Arts & Lectures
2001-2002 Performing Arts Season News Release
For Immediate Release

August 21, 2001
Contact: Susan Gwynne
(805) 893-2098
e-mail: gwynne-s@sa.ucsb.edu

World-renowned jazz ambassadors the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, conducted by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, to perform “United in Swing” at UCSB

Summary Facts:

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO), at the forefront of the recent jazz revival, will perform on Tuesday, September 25 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the most acclaimed jazz player of his generation, leads this swinging band in UCSB Arts & Lectures’ 2001-2002 season opening performance. The LCJO, 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, features a vast repertory. The orchestra will perform “United in Swing,” an evening of jazz masterpieces that runs the gamut from Jelly Roll Morton to Charles Mingus and John Coltrane, right up to works composed by LCJO members themselves. Critics have labeled LCJO “jazz’s Dream Team,” and The New York Times has called its sponsoring organization, Jazz at Lincoln Center (J@LC), “the most important jazz program in America.”

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, resident orchestra at J@LC for over ten years, has traveled the globe, playing events from one-night “For Dancers Only” swing dates to evenings with the London Symphony Orchestra. The LCJO has been featured on J@LC’s National Public Radio broadcast, Jazz from Lincoln Center, has starred in Live from Lincoln Center PBS broadcasts, and has recorded numerous CDs for Columbia Jazz, most recently Big Train (1999), an exploration of the musical crossing where African-American folklore and the railroads meet.

Wynton Marsalis is the artistic director of LCJO. His career as a trumpeter is unprecedented: he won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a jazz artist (for his 1997 work Blood on the Fields), while also twice winning dual Grammy Awards for best classical and jazz recordings (in 1983 and 1984). His prolific recording and release schedule includes a seven-CD box set, Live at the Village Vanguard (1999), and numerous works commissioned by J@LC. Marsalis is also a tireless educator, bringing jazz into schools and functioning as the chief narrator for Jazz—A Film by Ken Burns, the recent landmark 19-hour PBS documentary of America’s classical music. Time Magazine has named Marsalis one of “America’s 25 Most Influential People.”

New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff claims you can count on LCJO “to deliver speed, force, and stamina.” The other members of LCJO have played with jazz greats from Dizzy Gillespie to McCoy Tyner, Cab Calloway to Joshua Redman. Many of the musicians have also performed with Marsalis in smaller band configurations. The LCJO includes Seneca Black, Ryan Kisor, and Marcus Printup on trumpet; Vincent Gardner, Andre Hayward, and Ron Westray on trombone; Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson, Walter Blanding, Jr., Victor Goines, Ted Nash, and Joe Temperley on saxophone and clarinet; Farid Barron on piano; Rodney Whitaker on bass; and Herlin Riley on drums. The Chicago Tribune writes, “The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra is becoming the signature American jazz band to audiences around the world.”

During their visit to UCSB, members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will participate in a residency program that included jazz clinics at six area schools. LCJO member Victor Goines will hold a master class for UCSB students. LCJO will perform an open rehearsal for clinic and master class participants and the UCSB Jazz Ensemble. The band will also perform a Jazz for Young People concert at the Arlington Theatre.

This residency is supported in part by funds from the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, The Towbes Foundation and SAGE (School Arts Gifts in Education)—the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation’s education outreach program. The concert at the Arlington Theatre for local school children is co-presented with SAGE, The Towbes Foundation and the Children’s Creative Project, a program of the Santa Barbara County Education Office, William J. Cirone, superintendent.

For Arts & Lectures September 25 concert, a limited number of $100 patron tickets are available. These tickets, which benefit UCSB Arts & Lectures, include premium seating and an invitation to an exclusive private opening night reception with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, this residency is sponsored by the Santa Barbara News-Press and KCBX Public Radio 89.9 FM.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.

©2001 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara