Video: Jazz as conversation

Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra come to campus

http://youtu.be/6rwbfT5Oh9Q

It’s not every day you get to play with the greats.

On Oct. 20, famed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — arguably the nation’s finest jazz big band — joined the St. Louis Symphony for a performance of Marsalis’ “Swing Symphony” (Symphony No. 3) (2010).

The day before, members of Jazz at Lincoln Center visited WUSTL’s 560 Music Center to conduct a clinic with students from the East St. Louis High School Jazz Band. In 2011, the band was a finalist in Lincoln Center’s annual Essentially Ellington competition. Leading the clinic were trumpeter Marcus Printup, drummer Ali Jackson and tenor saxophonist Walter Blanding Jr.

Afterward, Marsalis and the full Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra joined the high school players for a private concert. In the audience were an additional 600 high school jazz musicians from around the area, invited by Jazz St. Louis, as well as jazz players from WUSTL’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences.