Lincoln Center Program Makes Big Plans

In the last two weeks, Jazz at Lincoln Center, under the artistic direction of Wynton Marsalis, has made two major announcements confirming its role as the nation’s most ambitious jazz program.

The first is the disclosure of plans for the construction of a state-of-the-art performance facility for Jazz at Lincoln Center on the site of the Coliseum in Columbus Circle in New York. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who joined Marsalis in making the announcement on Tuesday, described the planned auditorium, which is expected to open by 2001, as “the premier jazz center in the world”--a facility that will seat at least 1,000 people, with acoustic standards specifically designed for jazz performance.

Plans call for the developer of the Coliseum site, which is located a few blocks from Lincoln Center, to build the core and the shell of uhe jazz performance facility and turn it over to Jazz at Lincoln Center at no cost. The inner space--designed to jazz guidelines--will be funded by Jazz at Lincoln Center and the city of New York, with $18 million already set aside by the city for construction. Jazz at Lincoln Center will provide $20 million, $10 million of which has reportedly already been raised.

The new facility, according to Marsalis, will be a “testament to the prominent place jazz has had in American history.”

The second major announcement delineated the far-reaching series of activities encompassed in the 1998-99 Jazz at Lincoln Center season. Those activities include:

* The most extensive touring schedule to date for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, which last Friday kicked off a tour of concerts and educational programs that will keep the ensemble traveling to more than 100 cities on five continents in six months. Included in the itinerary are debut performances in Russia, Poland, Brazil and Argentina.

* “The Ellington Centennial,” a celebration of the life and music of legendary composer-bandleader Duke Ellington on the 100th anniversary of his birth, will serve as the central focus of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 1998-99 season. Specific events include concerts devoted to Ellington’s music, a lecture series, film screenings and talks with former band members.

* An expansion of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s extensive educational activities--which include “Jazz for Young People” concerts, “Jazz in the Schools” tours and the “Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival”--to reach more than 70,000 students in the U.S. and other countries.

By more than doubling the number of performances and educational programs it presents nationally and internationally, Jazz at Lincoln Center expands the bold efforts it has made to affirm the importance of jazz in American cultural life.

With important jazz programs slowly beginning to emerge in such locations as Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian and, now, in Los Angeles via the partnership between the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and the Los Angeles Music Center, the Lincoln Center program stands as an impressive model of what can be accomplished with imaginative programming, a talented staff and generous funding.

“Our commitment to spreading the joys of jazz music is stronger than ever,” Marsalis adds, “and we’re going to have a great time doing it.”

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has no Southern California dates in 1998. However, Jazz at Lincoln Center is highly visible in the media via two “Live From Lincoln Center” telecasts on PBS, as well as the 26-hour NPR series (heard on KLON-FM [88.1] in Southern California), “Jazz From Lincoln Center,” hosted by Ed Bradley. The first “Live From Lincoln Center” telecast, on July 1, features a variety of jazz concertos showcasing individual soloists in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. There is also a World Wide Web site at https://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org

In addition, Marsalis will make several Southland appearances this year, including a Stravinsky concert with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at UCLA’s Wadsworth Theatre and a performance with his septet at the Playboy Jazz Festival in June.

Next January, he will appear at the International Assn. of Jazz Educators national conference in Anaheim to conduct a series of workshops associated with the Ellington high school competition.

The Jazz Orchestra will appear at UCLA’s Royce Hall in March 1999.

As with virtually every Jazz at Lincoln Center activity, the educational aspects of the 1998-99 season are primary. Among the most unusual is the “Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival,” which reaches out to high school jazz ensembles across the country.

Jazz at Lincoln Center provides interested schools with scores for five Ellington works, along with an instructional video and a CD.

“After the schools receive the material,” says Laura Johnson, director of education for Jazz at Lincoln Center, “they make tapes of their performance of three of the scores and submit them to a judging committee led by Wynton. The winning bands are brought to Lincoln Center to perform with Wynton.”

“We started out fairly small,” Johnson adds, “but it’s grown by leaps and bounds. We’ll be in all 50 states and the U.S. territories [in the 1998-99 season].”

Educators interested in the “Essentially Ellington” program should call Lincoln Center’s education department at (212) 875-5524.