On the eve of 112th anniversary of Duke Ellington’s birth, New York City Center and Jazz at Lincoln Center are pleased to announce a new producing partnership that will combine the organizations’ specialties: musical theater and jazz. The collaborative venture will begin this fall at City Center with Cotton Club Parade, a celebration of Ellington’s years at the famed Harlem nightclub. Presented under the auspices of City Center’s acclaimed Encores! series and Jazz at Lincoln Center, Cotton Club Parade will be directed by Warren Carlyle and will feature the renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, who also serves as music director. It will play for six performances, November 18-22, 2011. Tickets will go on sale Monday, August 15 at City Center.Harlem’s famed Cotton Club presented annual revues that featured big band swing and blues, dancers, singers, comedians and novelty acts throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Duke Ellington and his orchestra began a four-year residency in 1927 and continued making guest appearances throughout the 1930s. As in the original revues, the Cotton Club Parade will feature singers, dancers and variety acts (to be announced).Future productions will be presented biannually at each other’s venues. The next production is scheduled for the 2013-14 season at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater.”We are thrilled to be collaborating with Jazz at Lincoln Center to develop new projects involving artists from both the jazz and theater worlds,” said City Center President & CEO Arlene Shuler. “It’s especially exciting that City Center will be presenting Cotton Club Parade as the first Encores! event in our beautiful, newly renovated theater.”Laura Johnson, Executive Producer, Jazz at Lincoln Center, said, “We are delighted to work with City Center to celebrate these two uniquely American musical idioms – jazz and musical theater. From the early 20th century theatrical jazz of Ellington’s Cotton Club floor shows to Tin Pan Alley to the jazz-drenched scores of mid-century book musicals, jazz and musical theater have succeeded in entertaining audiences with some of the most enduring and sophisticated music ever produced by American composers and lyricists.”
Duke Ellington influenced millions of people around the world and at home. During the course of his 50-year career, he composed more than 3,000 songs and played more than 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. He gave American music its own sound for the first time with popular hits such as “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Mood Indigo,” “Solitude,” “In a Mellotone,” and “Satin Doll.” Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966 and later earned several other prizes, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973.
Cotton Club Parade will run for six performances, November 18-22, 2011, according to the following schedule: Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2 and 8pm, Sunday at 6:30pm, Monday and Tuesday at 7pm. Tickets start at $25 and go on sale Monday, August 15. Further information is available at NYCityCenter.org and jalc.org.
