Lincoln Center Orchestra to Make Playboy Festival Stop

The appearance of Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra at the Playboy Jazz Festival on June 18 will afford nearly 18,000 Los Angeles jazz fans the opportunity to experience the musical results of what is surely the country’s most successful jazz program.

This year, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will tour for more than seven months, appearing in venues reaching from the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Festival and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival to the North Sea Festival in the Netherlands and Umbria Jazz in Perugia, Italy. Many of the tour stops--although not, unfortunately, the Playboy appearance--include multi-day residencies in which Marsalis and his players will lead educational activities, master classes, workshops and Jazz for Young People Concerts.

And that’s only one portion of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s seemingly endless array of concerts, recordings, artistic collaborations and educational events. The latest development is the groundbreaking for a new performance facility--the Frederick P. Rose Hall--the first such venue designed specifically for jazz. Scheduled to open in the fall of 2003, it will be located in New York City’s Columbus Circle on the site of the former Coliseum, and will include--in addition to the large concert theater--a 600-seat performance atrium featuring a 50-foot, floor-to-ceiling glass wall opening to views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline.

What has it taken to create such an enormously successful program, often in the face of considerable criticism, much of it from within the jazz community? And can the formula work in cities other than New York?

“It’s possible to do it anywhere,” says Marsalis, “if you have the elements.”

And those elements, he continues, are essentially what it has taken to make Jazz at Lincoln Center what it is today.

“The first thing,” Marsalis says, “is you have to have people in the business community who are interested in doing it--concerned citizens who are not necessarily musicians. People who believe that this form of music is an important element of our culture.

“Then, you need someone with an artistic vision about what they think the music is and should be--the role I’ve played. And an executive director who understands the mechanics of what is going on, and who also has a philosophy about the music and how it should be presented--the job Rob Gibson has done for us.

“You also need the sort of mentor-type people you find at a university to function the way Stanley Crouch and Albert Murray have functioned with us. And an informed press that also is interested in supporting the program--which is not something that we always had in New York.”

Marsalis believes that there’s nothing especially unusual about these elements, that they’re present in most major cities, and that, given their presence, “there’s no reason why a city such as Los Angeles couldn’t do a program like Jazz at Lincoln Center.”

Perhaps most important, he adds that “it’s all part of how we choose to define ourselves. It’s something that only we can answer.”

* The 22nd annual Playboy Jazz Festival. June 17 and 18 at the Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. Information: (310) 449-4070. Tickets available from the Hollywood Bowl, (323) 850-2000, or Ticketmaster outlets. (General seating available for Sunday’s performance, obstructed-view seats only for Saturday’s program.)

Mancini Institute Picks: Nine musicians from Southern California have survived the rigorous selection process for the Henry Mancini Institute Summer 2000 program, which takes place July 22 to Aug. 20 at UCLA. The talented young players are bassist Benjamin Campbell (San Diego), saxophonists Ken Fisher (Los Angeles) and Evan Francis (Venice), violist Janet Johnson (Santa Monica), cellist Timothy Loo (Los Angeles), composers Brendan McMullin (Simi Valley) and Hanne Moller (North Hollywood), flutist Jennifer Olson (Venice) and harpist Tomoko Sato.

They are among an ensemble of 80 college and post-college musicians chosen via an international selection process, all of whom will receive full scholarships (including tuition, room and board). Their monthlong residency will include performances in free public concerts, attendance at master classes and weekly private lessons, and paid performance opportunities. In addition, the recipients will have the opportunity to meet and perform with an all-star guest instructor-performer lineup of Terence Blanchard, Bruce Broughton, Dori Caymmi, Jerry Goldsmith, Christian McBride, Mark O’Connor, Mike Lang, David Sanchez, Bud Shank and Dave Taylor.

Billboard/BET Jazz Awards: Pianist Herbie Hancock and singer-pianist Carol Weisman are co-hosting the first annual Billboard/BET Jazz Awards show tonight in Washington, D.C. The program, which will be taped for future broadcast on both the Black Entertainment Television (BET) and the BET on Jazz networks, is the climactic event in the Billboard/BET on Jazz Conference, which began Wednesday.

The awards will reportedly “pay homage to current jazz hit-makers, legendary artists and rising stars in the industry” and will be based on airplay and Soundscan data as well as votes from industry professionals. The awards show is scheduled to include performances by Geri Adams, Ramsey Lewis, David Sanchez and others.

Women Jazzers in Cyberspace: Performances from the Kennedy Center’s “Women in Jazz Month” celebration are being Webcast by the Global Music Network (https://www.gmn.com) on demand throughout this month. Artists who can be heard over the next week include composer-pianist Maria Schneider, singers Kitty Margolis, Flora Purim, Nnenna Freelon, pianists Marian McPartland and Joanne Brackeen and saxophonist-flutist Jane Ira Bloom.