Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra

Jazz classicist Wynton Marsalis has been director of the in-house jazz band at New York's Lincoln Center since the early '90s, often packing it with many of the prime players in his orbit and increasing its national profile with frequent tours, recordings, and ambitious projects. Its latest was a collaboration with Ghanaian drummer Yacub Addy and his ensemble Odadaa! about the connections between African music and jazz. Called Congo Square, it premiered on that hallowed ground in New Orleans the spring after Katrina. The orchestra's current tour finds it on more familiar terrain, revisiting Duke Ellington, specifically love songs made famous by Duke's wonderful bands. The repertoire won't be exclusively Ellington, with promised compositions by some of the orchestra's 15 members, which currently includes such notables as trumpeter Ryan Kisor and reedmen Victor Goines and Sherman Irby.
Mon., Jan. 21, 7:30 p.m., 2008