Treat yourself to an evening of American big-band jazz with the bi-annual Washington Performing Arts presentation of the sensational 15-member Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by artistic director, trumpeter, and nine-time Grammy Award-winner Wynton Marsalis.

Revered as one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time, Max Roach was among the first to use music to address social, political, and racial issues of his time. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by Music Director Wynton Marsalis, celebrates the centennial of this trailblazing musician and bandleader, whose innovative style influenced generations to come. He was an influential member of the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, performed alongside Miles Davis on his seminal Birth of the Cool album, and formed the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. In 1961, Roach collaborated with his wife, the pioneering singer-songwriter Abbey Lincoln, and said in an interview with Downbeat Magazine that he would only play music that had social significance. 

Lock-step precision and stunning virtuosity unite in a 21st-century take on the timeless big-band sound.

Treat yourself to an evening of large-ensemble jazz at its pinnacle as Washington Performing Arts presents the sensational Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by artistic director, trumpeter extraordinaire, and nine-time Grammy Award-winner Wynton Marsalis. Champion performers Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, and Charles Mingus, the 15-strong Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra are also famed for showcasing the genre's New Orleanian roots, currents of Latin jazz, and major works by Marsalis, including 1997’s "Blood on the Fields", the first jazz composition ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The Chicago Tribune describes the exhilarating force of the band in concert: “The orchestra [tore] through this music as if chasing the wind. Only a group of musicians who have toured together for so long…could have attained this kind of synchronicity.”

On-Demand thru June 16.

In the final Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis concert of the season, the JLCO will perform a big-band rendition of John Coltrane’s immortal A Love Supreme, followed by a number of Coltrane classics.

With special guest saxophonist and vocalist Camille Thurman, the band will re-introduce listeners to one of the most powerful pieces of music ever created. Universally hailed as a masterpiece upon its release in 1965, A Love Supreme is a perfectly paced suite of music and a musical embodiment of Coltrane’s complex spirituality. 

Beyond this most-famous example, Coltrane’s songbook is a rich and diverse body of work. The band will reinterpret a number of his timeless pieces, with an emphasis on the concept of “freedom,” for this rare all-Coltrane JLCO performance.

Get $20 Ticket

William Eddins, conductor
Featuring Morgan State University Choir,
the Choral Arts Society of Washington,
and the National Philharmonic Orchestra

An epic and inspirational jazz symphony featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) with Wynton Marsalis, National Philharmonic, and a 150-person gospel choir. Marsalis has said this monumental work, which was recorded in Los Angeles just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, is about “the rise from destruction to creativity, drawing joy out of tragedy, and refusing to be beaten down.” World-class jazz soloists and classical musicians share the spotlight as All Rise crisscrosses genres in its 12 evocative movements. Expect big band passages, a touch of New Orleans swagger, and impassioned blues riffs in this sonic odyssey.

Also on un, Feb 26, 4pm.