On October 28, 2016, Blue Engine Records will release its highly acclaimed inaugural title, Live in Cuba by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, as a deluxe vinyl box set. The box set—which features four LPs, an extensive booklet, and a full album download with a bonus, never-before-heard track, “Oo Na Ney,” is available now for preorder on Amazon.
Hailed by the New York Times as “supercharged” and “a suave delight,” Live in Cuba captures nine-time Grammy Award-winning Wynton Marsalis and the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s first and only performances in Cuba. This new album is Blue Engine’s second vinyl release and presents an historic performance as it was meant to be heard.
Originally released on August 21, 2015 as a digital and CD release, Live in Cuba is now available on 180-gram vinyl. The 24-page booklet features extensive liner notes—including an essay by Cuba tour director and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra bassist Carlos Henriquez—detailing the historical significance of the residency as well as a beautiful photo journal of the orchestra’s trip. This special edition also provides listeners with “Oo Na Ney,” a grooving 20-minute take on a traditional Cuban jam performed by the Wynton Marsalis Quintet with Chucho Valdes & the Afro-Cuban Messengers.
Recorded in front of clamorous, sold-out crowds over three nights at Havana’s Mella Theatre in October 2010, Live in Cuba finds the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performing Ellington standards, Afro-Cuban numbers, and distinctly modern compositions from band members. Live in Cuba is the orchestra’s first album in five years and a document of two nations’ indelible cultural connections and of an emotional reunion between long-lost musical cousins. In itsreview of the Live in Cuba, the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Playing Afro-Cuban repertoire, jazz classics and contemporary works, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra may have done more for American-Cuban relations in a single week than all the political rhetoric generated from both sides of the Straits of Florida for the past 60-plus years.”
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:
Side A
2/3’s Adventure
Dali
Side B
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Como Fue featuring Bobby Carcassés
Side C
Sunset and the Mockingbird
Inaki’s Decision
Side D
Light Blue
Braggin’ In Brass
Side E
Limbo Jazz
Symphony In Riffs
Side F
Doin’ (Y)our Thing
Side G
I Left My Baby featuring Chris Crenshaw
Bearden (The Block)
Spring Yaoundé
Side H
Things To Come
The Sanctified Blues
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.
To preorder Live in Cuba, go to jazz.org/cubavinyl