The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), comprising 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1988 and spends over a third of the year on tour across the world. Featured in all aspects of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s programming, this remarkably versatile orchestra performs and leads educational events in New York, across the U.S. and around the globe; in concert halls; dance venues; jazz clubs; public parks; and with symphony orchestras; ballet troupes; local students; and an ever-expanding roster of guest artists.

Given the significance of Afro-Latin rhythms in jazz’s development, there’s inherent value in a premier repertory ensemble like the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra collaborating with legendary Panamanian singer Rubén Blades. But the delight of this 2014 live performance is hearing the musicians stretch themselves beyond the safety of well-trodden Latin jazz territory. Along with reliably excellent performances of salsa tunes, Blades brings Rat Pack brashness to American standards like “Too Close for Comfort,” “Fever,” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” And in bassist Carlos Henriquez’s arrangements of Blades classics like “El Cantante,” the JALCO shifts between its always-convincing swing and bona fide clave, educating us in the rhythms’ historic connections along the way. After the full orchestra’s sheer sonic force, Blades’ “Patria” is an album highlight, with a scaled-down ensemble of percussionists, bass, and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis backing the singer in stark magnificence.[

It’s been said that basketball is like jazz—but Rock Chalk Suite takes the comparison to another level entirely. Written and recorded by the musicians of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, each of the suite’s high-flying 15 movements takes inspiration from a different University of Kansas hoops legend. As Marsalis says, both basketball and jazz “reward improvisation and split-second decision making against the pressure of time,” and the JLCO’s masterful composers have turned the Jayhawks’ rich basketball history into a stylish slam dunk of an album.

Blue Engine Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center's in-house recording label, will release a present-day recording of Duke Ellington's groundbreaking masterpiece Black, Brown and Beige by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Captured during a live, Rose Theater performance in 2018, Black, Brown and Beige is Wynton Marsalis's first recording of the work and Blue Engine's first release dedicated entirely to Ellington. Black, Brown and Beige will be available exclusively on all digital platforms on March 6, 2020.