Jazz at Lincoln Center Reopens, Set to Celebrate Wynton Marsalis’ 60th

After being closed for almost two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jazz at Lincoln Center will once again open its doors to live audiences on November 18.

And in so doing, the famed venue will celebrate its Artistic Director and legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ 60th birthday with a performance called Wynton at 60.

For the reopening event, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis will provide a musical retrospective of their band leader’s career. The ensemble will be joined by some of Marsalis’ acclaimed horn player students, including Summer Camargo, Giveton Gelin, Tatum Greenblatt, Anthony Hervey.

According to a press release for the event: “Wynton at 60 will feature the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and guests performing Marsalis’s groundbreaking and award-winning works written for big band. He will additionally perform with a small group composed of JLCO members and guests—something he hasn’t done in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater since 2011.”

The show, Wynton at 60, will also be available via livestream here on November 18 and on-demand until midnight on November 25.

Earlier this year, American Songwriter talked with Marsalis, who is in Russia today, on Inauguration Day to discuss his then-new release The Democracy Suite.

“Democracy is a lot like playing,” he said then. “Let’s see, moment to moment. Democracy is a form that requires constant adjustment. The variables are always changing. We have to be ever vigilant. The question for me then becomes: are we up for it?”