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The Music Of James Black: May 27 - 31

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Featuring Wynton Marsalis, Ellis Marsalis, Victor Goines, Reginald Veal & Herlin Riley.

Includes a national broadcast on PBS Thursday, May 29, at 8pm on Live From Lincoln (check local listings), hosted by Beverly Sills and Ed Bradley.

For five nights, Jazz at Lincoln Center (J@LC) will celebrate the music of James Black (1940-1988), the trailblazing drummer and composer, whose music remains largely unknown outside of his native New Orleans. J@LC Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis and his father, pianist Ellis Marsalis; join other Native New Orleanians Victor Goines, tenor saxophone & clarinet, Reginald Veal, bass and Herlin Riley, drums for five nights of Black's music which will help to close out J@LC's “Year of the Drum" celebration. The program will include Black's Magnolia Triangle, Whistle Stop, Monkey Puzzle, Old Wyne, Lil' Boy Man, and Dee Wee, along with Sister Wilson, Blues Bag, A Love Song, and New Arrival. Tickets at $45 are available at the Alice Tully Hall box office, by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500, or via www.jazzatlincolncenter.org.

The concert on Thursday, May 29, 2003 at 8pm will be carried live on PBS stations around the country on the popular program Live From Lincoln Center. This Emmy Award-winning television series continues its 26th season with a live telecast of Jazz at the Penthouse: The Music of James Black. Ed Bradley will serve as Master of Ceremonies and Beverly Sills will host. Live From Lincoln Center is the only series of live telecast performances on American television today.

Drummer James Black was a Crescent City legend capable of performing everything from complex modern jazz to groove-laden funk. Born in New Orleans on February 1, 1940, Black was a master of the city's trademark “second line" rhythm from a young age, and by the early 1960s, he was already doing session work for musicians like Fats Domino. A particular kind of off-beat rhythm, “second line" originated from the mass of hometown folks who gathered behind the New Orleans parade bands, banging on sticks, garbage-can lids, tambourines, or any percussive instrument they could find to add extra emphasis to the brass-heavy instrumentalists. The accomplished composer of Whistle Stop, Monkey Puzzle, and Magnolia Triangle, Black had a reputation for being a quick-tempered bandleader. Black played in a group with the young Ellis Marsalis on piano, and with Nat Perrilliat on the saxophone that Nat Adderley (along with brother Cannonball) used on his 1962 session In the Bag, to which Black contributed two compositions. The following year, Marsalis cut an album called Monkey Puzzle, for which Black wrote four of seven tunes, including the intricate 5/4 piece Magnolia Triangle, which ranks as perhaps his greatest work. Black went on to play with saxophonist Yusef Lateef and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton in the mid-1960s; during the 1970s, Black led his own groups while continuing to play with Marsalis. Black performed in New Orleans into the 1980s with his own ensembles, and with others, until his death on August 30, 1988. Jazz at Lincoln Center is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. With the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Arturo O'Farrill, and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of education, performance, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, a weekly national radio program, television broadcasts, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for children, advanced training through the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children's concerts, adult education courses, lectures, film programs, and student and educator workshops. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis and President & CEO Hughlyn F. Fierce, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce more than 450 events during its 2002-03 season. Currently, Jazz at Lincoln Center is building its new home - Frederick P. Rose Hall - the first-ever performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz, slated to open in fall 2004.

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