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  • JLCO with Wynton Marsalis in London - Bernstein’s compassionate generosity

    Posted on March 1st, 2018 in Review

    Leonard Bernstein’s optimistic modernism united showtune, symphony and jazz into a single, outward-looking musical vision. This concert, part of the Barbican’s celebration of Bernstein’s centennial year, captured the compassionate generosity of Bernstein’s work through the opulent reeds, luxurious brass and rhythmic spring of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO).   Keep reading »

  • Wynton Marsalis’ JLCO Red Hot & Retro At The Barbican

    Posted on March 1st, 2018 in Review

    The 1938 Carnegie Hall concert that brought together Benny Goodman’s hit-making orchestra and stars from the Ellington and Basie bands was a game-changing moment for 20th century America, both artistically and socially. Carnegie Hall, a temple of classical music, was opening its doors to a new world. It was also lending its stage to a glimpse of social harmony that – though yet to be fulfilled, 80 years later – was nonetheless a high-profile showcase for white/African-American artistic liaisons that were inconceivable to many in the 1930s.   Keep reading »

  • New Yorkers salute groundbreaking night with glittering eloquence

    Posted on February 28th, 2018 in Review

    New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra amble on to the Barbican’s stage every couple of years and are always greeted by delighted audiences as if they were long-lost relatives bearing gifts. Tuesday’s curtain-raiser to the jazz orchestra’s current residency was a typically graceful blend of swing grooves that ticked over like an immense and perfectly balanced engine, ensemble parts played with languid rigour, and concise improv that both embellishes compositions and cherishes their shapes. The night’s theme was the tightly drilled but expansive 30s big-band jazz of Benny Goodman – the most ecstatically popular western dance phenomenon until the coming of rock’n’roll – which those long-honed JLCO virtues could hardly have fitted better.   Keep reading »

  • Bernstein at 100 @ Barbican Hall, London

    Posted on February 28th, 2018 in Review

    The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is one of the Barbican’s International Associates, and this concert of music by Leonard Bernstein, whose centenary falls this year, showed exactly why it enjoys the same official standing as the New York Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus.   Keep reading »

  • Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra to Make Its International Debut at London’s The Barbican

    Posted on December 13th, 2017 in Concerts

    The Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra (JLYCO) makes its international debut at the Barbican in London, England on February 27- March 1, 2018. As part of the bi-annual Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis residency at the Barbican, 22 NYC-area high school jazz musicians will spend a week abroad for a music and cultural exchange with public performances, workshops, and jam sessions.   Keep reading »

  • Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Barbican, London — ‘Flamboyant’

    Posted on February 22nd, 2016 in Review

    Wynton Marsalis promised that the final evening of JLCO’s three-night Barbican residency would “capture the impact of George Gershwin’s music on the jazz tradition”. This was accomplished in flamboyant style. The trumpeter’s introductions were as concisely eloquent as his few short solos, while JLCO’s ability to conjure earlier jazz styles remains unrivalled. Over the evening they referenced late ragtime, cool-school modernism and most points in between.   Keep reading »

  • Wayne Shorter/JLCO review – bravura and cool as jazz giant comes to town

    Posted on February 19th, 2016 in Review

    Wynton Marsalis’s spirited and long-running Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra often devote their shows to the legacies of pioneers, late or living – but they could hardly have picked a more charismatic guest for the opening night of their current Barbican residency. The work of Wayne Shorter, the 82 year-old saxophonist with a sound as unique as a thumbprint and one of jazz’s greatest small-band composers, was hailed on Thursday in a series of offbeat mini-concertos in which he was principal improvising soloist.   Keep reading »

  • Wayne Shorter with JLCO | London, Barbican

    Posted on February 19th, 2016 in Review

    I first saw the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in 2003. Wynton Marsalis and his colleagues changed the way I heard music and the centre of my musical universe. How could this concert compare?   Keep reading »

  • Wayne Shorter and Wynton Marsalis with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Barbican

    Posted on February 19th, 2016 in Review

    Wayne Shorter and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra – that sounds like a dream pairing. Shorter, now 82, is one of the true greats, a saxophonist and composer with an enchanting and unpredictable approach that makes him instantly recognisable.   Keep reading »

  • When Shorter and Marsalis brought the house down

    Posted on February 19th, 2016 in Review

    This encounter between famed saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter and Wynton Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra was bound to be exciting – but also potentially problematic. Wayne Shorter shot to fame in the late Fifties and Sixties when he played with Miles Davis and Art Blakey, and penned some immortal standards. Since then, like some jazz Ulysses, he has roamed into distant seas with a trusty band of colleagues, creating vast visionary pieces that can play for an hour at a stretch. His eye is on the future.   Keep reading »