With the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and guest artists spanning genres and generations, JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER produces thousands of performances, education, and broadcast events each season in its home in New York City (Frederick P. Rose Hall, “The House of Swing”) and around the world, for people of all ages. Jazz at Lincoln Center is led by Chairman Clarence Otis, Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, and Executive Director Greg Scholl. Please visit us at jazz.org.

The JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA (JLCO), comprising 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1988 and spends over a third of the year on tour across the world. Featured in all aspects of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s programming, this remarkably versatile orchestra performs and leads educational events in New York, across the U.S. and around the globe; in concert halls; dance venues; jazz clubs; public parks; and with symphony orchestras; ballet troupes; local students; and an ever-expanding roster of guest artists. Under Music Director Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performs a vast repertoire, from rare historic compositions to Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works, including compositions and arrangements by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and current and former Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Ted Nash, Victor Goines, Sherman Irby, Chris Crenshaw, and Carlos Henriquez.

Throughout the last decade, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has performed with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic; Cleveland Orchestra; Philadelphia Orchestra; Czech Philharmonic; Berlin Philharmonic; Boston Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra; Sydney Symphony Orchestra; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Los Angeles Philharmonic and many others. Marsalis’ three major works for full symphony orchestra and jazz orchestra, All Rise – Symphony No. 1 (1999), Swing Symphony – Symphony No. 3 (2010), and The Jungle – Symphony No. 4 (2016), continue to be the focal point of Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s symphonic collaborations.  

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has also been featured in several education and performance residencies in the last few years, including those in Melbourne, Australia; Sydney, Australia; Chautauqua, New York; Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; London, England; São Paulo, Brazil; and many others.

Education is a major part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s mission; its educational activities are coordinated with concert and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra tour programming. These programs, many of which feature Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members, include the celebrated Jazz for Young People™ family concert series; the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival; the Jazz for Young People™ Curriculum; Let Freedom Swing, educational residencies; workshops; and concerts for students and adults worldwide. Jazz at Lincoln Center educational programs reach over 110,000 students, teachers and general audience members.

Jazz at Lincoln Center, NPR Music and WBGO have partnered to create the next generation of jazz programming in public radio: Jazz Night in America. The series showcases today’s vital jazz scene while also underscoring the genre’s storied history. Hosted by bassist Christian McBride, the program features hand-picked performances from across the country, woven with the colorful stories of the artists behind them. Jazz Night in America and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s radio archive can be found at jazz.org/radio.

In 2015, Jazz at Lincoln Center launched Blue Engine Records, a new platform to make its vast archive of recorded concerts available to jazz audiences everywhere. The label is dedicated to releasing new studio and live recordings as well as archival recordings from past Jazz at Lincoln Center performances, and its first record—Live in Cuba, recorded on a historic 2010 trip to Havana by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis—was released in October 2015. Big Band Holidays was released in December 2015, The Abyssinian Mass came out in March 2016, The Music of John Lewis was released in March 2017, and the JLCO’s Handful of Keys came out in September 2017. Blue Engine’s United We Swing: Best of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Galas features the Wynton Marsalis Septet and an array of special guests, with all proceeds going toward Jazz at Lincoln Center’s education initiatives. Blue Engine’s most recent album releases include 2020’s A Swingin’ Sesame Street Celebration and 2021’s The Democracy Suite featuring the JLCO Septet with Wynton Marsalis.

For more information on Jazz at Lincoln Center, please visit www.jazz.org.

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Five-time Grammy winner DIANNE REEVES is the pre-eminent jazz vocalist in the world. As a result of her breathtaking virtuosity, improvisational prowess, and unique jazz and R&B stylings, Reeves received the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for three consecutive recordings—a Grammy first in any vocal category.
Featured in George Clooney’s six-time Academy Award nominated Good Night, and Good Luck, Reeves won the “Best Jazz Vocal” Grammy for the film’s soundtrack. 

Reeves has recorded and performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. She has also recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim and was a featured soloist with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. Reeves was the first Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the first vocalist to ever perform at the famed Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Reeves worked with legendary producer Arif Mardin (Norah Jones, Aretha Franklin) on the Grammy winning A Little Moonlight, an intimate collection of standards featuring her touring trio. When Reeves’ holiday collection Christmas Time is Here was released, Ben Ratliff of The New York Times raved, “Ms. Reeves, a jazz singer of frequently astonishing skill, takes the assignment seriously; this is one of the best jazz Christmas CDs I've heard. ”

In recent years Reeves has toured the world in a variety of contexts including “Sing the Truth,” a musical celebration of Nina Simone which also featured Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo. She performed at the White House on multiple occasions including President Obama's State Dinner for the President of China as well as the Governors’ Ball.

Reeves’ release Beautiful Life, features Gregory Porter, Robert Glasper, Lalah Hathaway and Esperanza Spalding. Produced by Terri Lyne Carrington, Beautiful Life won the 2015 Grammy for “Best Jazz Vocal Performance.”

Reeves is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music and the Juilliard School. In 2018 the National Endowment for the Arts designated Reeves a Jazz Master—the highest honor the United States bestows on jazz artists.

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With her Verve Records debut, Linger Awhile, 23-year-old SAMARA JOY makes her case to join the likes of Sarah, Ella, and Billie as the next mononymous jazz singing sensation recorded by the venerable label. Her voice, rich and velvety yet precociously refined, has already earned her fans like Anita Baker and Regina King, appearances on the TODAY show, and millions of likes on TikTok — cementing her status as perhaps the first Gen Z jazz singing star.

Growing up in the Bronx, it was the music of her parents’ childhoods that she listened to most. She treasures her musical lineage, which stretches back to her grandparents Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, both of whom performed with Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes, and runs through her father, who is a singer, songwriter and producer who toured with gospel artist Andraé Crouch. Eventually, she did follow in the family tradition, singing in church and then with the jazz band at Fordham High School for the Arts, which led to her enrolling in SUNY Purchase’s jazz studies program. She fell deeply in love with the music, and as a sophomore, entered and won the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. Notably, Samara also attended the late, great pianist Barry Harris’s legendary classes, where he became a particularly important influence and mentor. “You inspired me as well as many others with this fire for teaching and playing that couldn’t be dimmed by anything or anyone,” Samara writes in Linger Awhile’s liner notes.

On Linger Awhile, she effortlessly swings alongside esteemed veterans (jazz guitar virtuoso Pasquale Grasso, pianist Ben Paterson, bassist David Wong, and master drummer Kenny Washington), presenting understated yet powerful renditions of a varied collection of material. From the chestnuts “Misty” and “Someone to Watch Over Me” to less familiar standards like Ronnell Bright’s “Sweet Pumpkin” and the Sarah Vaughan specialty “Can’t Get Out of This Mood,” the project showcases the vocalist tackling a stunningly wide variety of styles and moods. Her emotional depth is further on display with a spine-tingling version of “Guess Who I Saw Today,” originally popularized by Nancy Wilson.

Showing her deep knowledge and reverence for the jazz tradition, she takes on Thelonious Monk iconic “‘Round Midnight,” although she sings lyrics written by vocalese master Jon Hendricks. Samara also penned her own lyrics to classic jazz material with her takes on Fats Navarro’s “Nostalgia (The Day I Knew)” and “I’m Confessin’,” where she wrote a deeply moving lyric set to Lester Young’s legendary 1952 solo.

The release of Linger Awhile is just one more step for the ascendant vocalist, who will spend the next year touring increasingly large stages, collaborating with the Clayton/Hamilton Big Band, Christian McBride, Kenny Barron, and Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and continuing to expose a new generation to the timeless art form, jazz. As Samara herself says, “So this is only the beginning… there is much, much more to come.”