LCJO with Wynton Marsalis returns Full-Steam Ahead to Rose Theater
On February 24, 25 and 26, for a special series of jazz performances entitled Full-Steam Ahead, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (LCJO) revisits a time when the sounds of locomotives inspired jazz. The world-renowned orchestra brings the sharp-edged syncopations and hard-chugging rhythms inspired by America’s steam-driven locomotives to its new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall. Featuring former LCJO members Wycliffe Gordon (trombone) and Rodney Whitaker (bass), the LCJO explores how the locomotive onomatopoeia was reflected in the developing rhythms of jazz in the first half of the 20th century.
Tickets are $10, $40, $75, $100, $115 and $150 and are available at the new Jazz at Lincoln Center box office on Broadway at 60th St., by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or via Jazz at Lincoln Center web site.
With such standards as “Take the A Train” and “Main Stem” as well as other compositions by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Wynton Marsalis, the LCJO will show the profound influence of locomotives on the music of the time. Albert Murray writes, “There is reason to believe that locomotive onomatopoeia may be the most direct source of that definitive emphasis on syncopation that distinguishes jazz percussion from the West African percussion from which it was derived, and also from the Afro-Caribbean percussion to which it is so closely related,” and the churning sounds of the early steam train as well as the sense of struggle and freedom in the metaphysical Underground Railroad brought forth the possibility and aspirations captured in these classic jazz standards