickets Start at $12

Dianne Reeves
February 14-15, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm  
“Grandeur with refinement,” The New York Times wrote, describing the impact of Dianne Reeves’ February 2012 performance in Rose Theater. On her return to Jazz at Lincoln Center for Valentine’s Day, the four-time GRAMMY®-winner will demonstrate that no singer is better equipped to captivate and seduce you with songs of love and romance. Her astonishing instrument is a given, but even more impressive is her refusal to hide behind it—with nuanced restraint and dynamics, she unfailingly inhabits every story she spins in song.
Tickets Start at $30

JLCO Hosts Mulgrew Miller & Kenny Garrett
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Mulgrew Miller, Kenny Garrett
February 21-22, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
For the first of two JLCO Hosts concerts of the 2013-14 season, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra trombonist-arrangers Chris Crenshaw and Vincent Gardner bring their skills to the tunes of pianist Mulgrew Miller and alto and soprano saxophonist Kenny Garrett, whose paths have intersected during tenures of varying length with Mercer Ellington, Woody Shaw, and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. As both masters have primarily focused on small ensembles in presenting their respective voices over the last two decades (Miller with the Wingspan combo—with which Garrett has recorded—and a series of crackling trios; Garrett in quartet and trio contexts after a long run with Miles Davis), it will be fascinating to hear them interact with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis’ unique sound and sensibility.
Tickets Start at $30

Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Esperanza Spalding, Leo Genovese Quartet
Cécile McLorin Salvant opens. 
February 28-March 1, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
To headline this evening’s performance, Jazz at Lincoln Center convenes a cooperative all-star quartet representing three generations, including 2012 NEA Jazz Master Jack DeJohnette on drums; serial poll-winner Joe Lovano on tenor saxophone, tarogato, and aulochrome; 2011 “Best New Artist” GRAMMY® Award winner Esperanza Spalding on bass, and Argentinean born pianist Leo Genovese. They will undoubtedly fulfill DeJohnette’s stated dictum of being “open, prepared for the unexpected, and willing to follow that where it takes us and coming up with something that’s different and also makes sense and communicates.” Opening the proceedings is the 23-year-old Mack Avenue recording artist Cécile McLorin Salvant, whose timeless conception of jazz and blues expression spans Bert Williams, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, and Abbey Lincoln – styles she refracts in her own argot.
Tickets Start at $30

MARCH 2014

Maria Schneider Orchestra
March 14-15, 2014
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
“Maria Schneider is a chance-taker who has complete control over what she does, and has her own voice,” the late Bob Brookmeyer once said of the two-time GRAMMY® Award winner, who brings her 17-member collective, comprised of New York A-listers, into The Allen Room for her first Jazz at Lincoln Center appearance since 2003. As always, the eminent composer-arranger will present her singular conception—lyrical, intricately woven, sensuous pieces, highlighted with ravishing instrumental colors and textures, threaded together with harmonic language that embeds the soloists into her sonic world while allowing their stylistic idiosyncrasies to flourish.
Tickets Start at $45

Tomatito In Concert: An Evening of Flamenco
Featuring Tomatito
March 15, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
In partnership with the Flamenco Festival of New York, Jazz at Lincoln Center presents a nonet led by the magisterial Andalusian Gitano guitarist Tomatito, whose thrilling conception blends the earthy sound of classical flamenco and the sophisticated harmonic template of modern jazz. A teenage protégé of the legendary cantante Camarón de la Isla and the iconic guitarist Paco DeLucia, Tomatito—whose 2010 release Sonanta Suite earned him his second Latin GRAMMY® Award—is a key figure in coalescing flamenco vocabulary with North African and Afro-Caribbean idioms, and in extending flamenco’s range via consequential collaborations.
Tickets Start at $30

Beyond Jobim: New Voices of Brazil  
Featuring Clarise Assad, Luísa Maita
March 21-22, 2014
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
On this evening in The Allen Room, vocalists Luísa Maita and Clarice Assad present their personal refractions of the various streams of Brazilian musical expression. Named for the protagonist of Tom Jobim’s iconic “Ana Luísa” and thoroughly rooted in the Great Brazilian Songbook, Maita offers a 21st century take on the tropes of samba and bossa nova with a suite of original songs on Lero-Lero, her 2010 debut. A visionary composer and virtuoso pianist who draws on Villa-Lobos and Hermeto Pascoal in equal measure, and a overall practitioner of vocalese, Assad is as comfortable performing with a symphony orchestra as with her ancient-to-future unit Off The Cliff, which, as she puts it, “uses different combinations of instruments from song to song so that it never sounds the same.”
Tickets Start at $45

APRIL 2014

Hugh Masekela: Celebrating 75 Years
Featuring Hugh Masekela, Angelique Kidjo
April 4-5, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
To celebrate his 75th birthday, the legendary South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and lyricist  Hugh Masekela presents a retrospective extravaganza in which, joined by associates from various stages of his career and very special guests including vocalist Angelique Kidjo, he explores his fascination with hardcore American jazz and his deep roots in the Zulu folkloric strains that coalesced into the mbaqanga township dance bands music of his homeland, from which he was exiled between 1960 and 1990. As is Masekela’s custom, personal considerations will operate in the context of his ongoing quest to document, as he puts it, “the amazing diversity and unfathomable excellence of the African diaspora’s cultural heritage.”
Tickets Start at $30

Dave Brubeck Festival:  The Life & Music of Dave Brubeck
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
April 10-12, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
Over the course of his extraordinarily productive 92 years, more than seventy of them spent as a professional musician, Dave Brubeck (1920-2012), who became a household name when Time magazine placed his picture on its cover in 1954, served his country in World War II, studied with the composer Darius Milhaud, wrote several hundred songs for a series of constantly working quartets propelled by his distinctive piano voice, composed numerous extended works—operas, oratorios, ballets, suites—that bespoke his continued artistic growth, performed as a solo pianist, and, after 2000, devoted consequential time to the prestigious Brubeck Institute at the University of Pacific, his alma mater. This evening in Rose Theater, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis explores Brubeck’s legacy with fresh arrangements of his corpus that illuminate the maestro’s breadth and scope.
Tickets Start at $30

Dave Brubeck Festival: The Real Ambassadors
Featuring Eric Reed
April 11-12, 2014
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
Towards the end of the 1950s, when he was at the height of his fame, pianist-composer Dave Brubeck (1920-2012) and his wife Iola, in collaboration with Louis Armstrong, drew on their respective experiences spreading American culture and music around the world at the behest of the U.S. State Department to create a jazz musical titled The Real Ambassadors. Brubeck’s and Armstrong’s groups coalesced—together with singer Carmen McRae and the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks & Bevan—to record the soundtrack in December 1961, and to perform at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival. Pianist Eric Reed, an alumnus of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, music-directs a restaging of this still-topical masterwork, which addressed the civil rights movement and includes Iola Brubeck’s classic lyric “They Say I Look Like God.”
Tickets Start at $45

The Music of George Gershwin
Featuring Michael Feinstein
April 23, 2014, 7pm
April 24, 2014, 7pm & 9pm
The Allen Room
“George Gershwin clearly wanted to expose himself to and explore as many different genres or forms as possible,” says pianist Marcus Roberts, whose reimagined version of “Rhapsody In Blue” was a highlight of Michael Feinstein’s 2006 Gershwin tribute in Rose Theater, for which the singer-pianist-historian convened A-list luminaries from the worlds of musical theater, cabaret, popular song, jazz, and classical music to celebrate the indestructible works of this giant of American song. For this year’s follow-up, Feinstein hones in on the maestro’s deep connection to jazz, both in his personal roots and influences (Gershwin was a formidable stride pianist, whose first-hand gurus were Lucky Roberts and James P. Johnson) and through his audacious themes and ingenious chord sequences, which thousands of musicians have used as jumping off points for classic improvisations.
Tickets Start at $75

MAY 2014

The Music of Cole Porter 
Featuring Michael Feinstein
May 14, 2014, 7pm
May 15, 2014, 7pm & 9pm
The Allen Room
The second installment of Michael Feinstein’s Jazz and Popular Song series at Jazz at Lincoln Center focuses on the genius of Cole Porter, who, Feinstein notes, “was in that rare echelon of songwriters who supplied both words and music.”  Feinstein himself is ideally suited to interpret Porter’s archly comic, ambiguous, pointed lyrics and to execute his memorable melodies, several dozen of which have inspired generations of jazzfolk to improvise at the highest level. “Mr. Porter didn’t go out and get loaded because of an arrangement somebody else made of his music,” Feinstein quotes Frank Sinatra. “It made no difference to him, as long as the song was done in its entirety.”
Tickets Start at $75

New Jazz Standards /Nuevo Jazz Latino
New Jazz Standards features Reid Anderson, Eric Harland, Carla Kihlstedt, Guillermo Klein, Bill McHenry
May 16, 2014, 7pm; May 17, 9:30pm
Nuevo Jazz Latino features Carlos Henriquez, Pedrito Martinez, Dafnis Prieto, Yosvany Terry, Elio Villafranca
May 16, 2014: 9:30pm; May 17, 7pm
The Allen Room
On a program that may impel those of the opinion that 21st century jazz doesn’t concern itself with melodic values to question their assumptions, Instrumental Songwriters—convened under the auspices of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s new A Side, B Side series—presents two all-star ensembles, whose members each contribute new songs composed specifically for that personnel. One show features a unit with, among others, Bad Plus bassist Reid Anderson, the pianist-bandleader Guillermo Klein and other guests to be announced. The other group, which has a decidedly Afro-Cuban orientation, includes Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra bassist Carlos Henriquez, a Bronx native, and four brilliant Cubans—pianist Elio Villafranca, saxophonist Yosvany Terry, drummer (and MacArthur Award winner) Dafnis Prieto, and conguero-vocalist Pedrito Martinez.
Tickets Start at $45

JLCO Hosts Christian McBride & Kurt Rosenwinkel (Jazz Jam Series)
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Kurt Rosenwinkel 
May 23-24, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
For the second “JLCO Hosts” concert of the 2013-14 season, music director Wynton Marsalis and drummer Ali Jackson present the compositions of a pair of Philadelphia-born, post-Boomer virtuosos— bassist Christian McBride and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. For Jackson, Rosenwinkel’s JALC debut will culminate a musical relationship that began two decades ago at Smalls in Greenwich Village, where Rosenwinkel refined his individualistic guitar sound and influential compositional concept, blending dense harmonies, gorgeous melodies, and complex forms with, as Jackson states, “a very conscious and present understanding of the blues and what the blues are in jazz music.” Himself the leader of a big band that earned a 2012 GRAMMY® Award, McBride will continue a relationship with JALC that began in 1995 (not long after he’d emerged as an all-time great on his instrument), when Marsalis, whom he met in high school during the latter ‘80s, commissioned him to write “Bluesin’ in Alphabet City.” The full Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra appears.
Tickets Start at $30

John Pizzarelli Quartet with Jane Monheit  
Featuring Jane Monheit, John Pizzarelli
May 30-31, 2014
The Allen Room, 7pm & 9:30pm
Soulful elegance, virtuoso musicianship, melodic creativity, and unfailing swing will be operative during this meeting of John Pizzarelli and Jane Monheit, each a world-class communicator of an encyclopedic array of American—and other—popular song styles. A formidable practitioner of the 7-string guitar and the most conversational of singers, Pizzarelli addresses, in his own manner, repertoire associated with, among others, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and the Beatles. Known for her extraordinary vocal instrument since she burst on the scene in her early twenties, Monheit has steadily matured, consistently following Rosemary Clooney’s exhortation “to keep telling the truth, because everybody knows the difference.”
Tickets Start at $45

JUNE 2014

Modern Ellington  
Featuring Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
June 5-7, 2014
Rose Theater, 8pm
No musician more aptly represents the Jazz at Lincoln Center mantra, “all jazz is modern,” than Duke Ellington, who, as Wynton Marsalis once remarked, deals with the same thing—blues, call-and-response, certain types of voicing, the antiphonal relationship between brass and woodwinds, mood pieces, shuffles—from “Black and Tan Fantasy” (1927) through the “New Orleans Suite” (1970). Marsalis has spent many years pondering the question, “What does Duke’s development teach us in terms of the sustained seriousness of his art?” He’ll offer some of his conclusions on this evening’s program at the Rose Theater, on which the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra both draws from its already deep well of Ellingtonia and conjures new arrangements that illuminate the depth and complexity of the maestro’s all-modernistic-all-the-time corpus.
Tickets Start at $30

The Electric Guitar in America  
Featuring Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz, Tony Scherr, Kenny Wolleson
June 6-7, 2014
7pm & 9:30pm
The Allen Room
Always on the lookout for opportunities to “dig around for where I’m coming from,” Bill Frisell concludes this year’s Roots of Americana series in The Allen Room with an homage to his roots in the instrumental popular music made “right at the birth of the Fender Telecaster guitar” that, he recalls, “got me super fired up” about his instrument of choice. Joined by fellow guitar master Greg Leisz and trio partners Tony Scherr on bass and Kenny Wolleson on drums, Frisell will reference, among other things, the amphetamine-driven surf music of legendary plectrists Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant, and Dick Dale, country icons Merle Travis and Chet Atkins, and groups like the Astronauts, the Ventures, and the Wrecking Crew. As on all Frisell projects, the proceedings will be, he understates, “rich with possibility.”
Tickets Start at $45

Legends of the Jazz Age  
Featuring Michael Feinstein
June 11, 2014, 7pm
June 12, 2014, 7pm & 9pm
The Allen Room
No living entertainer knows the ins and outs of the music of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression more thoroughly than the erudite, charismatic singer-pianist Michael Feinstein. For the third and final concert of his Jazz and Popular Song series at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2013-14 season, Feinstein explores the respective oeuvres of that era’s most popular performers, among them Louis Armstrong, Mildred Bailey, Sophie Tucker, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, and Lee Wiley, whose collective repertoire includes some of the most enduring classics—but also no small number of off the beaten track nuggets—of the Great American Songbook canon.
Tickets Start at $75

Swing University

Whether you are new to the music or seek to deepen your knowledge, Swing University offers students of all ages a chance to learn about jazz from the musicians who make it and the scholars who study it. Hear your favorite music anew as JALC curator Phil Schaap and other jazz experts share insights, expertise, and tall tales as they lead classes through jazz’s storied past.

Fall Term: September– December, 2011
Jazz 101 with Phil Schaap
Jazz 201 with Phil Schaap
Lennie’s Listening Lessons with pianist/educator Connie Crothers
Dizzy Gillespie with Boo Frazier, nephew of Dizzy’s Gillespie

Winter Term: January-March, 2012
Jazz 201 with Phil Schaap
Monk with bassist/educator Larry Ridley
Jazz 301 with Phil Schaap

Spring Term: March-May, 2012
Jazz 301 with Phil Schaap
Free Jazz with historian/record producer Ben Young
Jazz 101 with Phil Schaap
BeBop with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra trombonist Vincent Gardner

Irene Diamond Education Center
Classes are 4, 6 or 8 sessions: $125-$250
Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays, 6:30pm-8:30pm



WeBop®

WeBop is an early childhood jazz education program where young children (eight months to five years) and their parents learn about the ideas, instruments, and great performers of jazz.  Classes offer a creative outlet for exploring jazz through movement, songs, stories, and play. Produced in collaboration with Dr. Lori Custodero, Teacher College, Columbia University.

Fall Term: TBD
Winter Term: TBD
Spring Term: TBD

Irene Diamond Education Center
Each 8-week session on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, or Sundays: $300

- – -

Please visit jalc.org for more information

He was 32 then. Jazz at Lincoln Center hadn’t yet become a constituent part of the larger Lincoln Center organization, and the idea of a dedicated theater for jazz hadn’t even been proposed. But he had already written extended works and had developed a framework for identifying and explaining jazz’s standards of excellence, and for linking the music to the history of black Americans and the notion of cultural survival. Never before had such power resided within one jazz musician, and those who doubted him wanted to be impressed on every possible level — especially after “Blood” won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for music.

In its latest rerun on Friday at Rose Theater — I saw the second night of a three-night stand — the band, conducted by Mr. Marsalis, put on a powerful and slightly streamlined version of a piece that once felt challengingly long and heavy. The singers tell a story of two slaves transported to America, Jesse (Kenny Washington) and Leona (Paula West), a man and a woman, a prince and a commoner. Jesse tries to escape, but is caught and brought back; with the help of a sage named Juba (Gregory Porter), he adjusts his view of the world, learns how to love both Leona and his new land properly, and by the end the couple prepare to seek freedom together.

Mr. Marsalis’s vocabulary is referential, but also intricate and cumulatively distinct. It has not been absorbed throughout jazz, which is probably why a 19-year-old piece of music remains strangely undated. “You Don’t Hear No Drums,” Jesse’s first song, and a theme that returns later, rested on careful, slow, contained New Orleans funk, with streamers of orchestrated dissonance. Mr. Marsalis’s trumpet solo toward the end of that song, when the rest of the band emptied out except for the rhythm section, grew battering and forceful. (He came out front again in “Back to Basics,” where he pulled articulated rips and chuckles from the horn among sections of melodic improvising over midtempo swing.) There was enough space here, too, for relative quiet and contemplation, like the lovely trickling countermelodies in “Will the Sun Come Out?,” leading toward an unaccompanied slow-blues by the pianist Eric Reed that made the audience talk back.

No major revisions have taken place. Even with strong new singers, “Blood” sounded much as I remembered it from the 1990s, if about 15 minutes shorter, with some solos and interstitial material cut. (Three of its principal soloists were still in place: Mr. Marsalis on trumpet, Mr. Reed on piano and Victor Goines on saxophones and clarinet.) But the time in between has made it a different listening experience.

At this point we really know what kind of composer the 51-year-old Mr. Marsalis is, rather than what any of us would like him to be. He loves dazzling surface strategies of harmony and counterpoint and timbral combinations; he stacks rhythms and reduces them to slow and contained stomps, played here by the drummer Ali Jackson with tambourine, kick drum and high-hat. He won’t undersell big ideas: he repeats and extends for effect, and parts of “Blood” still feel about a third too long. He often wants to tell the story of jazz and American music inside another story, so this one — about how love, the highest form of human flexibility, becomes the precondition for moving past slavery — comes with intimations of Ellington’s late suites, Mingus, Coltrane, the blues, spirituals and parade and string-band music. Mr. Marsalis is a big-gesture artist; that’s just the way it is.

Also, small-gesture artists don’t get theaters built to their desires. Rose Theater on Friday was as good as I’ve ever heard it. Every instrument rang warm, clear and true. Alice Tully Hall, in the ’90s, didn’t compare; neither does this work’s 1997 triple-disc recording on Columbia. The performance created the impression, at times, that this theater had been built in a retrospective molding to this band, and perhaps even this piece.

— Ben Ratliff
New York Times

The following finalists are among nearly 100 high school jazz bands across the country that entered the competition. Each school submitted recordings of three tunes performed from charts from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington library.

• *American Music Program, Portland, OR
• Badger High School, Lake Geneva, WI
• Beloit Memorial High School, Beloit, WI
• Community Arts Program, Coral Gables, FL
• Dillard Center for the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL
• Edmonds-Woodway High School, Edmonds, WA
• Foxboro High School, Foxboro, MA
• Garfield High School, Seattle, WA
• Jazz House Kids, Montclair, NJ
• Lexington High School, Lexington, MA
• New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL
• Rio Americano High School, Sacramento, CA
• Roosevelt High School, Seattle, WA
• Sun Prairie High School, Sun Prairie, WI
• Tucson Jazz Institute, Tucson, AZ*

Beginning on May 10, the 15 bands will compete for top honors and participate in workshops, jam sessions, and more during the three-day EE competition and festival in New York City. The first half of the final concert on May 12 will feature the three top-placing bands performing with a member of the world renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) as guest soloist. The second half will feature the JLCO – whose members serve as mentors for the finalist bands throughout the weekend – performing a repertoire of tunes made famous by Duke Ellington. The festival concludes with an awards ceremony honoring outstanding soloists, sections and the three top-placing bands.

For the first time, the entire weekend of EE events, including the final concert featuring the three top-placing bands and the JLCO, will be webcast live on jalc.org/live.

The Competition & Festival is the culmination of the annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Program (EE), which also includes regional festivals, teaching resources, a summer Band Director Academy, newsletters, and more.

Social Media:
This year, the Essentially Ellington Competition & Festival will be more media-accessible than ever via JALC social media – Facebook at facebook.com/EssentiallyEllington
Twitter EssEllington Instagram Jalcnyc
Students, viewers, and participators can share their thoughts and photos with us by using the hashtag #EE2013.

Background/Statistics:
Throughout March and April, Jazz at Lincoln Center will send, free of charge, a professional jazz musician to each of the 15 finalist band schools to lead an intensive day-long workshop of rehearsals, lessons, and master classes. The free clinics are part of the rich 18-year history of this unique music education program, which, by the end of this school year, will have reached more than 450,000 students in more than 4,000 high schools across all 50 United States, Canada, and American schools abroad.

The 2012-13 Essentially Ellington repertoire includes, Duke Ellington’s “Blood Count,” “Bonga,” “Echoes of Harlem,” “Lightnin’,” “Royal Garden Blues,” and “Second Line.”
This year, for the first time, band directors have access to free charts and other JALC resources available through instant digital download.
By the end of this year, Jazz at Lincoln Center will have distributed 15,000 newly transcribed scores
JALC has sent over 135,000 free copies of 104 previously unavailable big band scores by Duke Ellington and other seminal composers
252 finalist bands have traveled to New York City to participate in the annual Competition & Festival
This year 2,500 high schools in the United States, Canada, and American schools in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Columbia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom will receive Essentially Ellington materials.
In the first three months of registration, more than 1,500 band directors have registered their high schools and the program is on track for a record number of registrations.
This year, 96 bands entered the competition by submitting a recorded performance of three compositions.
For more information including background, history, photos, and audio recordings of the Essentially Ellington 2013 repertoire, and more, visit: www.jalc.org/ee

Where:
Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street, New York, New York.

Tickets:
All ticket sales will be handled via jalc.org or the Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office at Broadway and 60th Street inside Time Warner Center. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office is open Monday through Saturday, 10am-6pm, and Sundays, 12pm-6pm. Quantities are limited.

Founding leadership support for Essentially Ellington is provided by The Jack and Susan Rudin Educational and Scholarship Fund.

Major support is provided by
The Con Edison Community Partnership Fund,
Jody and John Arnhold, Alfred and Gail Engelberg,
The Ella Fitzgerald Foundation,
The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation,
The Mericos Foundation, Jennifer and Michael Price, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust,
the Vosshall Family and the Augustine Foundation.

Who/What:
Jazz at Lincoln Center continues its 25th anniversary celebration with a special performance of Blood On The Fields, Wynton Marsalis’ Pulitzer prize-winning jazz oratorio.  Eighteen years after its premiere at Alice Tully Hall, the jazz oratorio on slavery and freedom will be performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.  Eric Reed, featured pianist on the premiere and original Blood On The Fields recording, joins the JLCO for this special concert event.  Blood on the Fields remains one of Marsalis’ greatest works and reinforces his dictum that “all jazz is modern.“  Rising star baritone Gregory Porter, scat-master Kenny Washington, and the great contralto Paula West reprise the vocal roles. 

Download the Blood on the Fields Playbill and Libretto
    
When:

February 21-23, 2013, 8pm
 
Where:

wyntonmarsalis.org/live

New Orleans, the Crescent City. It remains a fascinating place because of the diversity of its culture. We have street parades, voodoo, and all kinds of wildness right next to door cathedrals, debutantes and manicured mansions.

We have our own music, architecture, way of speaking and, of course, food. Fried food like po’ boys, sweets like beignets, rice dishes like jambalaya.

But our signature dish is gumbo.

Gumbo is symbolic of the best of New Orleans. It’s as much as cultural symbol of Louisiana as the bayou, or jazz. That is why, like New Orleans herself, gumbo is temperamental — approachable, but unpredictable.

And across America, no dish speaks more vividly of a melting pot than gumbo. Dating back more than 300 years, it’s a complex dish born of necessity, bringing together a multiplicity of ingredients and ethnicities.

Many believe the West African slave population first created this dish out of hardship. The name “gumbo” derives from the word kingombo, which is Bantu for okra, a popular ingredient.

But it was the Chocktaw Indians who developed the spicy file powder, a key additive made from sassafras leaves. And it was the French who lay claim to the thickening agent known as the roux.

Now we didn’t know any of that history when I was growing up, but when we saw those ingredients for gumbo coming through the front door, we knew it was going to be time for a celebration — and it was.

You can find gumbo in every corner of this city, and argue every day as to whose is best. But the answer always is: There is no better pot of gumbo than one made at home.

New Orleans chef Poppy Tooker’s middle name might as well be gumbo. He told Marsalis that the best way to learn how to make gumbo “is from your grandmother, or your great-grandmother.”

“I started making gumbo when I was a little girl, and I was a pro by high school,” she said. “I had it down.”

Her take on the signature dish is revered by those near and far. She says that a few steps are required.

First, the all-important mix of flour and oil that makes up the roux. “I just stir. You can’t answer the phone, you can’t go to the door, you can’t leave it alone,” she said.

Every gumbo has to include the holy trinity of vegetables: Onions, celery, and green peppers. That’s going to be followed by Tooker’s lyrical favorite, okra. After that, it’s really just a matter of taste and opinion.

“The most important ingredient in any gumbo are the gumbo crabs,” she said.

As long as it’s made with Louisiana’s finest, and strained, simmered and stirred constantly with love, the result will always be quite poignant and soulful — like the Crescent City herself.

There is a big difference between gumbo and just any old soup. Gumbo is a full meal. It’s a tradition and a philosophy. The fundamentals don’t change, but the variations are endless. A good pot of gumbo is so much trouble to make, nobody ever makes a small pot — which is fortunate, because with a good pot of gumbo on the stove, your whole neighborhood may end up in your kitchen.

Mmmm . . . have mercy, Poppy!

The special “inhabits the spirit of the city as Grammy Award-winning Marsalis celebrates one of the most unique cities in the world by introducing the rhythm and soul of the Big Easy through its music, its people, its traditions and its love of football and the New Orleans Saints as it prepares to kick off the biggest party of the year, Super Bowl XLVII,” according to the network.

Check out a trailer…

Wynton playing “When The Saints Go Marching In” at Maple Leaf Bar, New Orleans

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2013 Annual Gala Concert will honor famed New York Interior Designer and JALC Board Member Mica Ertegun and bestow upon her the organization’s Ed Bradley Award for Leadership in Jazz.

“The Crosby, Stills & Nash Songbook“will feature Crosby, Stills & Nash’s classic songs – music that has become a cornerstone of rock and roll – arranged by Marsalis and members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

“Jazz at Lincoln Center is honored that Crosby, Stills and Nash are donating their time and talent to perform at this year’s annual gala,” said Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Managing and Artistic Director. “Individually and collectively, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash are influential and important figures in American music. Their music is rooted in American folk, pop and blues traditions and their experiments with form, harmony and orchestration will make for a natural collaboration.”

“Wynton Marsalis, who has become America’s musical hero and ambassador to the world in the tradition of the great Louis Armstrong, has offered us the chance to make music with the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra,” said David Crosby. “These are musicians who have spent their whole lives becoming the very best in the world at what they do. We are are excited and fascinated with this merging of musical streams and looking forward to a night to remember.”

The Jazz at Lincoln Center gala dinner décor will be designed by David Beahm, and dinner will be served by Great Performances, the exclusive in-house caterer for Jazz at Lincoln Center.

When:
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Jazz at Lincoln Center Annual Gala and Concert
7pm concert in Rose Theater
9pm dinner in The Allen Room and Atrium
Friday, May 3, 2013
8pm concert in Rose Theater

Where:
Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall
Broadway at 60th Street, New York, New York.

Gala Tickets:
Gala tickets begin at $1,500 and tables begin at $25,000.. Contact Stacie Middleton Crawford at scrawford@jalc.org.

Concert tickets for May 3:
Tickets for the public concert on May 3 will be available to Jazz at Lincoln Center members and subscribers with a MasterCard® card starting February 4, 2013 at 10amET. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on February 11, 2013. All ticket sales will be handled via jalc.org, through CenterCharge at 212-721-6500 or the Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office at Broadway and 60th Street inside Time Warner Center. MasterCard cardholders will also have privileged access to purchase a quantity of the best seats in house located in the orchestra section through MasterCard Priceless New York (priceless.com/ny) beginning on February 11, 2013. Quantities are limited. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office is open Monday through Saturday, 10am-6pm, and Sundays, 12pm-6pm. There is a maximum of two tickets per household. There are no group sales, Hot Seats, or discounted tickets available for this event.

Join Wynton, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Jonathan Batiste and Doug Wamble LIVE from the House of Swing as we celebrate the music of John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan.

When: Saturday January 19, 2013

Time: 2PM ET & 8PM ET (7PM GMT & 1AM GMT)

Where to watch: wyntonmarsalis.org/live

But it is all the aspects of jazz—style, history, culture—that the virtuoso trumpeter and composer works ardently to preserve. Mr. Marsalis, who was born and raised in New Orleans, has been the artistic director of JALC since he co-founded the nonprofit institution in 1987, and was recently named managing director.

He has also become jazz’s international ambassador. This past fall, he traveled to Doha, Qatar, to unveil the first Jazz at Lincoln Center venue outside New York. (It’s attached to the city’s St. Regis hotel.) He relished the experience, he said, “to use the music for the reason it was born, to bring people closer together.”

To mark JALC’s 25th anniversary this year, Mr. Marsalis worked on a commemorative book called “In the Spirit of Swing,” which chronicles the institution’s quarter century. In February, he will join the JALC Orchestra to perform “Blood on the Fields,” the epic composition that earned him a Pulitzer Prize 18 years ago; this will be the first time the piece is performed in its entirety since then. Despite his achievements, he insists much of what he does is just paying attention to and taking cues from other musicians. “You’re engaged in listening because the people you’re listening to are making it up as they go,” he said. “And you have to follow.”

At first I didn’t want to play trumpet, because I didn’t want that ugly lip. I told my daddy, “Man, the girls aren’t gonna want to see that.” Then, when I was in high school, I realized girls like musicians.

As soon as I could afford a suit I got one. I had a peach leisure suit that was one of the ugliest things you ever saw in the ’70s. And I remember when I was 16 in New Orleans, a guy was throwing two suits out and he called out to me, “Hey man, you want these suits?” One of them was a cream-colored silk suit that I wore ‘til I came to New York. That suit meant a lot.

Duke Ellington always had a style: original, clean with interesting color combinations. He had an artist’s eye.

The trumpet is a very physical instrument. You’re trying to make metal bend, so when you play a lot, it hurts.

You’ve got to warm up, but as a basketball coach of mine used to say: If you have to bounce the ball three times and flip it and twist your arm before a free-throw, it probably means you can’t shoot ‘em.

Musicians like to converse. There’s always interesting conversation with musicians—with classical musicians, with jazz musicians, musicians in general.

I almost never watch TV, except for “60 Minutes” and pro football. I love Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and the Steelers’ linebackers.

One of the greatest books I’ve read is “Endurance,” about Ernest Shackleton.

The greatest concert I ever saw was Betty Carter, in Vienna. She was a great original: the virtuosity, the fire, the freedom of her style. You could tell the audience understood they were in the presence of something great.

I don’t like to fly, so I spend hours in the car when we’re on tour and see the country. My friend Frank Stewart drives me in an Escalade. I don’t get carsick, so I can write music and read. That kind of mental isolation is actually very productive for me.

A big influence when I was young was a trip to Japan. I was 19. It was the music, the haikus, Noh and Kabuki theater—the kinds of things only older people go to these days.

I stay grounded by being very fundamental in my desires. Rather than making something complicated, simplify it.

Most of the music my 16-year-old son listens to is a commercial product. Socially, I think it is relevant, but it’s not that interesting from a musical standpoint.

I’m from the Bayou. I love the Creole folklore, the architecture and of course the food. My mom made the best red beans and rice, gumbo, pecan pies and ribs. She had her own style. Everyone used to tell me, “Man, your mama is doing something different.”

I don’t collect anything. I can’t really hold onto physical things for some reason. It isn’t my thing.

I cut my mustache because my son told me to when he was 10. He said, “Why are you afraid to do something different?” So I cut it, and I kept it off.

My favorite movies are the first two “Godfathers,” for the costumes, the cinematography, the music, the pageantry, the multigenerational scope, the family dynamics. And I like “The Wizard of Oz.” Judy Garland was a kind of genius.

In the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, there was a different approach to showmanship. I was looking at videos of Cab Calloway. It’s almost like you had to wear the clothes to play the music. [My band] all has different philosophies about it. Most of the time, we wear a jacket and tie. Some guys like it, some guys don’t.

My life is too unstructured for daily routines. I like things kind of unruly. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to ride the wave. A lot of us don’t have that luxury. But I do try to go to bed by 1:30 and get up by seven.

There are many places I’d love to go, but it’s more about the people. I wish I could go to Japan with [bassist] Kengo Nakamura, or just hang in Russia with my man [saxophonist] Igor Butman.

If you’ve got basic manners, you can go into someone’s home anywhere in the world and have a good time.

I like doing two opposite things at once, like trying to get the biggest sound at the softest volume. My son had a great observation about John Coltrane: “He plays with a lot of intensity, but he’s also relaxed.” It’s the same with LeBron [James]. He’s so skilled, but he loves to pass the ball.

My great uncle cut stone for the cemetery in New Orleans. I have a really small stone from him. He engraved on it, “Don’t be discourage.” He ran out of space, so it doesn’t have the last D. But I think it is better that way. It keeps it in the present tense.

Source: WSJ.com

That day, Marsalis recited an essay, punctuated by music, that summed up what four-plus decades of being a Saints fan meant to the Who Dat faithful, all in the context of the rhythms and history of the city itself.

It concluded: “It’s like waiting 43 years to hear somebody say ‘I Love You’ back. And they do.”

This year’s Marsalis special was born at a brainstorming session in spring 2012.

“We were talking about the city of New Orleans and obviously the great Super Bowl tradition there – the music, the culture, the cuisine, the architecture — and somebody in our sales division said, ‘Why don’t we do a show featuring the music of New Orleans? We’ll do a live show. We’ll get Harry Connick, Jr., and Wynton Marsalis and Trombone Shorty,’” said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports, during a Tuesday (Jan. 8) phone interview. “Someone said, ‘What if it rains?’ It’s really expensive to get performers on network television. Music specials don’t do that well on prime time television, not to mention Sunday-afternoon television. Then I remembered that piece Wynton Marsalis had done for us. It was so heartfelt and authentic. It was obviously just a beautiful piece.”

Marsalis, a CBS News consultant, was brought in for a meeting.

“We started tossing around ideas,” McManus said. “I kind of gave a broad outline of a show we might do, and then Wynton started talking about a show he wanted to do. He started talking about how no other city has everything that New Orleans has. Cities have great culture, they have great food, they have great architecture, some have great history. But no city in the world has all these things combined. He started going through it. He did a minute on the food and all the different kinds of cuisine there. A minute on the architecture. A minute on the music, and how the musicians are recovering from Katrina, and how important this all is.

“He finished, and I said, ‘That’s the first five minutes of our show right there. Guys, I wish we had a camera.’ We started talking about it after that and we all got more and more exited.

“It’s very different. It’s not your normal NFL preview or pregame show to do, but the genesis came from this incredible essay he did for us. We thought that if we could take some of that magic and some of that poetry and some of that beauty and make it into an hour show, it would be pretty special.”

McManus said that some of the components of the hour are still in production – Sarah Rinaldi of CBS Sports is the special’s producer – adding that more than 30 interviews have already been filmed. One segment will cover previous Super Bowls in the city — “There has to be some football,” McManus said – while others will explore music and food.

“The concept is to kind of see the city through all the people who live in that city, whether they are poor or rich or black or white or older or younger,” he said. “Some of the rushes I’ve seen are just spectacular in terms of the beauty and the color that they have captured of New Orleans.”

Given Super Bowl Sunday advertising rates, CBS is dedicating some pricey real-estate to “New Orleans: Let the Good Times Roll.”

It will also be delivering an hour of priceless international attention to the game’s host city and its culture on the most-watched day of the TV year.

“There’s really not a lot of risk,” McManus said. “The biggest risk is that it won’t be a good show, and that in my mind is not a risk because of the people involved. If it gets a very, very low rating, so be it. We’re not doing this to attract a huge audience. We’re doing this because we think it’s the right thing to do. It’s a great tribute to a terrific city that has come through a very difficult time. I think it’s the right thing to do and it’s an important show to do.

“If we wanted to get a higher rating, I could do a show on the world’s greatest NFL cheerleaders. That would probably get a higher rating than doing a show on New Orleans with Wynton Marsalis. This is the right thing to do.”

Source: NOLA.com

Music and theater critics praised the original City Center run in 2011 and an encore outing last fall, especially for the work of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra directed by Wynton Marsali, which will be part of the Broadway production. Warren Carlyle will again direct and choreograph the show, which was conceived by Jack Viertel, artistic director of the City Center Encores! series. Casting, performance dates and a Broadway theater will be announced later. The producers are Alan D. Marks, Barbara Marks, Wade Turnbull, Steve Hendel, Ruth Hendel, and Tom Kirdahy

Source: NY Times

Celebrated for his contributions as a performer, composer, bandleader and educator, trumpeter Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards. He is the only artist in history to have received Grammys for five consecutive years and to have received a Grammy for both jazz and classical music in the same year (1983).

Marsalis is currently managing and artistic director of jazz at Lincoln Center after serving as artistic director beginning in 1987. Under his leadership, the organization offers a full array of education, performance and broadcast productions, including national and international touring by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and others. He has performed in more than thirty countries and with a variety of orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Pops, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and London’s Royal Philharmonic.

In 1997 Marsalis became the first jazz musician ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, for his epic oratorio, Blood on the Fields. In 2010 he launched a multi-year lecture series at Harvard to promote awareness of the importance of cultural literacy, with a special focus on the relationship between American music and the American identity. Marsalis has also written six books including Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (Random House, 2008), with Geoffrey C. Ward; and his latest children’s book, Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!, illustrated by Paul Rogers (Candlewick, 2012).

Born in New Orleans to a musical family, Marsalis has five brothers, three of whom are professional musicians. His father is also a long-time educator and professional musician. His son, Simeon, attends UVM and is graduating in May.

Source: UVM.edu

Wynton Marsalis’ music supervisor, Jonathan Kelly, described for us their workflow for the creation of the new music, and Finale’s role in the process.

Scott Yoho: Let me get this straight: You had about two days to rehearse an evening’s worth of new music before going in the studio to record it. Two days before that, this music didn’t exist anywhere but Wynton’s head?

JK: Something like that. It might have just been one day of rehearsal and then one day in the studio, maybe two days in the studio. It’s not a lot of time.

A few days before the first rehearsal, I got a call from Wynton, and he said; “Okay man, let’s start doing this.” Then I spent something like 48 straight hours working on this music — there are eight individual songs, or movements. He’d finish one, and I’ll start working on it. He’s working on the next one. We’d kind of trade in that fashion.

SY: And Wynton doesn’t’ bring completed pencil sketches, he creates them on the spot?

JK: That’s exactly what he does. He still sits at the piano and composes straight pencil-to-paper. In this case, the instrumentation is septet, so it’s four horns, piano, bass and drums. He hands me piano reductions, where it’s pretty clearly orchestrated who is playing what, and I make a score and the parts. That said, I don’t know when he starts to conceptualize some of these songs: I know he is someone who is thinking a lot.

But by the time he sits down with the pencil he is composing a song basically one-for-one to me copying: He will hand me a page, and I’ll start to copy it. By the time I finish the first song, he is usually ready to give me the second set. So when I say that I work with him a couple of days ahead of time, it’s a little bit of an exaggeration just because by the time we got to our first rehearsal, we weren’t actually finished yet. I’m always coming into rehearsal working on the subsequent pieces. Then, maybe that night after that rehearsal, I finish the last one.

SY: Your workflow has to be VERY efficient.

JK: Over the past decade or so we’ve just developed technique that never could have happened fifty, sixty years ago. From the editing we’ve done for the symphony, or the mass Wynton wrote for the Abyssinian Baptist choir, to the new music for concerts with Eric Clapton, or Paul Simon, the sheer volume of stuff that we do every year, it just wouldn’t be possible without Finale.

SY: After you completed the recordings, you sent them to Garth Fagan, and they rehearsed with them all summer. I understand that they become accustomed to even the improvised sections, right?

JK: Right. The music includes improvised sections, and they’ve choreographed to that, too. Now they want to hear certain things, like Wynton’s trumpet solos, they’re used to dancing to, so if he goes and starts improvising on it at the performance, forget it. They get lost in the form or the dance just doesn’t make sense.

SY: So to eliminate this problem, you actually transcribed Wynton’s improvised sections?

JK: Exactly, I transcribed many of his trumpet solos. It was funny because at first I showed some transcriptions to him, and he said, “Oh, I don’t want you to waste your time. I don’t know if you have to do that.” I’ve had similar experiences in the past, so I wanted to be ready. At the end of the first day of the rehearsal, Wynton said, “Oh man I’m glad you did this.”

It’s not what it used to be to sit down with a recording and transcribe a solo: Today it’s much faster. It’s much easier. Plus with Finale you can hear it back; that makes a big difference in transcription. In my case, I’m a bass player transcribing trumpet, hearing something I can’t recreate at tempo. I can’t play it on a piano or my bass fast enough. The playback is just key for someone like me in transcribing.

SY: It’s key for me too, but it’s reassuring to hear that someone who works at the level of you relies on it, too. In our earlier discussion you indicated how these transcriptions differ from a transcription you might create for publication – they’re not ALWAYS note-for-note.

JK: I could probably get by with direction like fast, slow, high and low, but I’m kind of a perfectionist in general. My mind just kind of works that way, so I prefer to transcribe every note. But I do make exceptions.

He has, I call them, Wyntonism’s, technique-driven melodic devices that he can play really high and really fast. When I’d find myself trying to write out one of those note-for-note, I’d catch myself. So there were actually a few points on his trumpet solo, on the printed copy, where he was like, “What does WTS mean?”

For me it’s “Wynton Type Stuff.”

SY: [Laughter] That’s excellent!

JK: That’s not actually what WTS stands for, but that’s the PG version.

SY: Can you say anything else about how Finale plays a part in your work?

JK: Finale has evolved to the point where the artist is allowed to dictate the workflow and not vice versa. I always draw an analogy between my workflow with Wynton and cultivating diamonds. It takes a very specific environment to create a diamond and it’s an atmosphere where very few things can survive. One change in temperature or pressure, and you’ve got a flawed diamond, or even graphite. Writing music is hard enough as it is. It starts as an idea, then you have to translate it to a visual representation, then many people have to simultaneously interpret your representation. I’m not saying that we always are putting out diamonds, but at least with Finale we have a puncher’s chance.

I’d like to thank Jonathan for taking the time to talk with me and for providing the samples of Wynton’s manuscript and score. Check out some great rehearsal video of Lighthouse/Lightning Rod, and share your thoughts or tell us what you’re working on by clicking on “Comments’ below.

Source: FinaleMusic.com

WBGO’s Rhonda Hamilton hosts the event, which begins at 9 p.m. Monday with John Scofield and his Uberjam Band live at the Berklee Center in Boston.

At 10 p.m. it’s Henry Cole and his Afrobeat Collective at the 92nd St. Y Tribeca. Then Marsalis and Vince Giordano team up at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola from 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., playing a tribute to Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.

Dee Alexander plays in Chicago at 12:30 a.m., followed by an encore of a 1990 broadcast with Clark Terry and Red Holloway from Chicago.

Things wrap up starting at 2:30 a.m. with Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band from Los Angeles.

Elsewhere for New Year’s on the radio:

WCBS-FM (101.1): Top 101 party songs of all time, Monday and Tuesday.
WFUV (90.7 FM): “Sunday Breakfast” year in review, Sunday, 8-11 a.m. “Ceol na nGael” year in Irish music, Sunday, noon-4 p.m. Folk music year in review, Sunday, 4-5 p.m.
WHTZ (100.3 FM): Top 100 songs of 2012, through Tuesday.
WHUD (100.7 FM): Top 100.7 songs of 2012, Tuesday 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
WKCR (89.9 FM): Bach festival through Monday midnight.
WPLJ (95.5 FM): Biggest songs of 2012 hosted by Scott and Todd, running over the weekend through Tuesday.
WQHT (97.1 FM): All-mix weekend from Friday through noon Tuesday, when the listener-voted top 97 of 2012 countdown begins.
WSOU (89.5 FM): Uncle Kevin’s “Streamlined,” Monday, 10 p.m. “The Loudest New Year,” Monday, midnight-6 a.m. Top 89 metal songs of 2013, Tuesday, noon.
Sirius XM Satellite: “New Year’s Nation,” pop-up Ch. 3, from 3 p.m. Monday to 6 p.m. Tuesday. The best New Year’s party tunes from across Sirius XM stations.
Monday night: concert by Willie Nelson (Ch. 56), Gregg Allman (Ch. 26), Widespread Panic (Ch. 29), Lumineers (Ch. 28) and Southside Johnny (Ch. 20). Live DJ sets, Ch. 51 and 52.

When:

Dec 26-30
7:30pm & 10pm
A year-end contribution of $250 to Jazz at Lincoln Center is recognized with two seats for these special sets at Dizzy’s (food, beverage, and gratuity not included).
Reservations: 212-258-9892 (available by phone only)

Dec 31: New Year’s Eve
Early Diz: $350 per person
Doors open at 6pm; music begins at 7:30pm. Price includes music charge and 4-course meal.

Midnight Diz:
$500 per person
Doors open at 10pm; music begins at 11pm. Price includes music charge, cocktail reception, 5-course meal, and champagne toast.

Reservations: 212-258-9595/9795 (available by phone only)

Personnel:

Jon-Erik Kellso – Trumpet
Andy Stein – Violin
Ken Salvo – Banjo, Guitar
Vince Giordano – Bass, Tuba

Victor Goines – Sax, Clarinet
Dan Nimmer – piano
Carlos Henriquez – bass
Ali Jackson – drums
Chris Crenshaw – trombone
Wynton Marsalis – trumpet

Of your contribution, $180 is tax-deductible. Online reservations are not available for this event. Please note, single seats also require a donation of $250.

Exclusive JALC 25th anniversary t-shirts and baseball caps will be available for purchase in every tour venue.

In 1987, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis was comprised of the surviving members of the Duke Ellington Big Band and the Wynton Marsalis Septet. The critically-acclaimed resident orchestra continues to perform a repertoire across the full jazz spectrum – from the music’s New Orleans roots to bebop to modern jazz. By creating and performing an expansive range of brilliant new music for quartets, big bands, chamber music ensembles, symphony orchestras, tap dance, and ballet, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has expanded the vocabulary for jazz and created a vital body of work that places the group among the finest musicians today.

John Mendelson, senior v-p, sales and digital initiatives for Candlewick, said, “Just as we aim to publish and sell superior print books, Candlewick strives to bring the same high standards to our digital book program. We are excited to launch our catalog on the iBookstore as part of our ongoing effort to make our books as widely available as possible across all formats.”

http://wyntonmarsalis.org/store/sheet-music

Jazz at Lincoln Center has proudly continued the tradition over the years. For this year’s Big Band Holidays concert, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis will present fresh arrangements of timeless holiday classics, joined by vocalist René Marie, who All About Jazz called “one of the most arresting and complex vocal personalities performing today,” and vocalist Gregory Porter, who in a brief time has racked up a continuing stream of accolades and awards.
Big Band Holidays takes place in Rose Theater on December 7-8 at 8pm, with a 2pm matinee on December 8.

Where:
Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street, New York, New York.

Tickets:
Tickets for Big Band Holidays on December 7-8, 8pm: $10-$120; on December 8, 2pm: $10-$95

Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) celebrates a milestone 25th anniversary with the launch of In the Spirit of Swing: The First 25 Years of Jazz at Lincoln Center (Chronicle Books), a limited edition keepsake book available for purchase on Amazon.com beginning on November 28.

In the Spirit of Swing: The First 25 Years of Jazz at Lincoln Center is comprised of hundreds of gorgeous photographs, including rarely seen shots by JALC Senior Staff Photographer Frank Stewart, and historical documents from JALC’s expansive archives. Narrated by Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis and with contributions from Albert Murray, Jimmy Heath, Dianne Reeves, Stanley Crouch and past and present members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, In the Spirit of Swing: The First 25 Years of Jazz at Lincoln Center illustrates the organization’s rich history.

Photo highlights include the first incarnation of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra,formed 25 years ago and featuring members of Marsalis’ young septet and the surviving members of the Duke Ellington Big Band; musicians and actors, including Betty Carter, Abbey Lincoln, Tony Bennett, Al Roker, Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson, Laurence Fishburne, Robin Williams, Toni Morrison, Liza Minelli, Diana Ross, BB King and Eric Clapton, who have performed on JALC’s stages; supporters including Hillary R. Clinton, Ed Bradley, Ahmet Ertegun, Emilio Sosa; the construction of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home on Columbus Circle; and the children around the world who have been touched by the organization’s education initiatives.

From its first downbeat as a summer concert series at Lincoln Center in 1987, to the fully orchestrated achievement of opening the world’s first venue designed specifically for jazz in 2004, Jazz at Lincoln Center has celebrated this music and these landmarks with an ever-growing audience of jazz fans around the world. In the Spirit of Swing is a gorgeous book and illuminating revelation of how a group of committed citizens championed jazz as a cause and inspired a movement.

Transcript:

Turkey may be the ceremonial centerpiece but let’s not forget about stuffing, cranberry sauce and all the comfort and dysfunction that family and extended family bring to the table. Thanksgiving: the mythic meal shared by Native Americans with starving Pilgrims became a symbol of giving to others in need, of accepting kindness with gratitude and of recognizing the temperamental authority of Mother Nature through prayer. It was in response to the bloodiest year of the Civil War, that President Lincoln decreed the final Thursday in November to be the holiday we now observe. Through the years this annual celebration of thanking and giving, praying and cooking has become a sacred tradition. The harder the times, the greater the giving, the deeper the thanks.

Today – we are slowly coming together after a contentious election season. Our candidates expended enormous resources in a divisive debate over the national agenda which strained the very fabric of friendships, families, and communities.

In the North East, victims of Superstorm Sandy, some still without homes, face enormous obstacles. Be it earthquakes in the west, tornadoes in the Midwest or hurricanes in the south, Mother Nature will have her way. Btu we are a resourceful and generous nation. We always grow to the size of the challenge. As we invite fellow citizens to a welcome-table in this time need, let us give thanks for what we have and for we what we have in each other.

November MEANS thanksgiving. EVERY November. This tradition lifts us to a year-end holiday season of grand giving and gratitude. But let’s not overlook the personal traditions of everyday that make our world a sweeter place. We must have our Sunday Service. And what about Mama Lucy’s beauty parlor every other Wednesday, or a few colorful words with Cap’n Bob at the newsstand. Let us give thanks for the personal traditions that give our lives texture and quality.

And there is always much to be thankful for. Human kindness is everywhere around us. It is in the night and day work of those who restored power after ‘Sandy,’ It is in the selfless outpouring of financial and medical aid, and it is no less powerfully present in countless thoughts, hopes and well wishes. Let us pray for those in need AND let us also give thanks to our everyday heroes: grandparents who pick up the slack for parents struggling to make ends meet, artists who perform free of charge in schools, hospitals and homes for the elderly, students who mentor and parents who coach…..Volunteers from all across the nation whose outpouring of concern, caring and compassion create a symphony of giving in the spirit of that mythic first thanksgiving feast. This is a time to recognize and give thanks and pray.

Of all the things we will encounter—glorious landscapes, thrilling adventures, or things we may possess— cars, homes…..nothing will be greater or more impactful than another person. It’s thanksgiving, let’s pardon more than the holiday turkey. Let us give, let us forgive, Let us give thanks.

The younger Marsalis, 51, performing as part of Loyola University’s Presidential Centennial Guest Series, opened the set with his composition “Free to Be.” Accompanying the nine-time Grammy-winning trumpeter and Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center was a world-class ensemble featuring Loyola alum Victor Goines (clarinet and saxophone), Carlos Henriquez (bass), Ali Jackson (drums), and Dan Nimmer (piano), who traded solos to resounding applause. Marsalis was thoughtful and gracious, grabbing a towel at stage left for Jackson, and musing at length on the importance of his upbringing, and the basic values of integrity and equality instilled in him by his father.

Wynton then invited Ellis to join them on the bandstand, to a standing ovation. The New Orleans patriarch guided the ensemble through a liltingly phrased “All of Me,” before Wynton turned pensive once more.

As Wynton went off the planned program to introduce the “New Orleans Function,” discussing the city’s communal approach to music and ability to deal with death because, as he explained (to considerable laughter), “everybody was [buried] above ground,” you could sense something remarkable was afoot. He went on to praise the character and giving spirit of “this man,” still unnamed, whose mother passed away earlier Monday.

The New Orleans matriarch was “Althea Pierce,” Marsalis revealed, to audible gasps; “this man,” her son Wendell.

Marsalis had stepped into an alcove early in the set, while his band played, to warmly embrace a figure in the shadows. Now, to another standing house, said gentleman Pierce joined Marsalis Senior and Junior and co. onstage for “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” which swelled to include other players in the hall invited to pay their musical respects.

Head turned downward, wiping away tears with his white handkerchief after every solo, the visibly moved, grateful Pierce swayed in dirge-like fashion with Marsalis, until the tempo changed.

Pierce looked up and danced, cathartically and to a flood of love back from those around him both onstage and in the crowd. An impromptu second line followed through the venue as concertgoers echoed the jazz funeral exclamation, “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble?!”

At the start of the evening, Loyola Dean of the College of Music and Fine Arts Dr. Donald Boomgaarden recapped a two-hour master class conducted by Marsalis with enthralled students Monday morning, during which “you could hear a pin drop.” He noted that students’ lives were changed, and that regardless of the evening’s program, he considered Marsalis’ visit a success. By the close of the night, audience members of all ages were out of their seats and in the aisles, doubtless a few more lives changed.

Our thoughts are with Pierce and his family, and our gratitude is with both Pierce and Marsalis for sharing such a personal, emotional exchange with the public.

Source: OffBeat

The creators of Jazz ABZ are back for an encore. With infectious rhythm and rhyme, musical master Wynton Marsalis opens kids’ ears to the sounds around us. Their latest children’s book, Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! includes vibrant illustrations by Paul Rogers and 10 three-line verses from Wynton Marsalis about musical and every day sounds. This vivid work is a sonic adventure from cover to cover!

On sale now!

Where to Watch: http://jalc.org/multimedia/webcasts/live-from-doha

COMPLETE WEBCAST SCHEDULE

Thursday, October 5, 2pm& 4pm EDT
Wynton Marsalis Quintet
Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha
Click here to tune in

Thursday, October 6, 2pm& 4pm EDT
Wynton Marsalis Quintet
Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha
Click here to tune in

Thursday, October 8, 2pm& 4pm EDT
Wynton Marsalis Quintet
Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha
Click here to tune in

Dancers, wearing aquatically themed purples and blues, move spontaneously, as if caught in a riptide: with little warning, they change direction, hopping forward on one leg while taking freestyle strokes in the air with a single arm or collapsing and dangling their fingers toward the floor. Without being too heavy-handed, Mr. Fagan shows that the waters surrounding his “Lighthouse,” as the first section is named, are anything but tranquil.

On Thursday evening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the dance was unveiled, along with excerpts from “Griot New York,” Mr. Fagan and Mr. Marsalis’s heralded 1991 collaboration. The California artist Alison Saar designed the set pieces, which include the strangest lighthouse you might ever see: a sculpture of a woman, nearly as tall as the stage, clasping silver branches.

She is both ominous and comforting, as are the blue thorny branches that poke from the wings in the middle section, “Memories.” As the branch structure is pushed closer to center stage, a man’s head, on its side, comes into view. For “Lightning Rod,” the last section, silver lightning bolts hang above the stage. (They’re as obvious as the dancers’ costumes: black unitards with asymmetrical silver ruffles.)

A new section shows Natalie Rogers, Nicolette Depass and Vitolio Jeune moving together while lost in their own worlds. Last, a vignette briefly touches upon racism and slavery with a scene involving field workers and a servant’s being carried off against her will. If “Lighthouse” is pleasant enough — though the longer it persists, the more routine it becomes — “Memories” is choppy and within this ever-shifting landscape, the piece drifts.

Mr. Fagan has his favorite dancers, but I was drawn — here and in “Griot” — to Sade Bully, whose razor-sharp extension and silky gusto takes the awkwardness out of some of Mr. Fagan’s more static poses and unwieldy transitions. He loves a tilt. He loves an impossible balance. He loves a jump that springs from nowhere. Ms. Bully manages all of that with elegance — the blazing sort.

Source: New York Times

The concert celebrated a number of milestones: BAM’s 150th anniversary year, its Next Wave Festival’s 30th anniversary and the end of Garth Fagan Dance’s 40th anniverary celebration. The company will bring the concert to Rochester from Nov. 27 to Dec. 2 at Nazareth College Arts Center (although the Wynton Marsalis Septet’s music will be a recording).

The night brought Griot New York, the first work Fagan and Marsalis collaborated on in 1991, and also Lighthouse/Lightning Rod, their new work that allowed the abstract representation of those elements.

Griot is one of Garth Fagan Dance’s most celebrated works for its abstract portrayal of the black experience in New York in the early 1990s. Marsalis’ score swings and wails, staying true to its swing and New Orleans roots in all its originality. Fagan, too, takes cues in his movement from the swing-era. Loose, swinging limbs, cross-body footwork, and even Charleston-style kicks take on new life when combined with Fagan’s gravity-defying poses and sensuously tangled duets.

The company’s longtime members danced with a relaxed precision: Norwood Penewell and Nicolette Depass executed the “Spring Yaounde” duet with breathtaking intimacy. Also standing out was Natalie Rogers, returning to the company this year after directing Fagan’s dance school for many years.

What’s often forgotten in the collective memory of the work is how the stage design and costumes set the moods of intimacy and celebration and boosts Fagan’s choreography.

As Griot New York reflects the early ’90s period in which it was created, Lighthouse/Lightning Rod is fresh and contemporary. Marsalis’ score and Fagan’s choreography were created separately for the new work, coming together during rehearsals in Rochester two weeks ago, so it would be expected that the movement and music wouldn’t always be in exact agreement. And indeed that was true at points, but the dancers were able to find the accents within Marsalis’ bop-inspired score within their patterns because Fagan’s choreography gave them freedom for bodily accentuation.

Source: Democrat and Chronicle

Mr. Marsalis had a cold, but he wasn’t hallucinating. The studio is the home of Garth Fagan Dance, and Mr. Marsalis was there to rehearse. “Lighthouse/Lightning Rod,” his first collaboration with Mr. Fagan since “Griot New York” in 1991, opens at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Thursday. The spatula was one of Martin Puryear’s set pieces for “Griot,” excerpts from which fill out the program in Brooklyn. The sculpture of the woman was a conception of a lighthouse by the artist Alison Saar.

In front of an enthusiastic audience of patrons and friends at a dress rehearsal later, Mr. Fagan described the three-part premiere: the “Lighthouse” opening and the “Lightning Rod” finale flanking a softer center based on memories that included his favorite part, what he described as “a sophisticated 21st-century ménage à trois.”

After a long day the men sat down to discuss their collaboration. Though Mr. Fagan, 72, and Mr. Marsalis, 50, are peers, there is a lot of father-son in their attitudes toward each other: a mixture of mutual praise, pride, easy humor and a little protectiveness. Here is an edited version of their conversation.

Q. How did you first meet?

GARTH FAGAN I heard Wynton play this amazing concert in Rochester. And then I was driving home and I saw him walking. Someone had left the band and he was upset about it. I know how it is when a dancer you love goes. I took him down to the studio. And my dancers did a command performance for him.

WYNTON MARSALIS I was 22, 23 at that time, and I was serious, but my seriousness was being tested. And he gave me a big boost. Not only him but everything he had created around him. It was moving.

Q. What about it?

MARSALIS Tonight, I was telling the cats in the band, these are people who have been with Garth for a long time. It’s a community. When I was growing up in Louisiana it was segregated, and a janitor made it possible for us to play basketball and football. With Garth tonight, it had that feeling. A community. He made it possible.

Q. The relationship grew?

FAGAN Yes. We catch his band wherever they’re playing. And they come see us. I’ve done other pieces to Wynton’s music since “Griot,” but he hasn’t done a commission for me since then.

Q. How did this one come about?

FAGAN I was bored. I wanted to see what would happen now that we’re both older. For “Griot” I gave him a poem. This time all I gave him was the title. I told him I needed something frisky to start, an adagio middle and a killer end. He gave me exactly that, nine pieces of music, and he said, “Do what you want with them.” I rearranged some, used one section twice. I knew from “Griot” that if something didn’t work, he’d change it on the spot.

Q. Wynton, did you compose with Garth in mind?

MARSALIS He teaches his dancers to listen to the underlying form. So with this piece I tried to make the form more intricate. One piece I made real complicated. I was kind of glad when he told me he didn’t like it, because it’s hard for us to play. But when we got here he said, “I put it in.”

FAGAN I was chicken. But then I thought, “Roll up your sleeves and do it.”

MARSALIS What’s most striking about Garth is how he provides a counterpoint to what we’re doing. And I know he’s going to embrace the 4/4 swing, whereas most dancers are afraid of it. It’s kind of ironic, because it’s the principal of American dance rhythms, but everybody got away from it. It allows you to lay ideas out longwise. I think Garth understands that rhythm better than anybody.

FAGAN I insist that the dancers dance with the music, not to the music. I do that with Brahms, too. That’s my thing.

Q. You said that you’re doing “real jazz dance.” What did you mean?

FAGAN Not the corny, kick-kick sense. It means giving a sense of improvisation. I’ve choreographed for ballet, but in this I don’t want grand ballet preparations. Take risk, with the rhythm especially. Go to that scary place. The jazz people and the real dance people, about 15 to 20 percent of the audience, they’ll get it.

Q. And it’s O.K. for the musicians to improvise?

FAGAN Within a certain form. We know the music, so we don’t get lost if we don’t hear a certain note. And jazz musicians get bored doing the same thing every time.

Q. What do you do when you receive the music?

FAGAN I’ve got to listen to it two million times, till I know it. I choreograph in silence. I give the dancers the movement and see if it holds up. And then I turn on the music and the dancers are so excited to see how it fits.

Q. Wynton, what’s it like to see your music choreographed?

MARSALIS We look at it one time, to see how Garth has laid it out. But he doesn’t want us looking at it too much, which is intelligent. Because we naturally will play something based on what they’re doing, and it’ll be like the counterpoint of a counterpoint. We’ll mess up the syncopation. If we’re looking at the dancers, we’ll start to play with them.

FAGAN Especially jazz musicians and female dancers.

MARSALIS But I have so much confidence in him. For those who have that absolute dedication, you always know the other people who have it. Look at how he is. He’s been working all day and he’s so excited.

FAGAN We know each other. Four members of the band did “Griot.” Both of our groups are like families. The age range of our company is 60 to 19. It’s a community onstage, not six little maids in a row. We have the pluses and the minuses of families.

MARSALIS Us, too.

Source: New York Times

“I picked him up and took him to the studio to see a performance,” says Fagan.

There in a gymnasium where the company practiced, Fagan’s company put on an impromptu private performance for the jazz great. Marsalis, originally from New Orleans and a New York City resident, calls it “a signature moment in my life.”

The meeting of two great artistic minds would eventually lead to one of Fagan’s most significant works, Griot New York, which premiered in 1991 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) with music choreographed and performed by Marsalis, plus quintessential set design by sculptor Martin Puryear.

Playing off 25 years of friendship, Fagan and Marsalis reprise their collaboration this week with the debut of a second joint work, being staged at the Brooklyn venue on Thursday in a gala co-chaired by Marsalis and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns.

Lighthouse/Lightning Rod features original choreography by Tony Award winner Fagan, original music by Grammy Award winner Marsalis (performed with his septet) and original scenery by Guggenheim Fellow artist Alison Saars. It caps Garth Fagan Dance’s 40th anniversary year and also celebrates BAM’s 150th anniversary.

Griot New York will also get a revival at the concert. Observers will then be able to see if 20 years of additional friendship has deepened the artistic connection.

Garth Fagan Dance will perform the new work in Rochester at Nazareth College Arts Center from Nov. 27 to Dec. 2, although it will be with a recording of Marsalis’ music. A group of patrons, friends and family members got to preview the new dance on Friday, as the dance company and Marsalis and his musicians did a full dress rehearsal at Garth Fagan Dance’s Chestnut Street home.

Reguero, a former Democrat and Chronicle critic, is a doctoral student in musicology at State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Source: Democrat & Chronicle

Date: September 13, 14 and 15
Time: 8pm (EDT); 7pm (CEST); 6pm (PDT)

Click here to watch the live stream

EBONY: At what point in the beginning did you think that the concept of Jazz at Lincoln Center was going to be a success?

Wynton Marsalis: I think after the concerts we did in 1988, our board was coming into place. We were a department. We were getting critical acclaim. We had an audience base. We had an aesthetic; so very soon, we realized we could do something. When we hired [Founding Executive Director/Producer] Rob Gibson, I thought it would be a success. He brought a lot of energy, enthusiasm and insight with him.

EBONY: Regarding aesthetics, talk about the contributions of writer/authors Albert Murray and Stanley Crouch, the principle intellectuals involved with the formation of JALC.

WM: The conception of quality and performance was something that Crouch had [in mind]; bringing the different generations of musicians together. And Albert Murray laid out the four components of the organization: curatorial, producing concerts, lectures and events; archival, having a record of all the things we do; Educational, teaching about what we do; and ceremonial, giving awards, and doing things like jam sessions, battles of the bands, things that are a part of the ceremonies of the music.

EBONY: JALC weathered charges of cronyism and racism by musicians and the media. What did you learn from that stormy period?

WM: For me, it wasn’t that much of a storm. I was always around controversies since I first came out here. When you create change with your point of view, you have to be ready for what comes with that. And while they were [criticizing], there were also many people supporting and defending us, and putting money into what we were doing, and we were doing our thing: We put on thousands of concerts, hired thousands of musicians, sent out 80,000 Duke Ellington scores. We had 1700 educational events.

EBONY: What have your experiences as an educator taught you about the value of teaching jazz; not only as musical art, but as a twenty-first century, global liberal art that facilitates cooperation and cultural diversity?

WM: Well, you know, you covered it: the music can teach you how to be a better citizen in the world; to be better to yourself, and how to expand your world view, in a world that is expanding all the time…The more expanded your world view is, the more confident you are in your cultural achievements, and in yourself. And the more you know how to approach other people and respect them, the more successful you’ll be living in the modern world. Through improvisation, jazz teaches you about yourself. And through swing, it teaches you that other people are individuals too. It teaches you how to coordinate with them.
The lessons of jazz are even more pertinent today, because when it was invented, the art form was so modern: It was talking about a world that would come. And now that we are on the cusp of that world, the music is very timely.

EBONY: Some people are surprised to hear you perform with people like Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, and Eric Clapton. Do your collaborations with them signal an aesthetic change in your views about jazz as a high art? Because people have typecasted you as a rigid, conservative musician, who thinks jazz has nothing to do with pop music…

WM: I don’t mind them typecasting me like that, because I lived in the time of the absolute sellout of jazz to pop music. So I counter stated that consistent lack of integrity in our music. Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives, to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that.
That said, there’s a common ground that we musicians share: Paul Simon uses of different types of grooves, and shares a common ground with jazz musicians. The record we did with Eric Clapton [Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play the Blues: Live From Jazz at Lincoln Center], that’s more of a jazz record. We’re playing blues. We’re improvising. We’re playing on the same forms that we always played on. Willie Nelson, he’s from Texas…[We’re saying] what if we bring musicians from another art form into the feeling of our art, instead of always us always going into their art?

EBONY: That said, will we ever see you play with young musicians like Robert Glasper?

WM: Oh yeah. Robert Glasper can play! We just played with him at Martha’s Vineyard. I taught a lot of those musicians when they were in high school…And Robert Glasper is not that young [laughs]. He was in high school more than fifteen years ago. Not to make a comment that can be misconstrued as negative about him, because I never talk bad about the musicians that are younger than me. They make the choices that they make to deal with the environment the way they see fit – they’re in a rough environment.
We have personal relationships and we play. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to embrace hip-hop. I will never do that, ever! But does that actually make a difference? They’re not going to stop playing that music because [I don’t play it]. That’s the beauty of democracy [laughs]. They’re going to do their thing, regardless of what anybody else thinks about it – and they should.

EBONY: What are some of the highlights of the upcoming JALC season?

WM: John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan and the Birth of the Cool; a Blue Note Festival, Bird and Diz’s music; a Duke Ellington Festival, John Coltrane, and [Marsalis’ Pulitzer Prize winning Oratorio] Blood on the Fields. We’re opening our season with Bobby McFerrin.

EBONY: When JALC was formed the Internet didn’t exist. How are you going use social media to expose people to jazz?

WM: We’re going to make our content more available. We’re working on those things now. For us, the next five to ten years is dedicated to projecting our mission: in getting on as many screens as we can get on…we can only put out the highest quality we can. That’s what we’re going to do.

source: Ebony.com

Brooklyn, NY/August 28, 2012—For the first time since their BAM debut more than 20 years ago, Garth Fagan and Wynton Marsalis return to premiere their new piece, Lighthouse/Lightning Rod along with excerpts from their first work, the beloved Griot New York.

Lighthouse/Lightning Rod is set to an original score by Wynton Marsalis, is performed live by the Wynton Marsalis Septet, and features scenic design by celebrated visual artist and Guggenheim fellow Alison Saar. The Wynton Marsalis Septet is comprised of Dan Nimmer, Piano; Reginald Veal, Bass; Ali Jackson, Drums; Victor Goines, Saxophone, Clarinet; Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson, Alto Saxophone; and Eliot Mason, Trombone in addition to Marsalis.

The piece explores the juxtaposition and illusion of security and danger in three sections; Lighthouse, Memories, and Lightning Rod (working titles). The choreography examines emotional response to the stress and anxiety created by the inherent danger/safety that each of these three structures represents. Probing their physical, intellectual, mythical, and cultural place in our ever-shrinking global society, Fagan focuses on the balance necessary to live within these structures while maintaining meaningful relationships of depth, conflict, integrity, and truth. This balance will be struck in Saar’s sculptural sets, translating the space between attracting and repelling, simultaneously courting danger while offering sanctuary, the lighthouse becoming a figure of protection.

Griot New York premiered in 1991 during BAM’s Next Wave Festival and explores contemporary urban life and humankind’s triumph over adversity through the lens of a griot—a traditional West African storyteller. Esteemed members of African communities, griots interpret events in terms of their deepest, most enduring values, and are responsible for transmitting the history of their people to following generations. Embodying this narrative practice, Griot New York depicts life events by crossing borders of time, geography, ethnicity, and style in a poetic and nonlinear manner. The piece is set to Marsalis’ melodic and haunting jazz score, Citi Movement (Griot New York), which was created specifically for this work and explores all aspects of jazz music, from the waltz to big band to calypso. Using the original backdrop of Martin Puryear’s looming and minimalist set designs, the music and dance create an aural and visual cacophony of the cityscape and the harmonies that emerge from the conflicts and compromises of urban life.

The opening performance will also mark the 30th Anniversary of the BAM Next Wave Festival and the 40th Anniversary of Garth Fagan Dance with cocktails and a gala dinner at Skylight One Hanson following the performance.

Lighthouse/Lightning Rod and Griot New York (excerpts)
Garth Fagan Dance
Wynton Marsalis Septet
Concept and choreography by Garth Fagan
Original music composed and arranged by Wynton Marsalis

Scenic design by Alison Saar
Costume design by Mary Nemecek Peterson Lighting design by Jeff McRoberts

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave)
Sep 27*—29 at 7:30pm; Sep 30 at 3pm
Tickets start at $20 *30th Next Wave Gala

Artist Talk with Garth Fagan and Wynton Marsalis Moderated by Anna Kisselgoff
Sep 28, post-show (free for same-day ticket holders)