Jazz Orchestra Dishes Out Duke With Energy and Aplomb

The music of Duke Ellington was the sole item on the musical menu Saturday night in the performance of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra at Royce Hall.

Why so many Ducal dishes?

For two reasons: The first is that 1999 is the Ellington Centennial (his birth date is April 29); the second is the admiration and affection that Wynton Marsalis, the jazz orchestra’s musical director, has long felt for Ellington’s music. And, on both those counts, the concert was a stunning success, gloriously celebrating Ellington’s life while brilliantly confirming Marsalis’ belief in Ellington’s primacy as a 20th century American composer.

But there was another question to be asked at the concert: To what extent could a repertory-oriented group of mostly young musicians not merely bring Ellington’s music to life, but make it into a viable contemporary jazz expression?

The answers were quick in coming in a program that balanced such familiar Ellington items as “The Mooche,” “Mood Indigo,” “Sophisticated Lady” and “Cottontail” with lesser-known works such as “Braggin’ in Brass,” “Track 360” and excerpts from the “Liberian Suite,” the “Far East Suite” and “Such Sweet Thunder.” The jazz orchestra, a talented, well-rehearsed ensemble--filled with such sterling soloists as saxophonists Victor Goines, Joe Temperley and Ted Nash, trumpeters Ryan Kisor and Marcus Printup (not to mention Marsalis), and trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, among others--played the Ellington (and Billy Strayhorn) arrangements with a flair and energy that brought repeated shouts of enthusiasm from the packed-house crowd.

And that was all to the good. But perhaps even more important was the fact that the Lincoln Center orchestra is vastly more than a talented repertory ensemble. The music came alive, not simply because it was Ellington or because the players were good, but because the orchestra is truly a collective ensemble with a sound and an energy of its own, playing in a style that was true to Ellington and true to themselves as individuals and as an orchestra. By doing so it, and Marsalis, prove that the jazz repertoire--like the classical repertoire--is a living entity, constantly available for creative reconsideration and reinterpretation.