
On Friday evening, January 24, 2025, in the first of 2 concerts performed at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan, Chicago, as part of the 94th season of the Symphony Center Presents Jazz Series, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with artistic director and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, presented Bebop Revolution, a 90-minute program of exciting arrangements of outstanding musical pieces, some of which in original form have been lost to time. It was a comprehensive jazz performance of rich sound, smooth as silk, and filled with exceptional solos as the JLCO demonstrated their masterful chops as an ensemble and showcased the virtuoso players’ solo abilities in improvisational vignettes.
Marsalis, from a multi-generational family of renowned musicians, is a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, a 9 Grammy Award winner, a Pulitzer Prize recipient, and a superb trumpet artist. He’s been at the helm of the JLCO, founded in 1988, since 1991. This evening, the world-renowned 15-member “big band” eloquently performed compositions crafted during the golden age of bebop, with historically significant arrangements.
The 8 pieces on the program and ultimate encore were mostly generated in the last half of the 1940’s, mainly composed by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, alto saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, and pianist Thelonious Monk, and the selections were augmented by way of reminiscence and anecdote, a veritable personality showcase. As Wynton noted, “Bebop is about integration”.

The genius musicians whose songs formed the basis of the concert, according to former JLCO trombone Vincent Gardner, “Represent a time when young musicians took a stand after World War II and made a statement through a new music. Everything must change- the world cannot remain the same. To make their statement, artists…created music that contained youthful fun, virtuosity and intellect, and above all, the position that it didn’t matter what color or nationality you were; if you could learn how to play it, then you could participate.” Jane Levere for Forbes, November 9, 2024.
It’s almost impossible to overstate the effect Gillespie, Parker and Monk have had on the development of jazz as a musical genre. Their playing influenced the development of every player who came after them, taking the harmonies of earlier diatonic jazz, and superimposing chromatics which opened up the territory, breaking up the steady pulse with complex improvisational rhythms. In fact, the very word “bebop” is a descriptive rendering of a new type of phrasing.
The setlist included Grand Central Getaway by Jimmy Dorsey and Dizzy Gillespie, 1943; Lover, Come Back to Me, and Guarachi Guaro, by Dizzy Gillespie 1949, both pieces infused with Afro-Cuban swing; Donna Lee, a jazz standard attributed to Charlie Parker, 1947, a very complicated, ultra-fast piece, and Ugly Beauty. This last work, a 1967 sweet slow waltz by Thelonius Monk, can be seen in this version as a reference to Monk’s asymmetry, “his predilection for dissonant intervals, altered chords and rhythmic displacement.”

Kudos to the Orchestra: Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; Ryan Kisor, trumpet; Kenny Rampton, trumpet; Marcus Printup, trumpet; Chris Crenshaw, trombone; Elliot Mason, trombone; Michael Dease, trombone; Sherman Irby, alto and soprano saxophones, flute, clarinet; Alexa Tarantino, alto and soprano saxophones, flute, clarinet; Chris Lewis, tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet; Abdias Armenteros, tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet; Paul Nedzela, baritone and soprano saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet; Dan Nimmer, piano; Carlos Henriquez, bass; and Obed Calvaire, drums.
All photos by Anne Ryan
For information and tickets to all the great programming of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, go to www.cso.org
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