Jazz at Lincoln Center to Salute Coltrane in 2006-07

Jazz at Lincoln Center's 2006-07 season will include a festival celebrating the 80th anniversary of John Coltrane's birth and concerts exploring avant-garde jazz and fusion, JALC announced.

The Coltrane Festival, which opens the season September 14-16, will feature the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in music by the saxophonist and composer, including A Love Supreme, "My Favorite Things," and Africa/Brass, and a program celebrating the saxophonist's collaboration with pop singer Johnny Hartman; the latter event will feature pianist Eric Reed, vocalist Kevin Mahogany, and others.

The "Fusion Revolution" program, scheduled for October, will feature keyboardist Joe Zawinul, a member of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew ensemble and the fusion supergroup Weather Report. "Outer Limits!" in March 2007, will include saxophonist John Zorn, a stalwart of the Downtown scene of the 1980s and '90s, and pianist Cecil Taylor, one of the pioneers of the free jazz movement of the 1960s.

The two programs, unusual for an organization that has focused on the jazz mainstream, are part of a season that will "celebrate the emotional sweep of jazz by tracing the course of its major innovations," according to a statement.

Other highlights include the second annual Women in Jazz Festival, the induction of the class of 2006 into JALC's Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, a performance of "third stream" classical-jazz fusions with the American Composers Orchestra, a performance of blues songs by country singer Willie Nelson, the 12th annual Essentially Ellington Competition for high school bands, and a revival of artistic director Wynton Marsalis's gospel suite In This House, On This Morning.

By Ben Mattison - playbillarts.com

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