Blue Engine Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s new platform that makes its vast archive of recorded concerts available to jazz audiences everywhere, releases its debut title, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis’ Live in Cuba, on August 21, 2015. The album featuring the world-renowned big band performing at the historic Mella Theater in Havana, Cuba is available now for pre-order on Amazon and iTunes.
Live in Cuba captures the dazzling first and only performances in Cuba by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Recorded in front of clamorous, sold-out crowds over three nights in October 2010, Live in Cuba finds the big band exploring the profound connections between American jazz and Afro-Cuban music, from bebop to bolero and beyond.
Live in Cuba, produced by nine-time GRAMMY® Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis, is a document of two nations’ indelible cultural connections, of a journey into uncharted musical territory, and of some of the world’s most virtuosic musicians sharing a stage.
Key tracks include “2/3’s Adventure,” a propulsive number combining mambo, swing, and guajira written by Carlos Henriquez, the orchestra’s bassist and the concerts’ Musical Director; “Como Fue,” a beautiful bolero sung by Cuban musician Bobby Carcassés; and “Things to Come,” a scorching run through the Dizzy Gillespie bebop classic.
To celebrate the Blue Engine Records launch and Live in Cuba album release, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis is currently on the 2015 Blue Engine U.S. Tour where the band will visit 12 American cities and six of the summer’s finest music festivals. The band is accompanied on their tour by a pop-up banner documenting the historic trip to Cuba as well as a merchandise table. Appearing at all tour venues, the table will allow audiences to purchase Blue Engine merchandise and buy a pre-order copy of Live In Cuba, which comes with a free tumbler and preview tracks from the album.
For Blue Engine U.S. Tour dates, go to http://www.jazz.org/jlco-performances-and-tour-dates/
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis:
REEDS
Sherman Irby – alto saxophone, flute, piccolo, clarinet
Ted Nash – alto & tenor saxophones, flute, piccolo, clarinet
Victor Goines – tenor saxophone, clarinet
Walter Blanding – tenor & soprano saxophones, clarinet
Joe Temperley – baritone saxophone, bass clarinet
TRUMPETS
Ryan Kisor
Kenny Rampton
Marcus Printup
Wynton Marsalis
TROMBONES
Vincent Gardner
Chris Crenshaw
Elliot Mason
RHYTHM SECTION
Dan Nimmer – piano
Carlos Henriquez – bass
Ali Jackson – drums
JLCO CUBA TOUR MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Carlos Henriquez
Live In Cuba Track Listing:
Disc 1
- 2/3’s Adventure
- Baa Baa Black Sheep
- Inaki’s Decision
- Sunset and the Mockingbird
- Como Fue featuring Bobby Carcassés
- Dali
- Light Blue
- Braggin’ In Brass
Disc 2
- Limbo Jazz
- Doin’ (Y)our Thing
- I Left My Baby featuring Chris Crenshaw
- Bearden (The Block)
- Symphony in Riffs
- Spring Yaoundé
- Things To Come
- The Sanctified Blues
Executive Producer: Wynton Marsalis
Engineered by Mauricio Blanco and David Robinson
Mixed by Jeff Jones “The Jedi Master”
Mastered by Mark Wilder, Battery Studios
About Blue Engine Records
Blue Engine Records releases new studio and live recordings as well as archival recordings from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s performance history that date back to 1987 and are part of the R. Theodore Ammon Archives and Music Library. Since the institution’s founding in 1987, each year’s programming is conceived and developed by Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis with a vision toward building a comprehensive library of iconic and wide-ranging compositions that, taken together, make up a canon of music. These archives include accurate, complete charts for the compositions – both old and new – performed each season. Coupled with consistently well-executed and recorded music performed by Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, this archive has grown to include thousands of songs from hundreds of concert dates. The launch of Blue Engine is aligned with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s efforts to cultivate existing jazz fans worldwide and turn new audiences onto jazz.
For more information on Blue Engine Records, visit blueenginerecords.org.
For more information on Live in Cuba, go to blueenginerecords.org/cubapress.