Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Venue: Orpheum

Coastal Jazz and Blues Society presents Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Featuring 15 of the world’s finest players, the remarkably versatile Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) has been performing, educating, and proudly flying the flag for jazz traditions across the globe and at their Lincoln Center home base – aka the House of Swing – since 1988. Under Music Director Wynton Marsalis, they animate a vast repertoire, from historic compositions by Ellington, Monk, Mingus, and Mary Lou Williams, to Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works from current and former JLCO members like Marsalis, Ted Nash, Victor Goines, Sherman Irby, Chris Crenshaw, and Carlos Henriquez.

Called “the modern-day Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller and Gerry Mulligan all in one” by All About Jazz, trumpeter/composer/bandleader Wynton Marsalis is an iconic jazz master. Born into the famed New Orleans musical family, he was playing in the Fairview Baptist Church Band at 8 years old, and the New Orleans Philharmonic by 12. He moved to New York in ‘79, fresh out of high school, and quickly traded his Julliard plans for a spot in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. At 19, Wynton hit the road with his own band and has been touring the world ever since, picking up nine GRAMMY Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and a boatload of acclaim along the way. He eventually did find his way back to Julliard—as the prestigious school’s Founding Director of Jazz Studies. Wynton Marsalis sees jazz as a way of life, a model of democratic action, and “a prism through which American culture can be understood” (New York Times). Through his compositions, virtuosic playing, and tireless work as Music Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Marsalis promotes individual creativity (improvisation), collective cooperation (swing), and gratitude (sophistication), while facing adversity with persistent optimism (the blues).