Blue Engine Records Releases Live Recording of Wynton Marsalis’s Newest Longform Work: The Shanghai Suite
New York, NY (October 25, 2024) — Blue Engine Records — Jazz at Lincoln Center’s in-house record label—proudly announces the release of Wynton Marsalis‘s The Shanghai Suite, a live recording featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (JLCO) and special guest clarinetist Ye Huang. Captured during the U.S. premiere of The Shanghai Suite at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater in 2022, Marsalis’ newest longform work is a musical meditation on ancient and modern China, inspired by that civilization’s rich mythology, cuisine, and architecture and set to the language of jazz rhythm.
On the occasion of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis’s 2024 East Asia Tour, which runs through November 3 and marks the Orchestra’s first tour of Asia since 2019, The Shanghai Suite is now streaming on all digital platforms. To stream The Shanghai Suite and for more information, visit jazz.org/shanghai.
The Shanghai Suite was composed by Marsalis in 2019, when it was performed to commemorate the grand opening of Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai by the JLCO during a two-week tour of mainland China. Through his superb trumpet playing and deep understanding of Chinese culture, Marsalis skillfully integrates tradition and modernity, the East and the West, the past and the future, giving the audience an unforgettable musical experience.
On the inspiration behind The Shanghai Suite, Marsalis—Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Managing and Artistic Director—says, “Like Chinese music, the blues and all the early Afro-American spirituals—and Anglo-Celtic music—is based on pentatonic scales. A lot of things Wayne Shorter wrote for Art Blakey are based on a pentatonic scale. Of course, China has many more pentatonic scales than we do, and their use of them is much more sophisticated—different scales have different meanings.”
The Shanghai Suite joins such iconic Marsalis works as Congo Square, Vitoria Suite, and Marciac Suite that refract impressions gleaned on his travels, echoing Duke Ellington’s process with such late-period masterpieces as The Far East Suite, The Latin American Suite, and The New Orleans Suite.
TRACK LISTING:
1. Swinging on the Bund
2. The Monkey King’s March
3. White Yulan – First Flower of Spring; Yulan Magnolia – Soul of the South
4. Hot Pot!
5. The Nine Dragons
6. Li Bai’s Blues
7. The Five Elements
8. From the Casanova to the Peace Hotel to Right Here Tonight
9. The Shanghai Skyline
PERSONNEL:
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
REEDS
Sherman Irby – alto & soprano saxophones, flute, piccolo, Bb clarinet
Ted Nash – alto & tenor saxophones, flute, alto flute, piccolo, Bb clarinet
Victor Goines – tenor saxophone, Bb & Eb clarinets
Nicole Glover – tenor & soprano saxophones, Bb clarinet
Paul Nedzela – baritone & alto saxophones, bass clarinet
TRUMPETS
Ryan Kisor
Kenny Rampton
Marcus Printup
Wynton Marsalis
TROMBONES
Vincent Gardner
Chris Crenshaw
Elliot Mason
RHYTHM SECTION
Dan Nimmer – piano
Carlos Henriquez – bass
Obed Calvaire – drums
SPECIAL GUEST
Ye Huang – clarinet
