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Marsalis formed the orchestra a year after Lincoln Center executive Alina Bloomgarden invited him to serve as artistic director for three August concerts at Alice Tully Hall. Marsalis couldn't perform then because he was on tour, but those concerts planted the seed for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the largest cultural organization in the world devoted exclusively to jazz. African-American scholar Albert Murray helped Marsalis understand the value of having an institution to support jazz whose mission would include putting on concerts and offering educational programs. Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun convinced him the organization needed its own orchestra to help preserve jazz's large-ensemble tradition. The original orchestra included members of Marsalis' septet and surviving Ellington band alumni such as trombonist Britt Woodman and clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton, and at first played an almost exclusively Ellington repertoire. The orchestra gradually expanded its scope by commissioning new arrangements and compositions from nearly 80 musicians, including Marsalis' Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio on slavery, "Blood on the Fields." Its members are actively involved in JALC's educational programs such as the Jazz For Young People concerts and Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition. Over the years, the orchestra has traveled to more than three dozen countries on six continents
-- including tours of Russia, China and Cuba. "We like being cultural ambassadors," Marsalis said. "We present people with another view of our country that's not mercenary ... and have a perspective that's shaped by the highest and noblest of our country's ideology."
Apart from Marsalis, 84-year-old baritone saxophonist Joe Temperley, a big band veteran, is the only holdover from the original lineup. The band's youngest member, 30-year-old trombonist Chris Crenshaw, who joined in 2006, is among 10 current members who compose and arrange for the band. Crenshaw's spiritually focused "God's Trombones," an extended work based on the poetry of preacher James Weldon Johnson, was premiered by JLCO in May. "The orchestra has allowed me to do things that I didn't see that I was capable of ... It's opened up doors for me not just in terms of playing but in composing, arranging and marketing," Crenshaw said. For Marsalis, the younger musicians are carrying the torch passed on by the orchestra's original members. "Many of our earlier members have passed away but the spirit that they left with us is still part of the band," Marsalis said. ___ Online: Live webcasts will be available starting at 8 p.m. EDT Thursday, Friday and Saturday via http://jalc.org/live
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