This past weekend (May 9 – 11), Jazz at Lincoln Center put the spotlight on the music of Duke Ellington as part of the Essentially Ellington program and to celebrate the 125 birthday of the man Wynton Marsalis, Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, calls “The highest level of what has come out of the United States of America.” More than 300 students and 15 band leaders descended on New York City over the weekend for a competition and festival encouraging students to learn and celebrate the music of the Duke. While there is a competitive element, with New Jersey’s Chameleon ..read more

New York, NY (May 14, 2024) – Blue Engine Records proudly releases Freedom, Justice, and Hope, the live recording of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s multidisciplinary concert that contextualizes jazz within Black Americans’ pursuit of equality. Featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in creative collaboration with social justice activist and founder of The Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson, the recording features new arrangements of some of the most important protest songs in jazz history and new works by featured guest artists Endea Owens and Josh Evans. On the occ ..read more

Set to Marsalis’ dynamic portrait of New York City, “Nighthawks” is Schreier’s homage to the two cities she loves — her native New York and Atlanta, her second home since she became Atlanta Ballet’s resident choreographer in 2020. In this collaboration, culturally diverse expressions resonate through boldly evocative artwork by Atlanta-based muralist Charity Hamidullah and costume designs by Abigail Dupree-Polston. Tom West, executive director of Atlanta Ballet, said that the collaboration between Schreier, Hamidullah and Polston stems from the company’s mission to produce high-caliber works t ..read more

This week, musicians of the Chicago Symphony get to do something they typically don’t during their regularly scheduled subscription concerts: be part of the audience. Then again, it’s not every day the CSO shares a crammed Orchestra Hall stage with an ensemble like the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis. Marsalis and the JLCO are annual visitors to Symphony Center’s jazz series and have memorably, if infrequently, linked up with our own house band for performances. Thursday night followed the recipe of earlier treats: perform a well-known suite in t ..read more

Of all our orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra is the closest to America in its brazen, sassy sound, and it has always been welcoming to American composers and conductors. So it was inevitable that when the new trumpet concerto from virtuoso jazz trumpeter, composer and band-leader Wynton Marsalis received its British premiere, it would be given by the LSO. It took place on Thursday night in front of a packed and rapt audience, with Britain’s star trumpeter Alison Balsom as soloist, and the orchestra’s soon-to-be Chief Conductor Antonio Pappano on the podium. A nine-time Grammy winner, M ..read more

With Simon Rattle having departed and plans for a new concert hall in the City of London long shelved, the London Symphony Orchestra could be forgiven for feeling down in the dumps. Instead, the announcement of its 2024-25 season showed all the signs of an organisation powering forwards. This will be the first season with Antonio Pappano as chief conductor. The line-up of concerts is impressive, not least because Pappano himself will be conducting a high proportion of them. But the announcement also included a new endowment for the young composers’ scheme and a proposed redevelopment of the or ..read more

Rather like the American quilts whose fabric embeds a story, Wynton Marsalis’s new Trumpet Concerto is a patchwork of the history of the instrument and some of its most celebrated exponents, from Louis Armstrong to Frenchman Maurice André. Over six movements, spanning 35 minutes, Marsalis has stitched together myriad styles and characteristics, jumping continents and name-checking composers and players en passant, with a metaphorical doffing of the “Derby hat” mute in tribute. Conceived for Michael Sachs, principal trumpet of the Cleveland Orchestra, and premiered last year by him, the multifa ..read more

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra signalled its balance of orchestral jazz spectacle and nightclub intimacy from the start. A fanfare of trumpets was answered by a sheen of reeds before a froth of swapped phrases unfolded over springy walking-bass swing. Ensemble muscle established, Wynton Marsalis emerged from the trumpet section, improvising intensely, chorus after chorus, with just the rhythm section accompanying him. Marsalis, a superb technician, welds classic jazz references into a modal jazz palette. As his solo unfolded, he injected the growls, slurs and blares of jazz’s formative y ..read more

There is no holding back Wynton Marsalis. As well as being a virtuoso trumpeter and leading jazz musician, he has thrown himself into composing major new works in the classical tradition, including an ambitious range of concertos and symphonies. His latest symphony, “The Jungle”, had its premiere in 2016 and this live recording was made in Melbourne in 2019. Following that, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is currently in the middle of its big-band European tour, taking the symphony to 16 cities, ending on July 9 at the Barbican in London. The “jungle” in the title of the Symphony No 4 is ..read more

There may be things that Wynton Marsalis does not know about the trumpet – but from the UK premiere of his new concerto, presented by Alison Balsom, the LSO and Antonio Pappano at the Barbican last night, it’s hard to imagine what. It opens with a fanfare: not from the Angel Gabriel, but from that original trumpeter, the elephant. From this opening call until its final return joyously surrounded by the sounds of nature, this six-movement ride through the Trumpet According to Marsalis takes in a succession of references to irresistible styles – blues, Mexican, waltz, the two-step – and to great ..read more