Jazz w.o. Borders @ Lincoln Center

[Lois Gilbert]

Jazz Without Borders Arrives at Lincoln Center

April 1, 2003
By BEN RATLIFF
NY Times

Jazz at Lincoln Center will dedicate its next season to
exploring jazz as it is played around the world.

The season, called "Jazz Is Spoken Here," begins in
September and will include jazz from Russia, Brazil, France
and Britain. Jazz at Lincoln Center is to announce the
schedule of performances and educational events today. The
organization will also expand the scope of its new
Afro-Latin Big Band and continue a series of concerts
reinterpreting the music of major jazz figures, among them
Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis.

The international program will emphasize the links between
the world's different kinds of jazz. It will start with a
collaboration between the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and
the Igor Butman Big Band from Russia. In October the
Algerian-French pianist Martial Solal, one of the best jazz
pianists in the world and still largely unknown in the
United States, will be honored with a concert featuring
commissioned work.

The French harmonica virtuoso Toots Theilemans will explore
Brazilian jazz in a concert with the guitarist Oscar
Castro-Neves and the percussionist Airto Moreira in April
next year; in January, for a show at Alice Tully Hall
called "European Themes," the Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra, led by Wynton Marsalis, will play an entire
program of Europe-inspired jazz, as composed by John Lewis,
Gil Evans and others.

Monk's music will be the subject of solo interpretations by
the celebrated tenor saxophonist Chris Potter and the
Chinese pipa-player Min Xiao-Fen, among others. The
concerts will be at the Kaplan Penthouse in December; in
the same space and also in December, Miles Davis will be
the theme in a concert featuring young and veteran
trumpeters. Other Kaplan shows will focus on Dexter Gordon,
Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson.

Larger concerts, at Alice Tully Hall, are to include
evenings built around the work of Count Basie in January,
Mary Lou Williams in May and Ornette Coleman in February.
The Coleman concert will feature the Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra and Dewey Redman as guest soloist. Dave Brubeck
will appear at Avery Fisher Hall in March with an octet, a
rare format for his playing or arranging since the late
1940's.

The nightclub-style "Singers Over Manhattan" series of
double-bills at the Kaplan Penthouse will include the
vocalists Carla Cook, Lucky Peterson, Sheila Jordan, Ian
Shaw, Paula West and Mose Allison; there will also be
solo-piano performances there by Brad Mehldau, Kenny
Barron, Cesar Camargo Mariano and Hilton Ruiz. A
Valentine's-eve concert at Avery Fisher Hall will present a
double bill of Ahmad Jamal and Shirley Horn. And the
Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Big Band, led by the pianist
Arturo O'Farrill, will perform in an evening of Latin-jazz
repertory in March at Alice Tully Hall.

Educational events now make up two-thirds of Jazz at
Lincoln Center's schedule. Next year they will include the
ninth annual "Essentially Ellington" high-school jazz band
competition, on May 23 and 24 and a second season for the
"Jazz for Young People" jazz-appreciation curriculum for
middle schools.

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will play more than 60
dates on the road, including a four-day performance and
educational residency in Mexico City. In December it will
go to Boston for a brief residency with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra to perform Mr. Marsalis's extended work "All
Rise," conducted by Kurt Masur.

Todd Barkan, the organization's artistic administrator,
said that Jazz at Lincoln Center was still planning to open
its new Columbus Circle home in the fall of 2004.

[Tom Storer]

Wynton or no Wynton, that's pretty interesting programming. I wouldn't mind seeing several of those concerts.

[Pete C]

However, on the international front they're not really presenting anyone (except maybe the Russian guy) who doesn't appear at other NY venues. In general, prices for the JALC events will be higher than when those artists appear at unsubsidized venues.

[SinginSumo]

With great anticipation, I have my eye on the Afro-Latin Big Band.

[Tom Storer]

Originally posted by Pete C
However, on the international front they're not really presenting anyone (except maybe the Russian guy) who doesn't appear at other NY venues. In general, prices for the JALC events will be higher than when those artists appear at unsubsidized venues.

But would Lincoln Center subscribers go out to see them anywhere but Lincoln Center? Do they ever go anywhere to see jazz except Lincoln Center?

[Pete C]

You're right Tom. We can think of it as outreach.

[Pete C]

David, I think the LC date is the music of Ornette with Dewey Redman as featured soloist, not Ornette himself. However, Ornette's trio will be performing at Carnegie Hall late June as part of the JVC festival. Unfortunately, the acoustics really suck for jazz at Carnegie.