The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (JLCO) comprises 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today. Led by Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center Managing and Artistic Director, this remarkably versatile orchestra performs a vast repertoire ranging from original compositions and Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works to rare historic compositions and masterworks by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and many others. The JLCO has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1988, performing and leading educational events in New York, across the United States, and around the globe. Alongside symphony orchestras, ballet troupes, local students, and an ever-expanding roster of guest artists, the JLCO has toured over 300 cities across six continents. Guest conductors have included Benny Carter, John Lewis, Jimmy Heath, Chico O’Farrill, Ray Santos, Paquito D’Rivera, Jon Faddis, Robert Sadin, David Berger, Gerald Wilson, and Loren Schoenberg. The JLCO has been voted best Big Band in the annual DownBeat Readers’ Poll for the past four years (2013–2016).
In 2015, Jazz at Lincoln Center announced the launch of Blue Engine Records, a new platform to make its archive of recorded concerts available to jazz audiences everywhere. The first release from Blue Engine Records, Live in Cuba, was recorded on an historic 2010 trip to Havana by JLCO and was released in October 2015. Big Band Holidays was released in December 2015, The Abyssinian Mass came out in March 2016, and The Music of John Lewis came out in March 2017. Handful of Keys, featuring a group of all-star guest pianists, arrived in September 2017. To date, 14 other recordings featuring the JLCO have been released and internationally distributed: Vitoria Suite (2010); Portrait in Seven Shades (2010); Congo Square (2007); Don’t Be Afraid... The Music of Charles Mingus (2005); A Love Supreme (2005); All Rise (2002); Big Train (1999); Sweet Release & Ghost Story (1999); Live in Swing City (1999); Jump Start and Jazz (1997); Blood on the Fields (1997); They Came to Swing (1994); The Fire of the Fundamentals (1993); and Portraits by Ellington (1992).
Brooks Brothers is the official clothier of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.