Jazz at Lincoln Center to Release ‘Essentially Ellington: The JLCO Recordings, 1999–2025’ on International Jazz Day

Blue Engine Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s in-house record label, announced plans to release Essentially Ellington: The JLCO Recordings, 1999-2025 on April 30, 2025, in celebration of International Jazz Day and to mark the 30^th anniversary of the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival (EE), Jazz at Lincoln Center’s signature education program.

Featuring past and current members of the peerless Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Essentially Ellington: The JLCO Recordings, 1999-2025 is a 166-track collection of inspired performances of seminal compositions and arrangements by jazz giants such as Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Mary Lou Williams, and many more. The anthology is the only collection to feature all the exceptional musicians who have performed in the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra since 1999.

Essentially Ellington: The JLCO Recordings, 1999-2025 will be available on all digital streaming platforms on April 30, 2025. For more information and to pre-save, visit https://orcd.co/ee.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival is dedicated to transcribing, preserving, and distributing the music of canonic jazz composers to aspiring musicians. Each year, the world-class Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis records the compositions that are newly enshrined in the EE library so that high school musicians all over the globe can hear what these classic songs sound like in a cutting-edge context.  Essentially Ellington: The JLCO Recordings, 1999-2025 stands as an essential document of American music and a powerful reminder of why Essentially Ellington—Jazz at Lincoln Center’s flagship educational initiative—is imperative in continuing to inspire thousands of students each year to discover the wonder of jazz.

The release of Essentially Ellington: The JLCO Recordings, 1999-2025 is the latest step in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s efforts to expand the EE program, in celebration of the program’s 30th anniversary. For the first time, Jazz at Lincoln Center has doubled the number of bands, from 15 to 30, selected to compete in the finals. A three-day competition in years past, the 2025 Essentially Ellington Competition & Festival (5/7-5/11) will take place over five days, which will include two rounds of competition taking place on two stages, Rose Theater and the Appel Room. The final concert and awards ceremony will be held on May 11 at the Metropolitan Opera House, located at 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY. This release is a crucial element of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s plans to expand this unique high school arts education program which has impacted thousands of students, band directors, and the worldwide Essentially Ellington community throughout its 30-year history.

One of the most innovative education events in the world, the Essentially Ellington program and resources for students and band directors are free of charge and aim to elevate musicianship, broaden perspectives, and inspire performance through the music of jazz icon Duke Ellington.

The program aims to promote appreciation for jazz music and American vernacular music and has served as a major talent incubator for many alumni who have gone on to form a new generation of professional musicians band directors, and industry figures including Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra musicians Obed Calvaire, Carlos Henriquez, Alexa Tarantino, GRAMMY Award winner Samara Joy, “Saturday Night Live” band member Summer Camargo, and renowned musicians Aaron Diehl, Tatum Greenblatt, Chris Lewis, Riley Mulherkar, Philip Norris, among many more.

Since its inception in 1987, Jazz at Lincoln Center has produced an extensive range of jazz educational and advocacy programs for all ages. For the 30th year, the organization’s Essentially Ellington program spreads the message of Duke Ellington’s music, leadership, and collective orientation, providing high school ensembles with free transcriptions of original Duke Ellington recordings – accompanied by rehearsal guides, original recordings, professional instruction, and more – to thousands of schools and community bands in 58 countries. More than 7,000 high school bands have benefitted from free charts and resources. The multi-day festival provides students access to workshops, jam sessions, rehearsals, and performances.

Blue Engine Records, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s platform that makes its vast archive of recorded concerts available to jazz audiences everywhere, launched on June 30, 2015. Blue Engine Records releases new studio and live recordings as well as archival recordings from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s performance history that date back to 1987 and are part of the R. Theodore Ammon Archives and Music Library. Since the institution’s founding in 1987, each year’s programming is conceived and developed by Managing and Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis with a vision toward building a comprehensive library of iconic and wide-ranging compositions that, taken together, make up a canon of music. These archives include accurate, complete charts for the compositions – both old and new – performed each season. Coupled with consistently well-executed and recorded music performed by Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, this archive has grown to include thousands of songs from hundreds of concert dates. The launch of Blue Engine aligns with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s efforts to cultivate existing jazz fans worldwide and turn new audiences on to jazz. For more information on Blue Engine Records, visit blueenginerecords.org.

Essentially Ellington: The JLCO Recordings, 1999-2025

TRACKLIST:

1999

1. Launching Pad
2. Main Stem
3. Mood Indigo
4. Never No Lament (Don’t Get Around Much Anymore)
5. Oclupaca (from Latin American Suite)
6. Rockabye River
7. Portrait of Louis Armstrong (from New Orleans Suite) (1999)
8. Sophisticated Lady (1999)

2000

9. Anitra’s Dance (from Peer Gynt Suite)
10. Concerto for Cootie (2000)
11. Perdido (2000)
12. The Mooche (2000)
13. The Peanut Vendor
14. The Shepherd (Who Looks Over the Night Flock)
15. Star-Crossed Lovers (from Such Sweet Thunder)

2001

16. Blue Cellophane
17. Blue Feeling
18. I Let a Song Go Out Of My Heart
19. Pyramid
20. Rocks in My Bed
21. Rumpus in Richmond
22. Almost Cried (from Anatomy of a Murder)
23. Tutti for Cootie

2002

24. All Heart
25. It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)
26. Raincheck
27. Such Sweet Thunder
28. Sultry Sunset
29. The Eighth Veil
30. Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
31. Zweet Zurzday

2003

32. Caravan (2003)
33. Harlem Airshaft (2003)
34. I’ve Just Seen Her
35. Jump for Joy
36. Ko-Ko
37. Kinda Dukish / Rockin’ In Rhythm

2004

38. Bli-Blip
39. Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue
40. Jack the Bear
41. Stompy Jones
42. Rhapsody in Blue
43. Sugar Rum Cherry

2005

44. Happy-Go-Lucky Local
45. I Didn’t Know About You
46. Isfahan (2005)
47. Purple Gazelle
48. Ring Dem Bells
49. I.P.’s Boogie

2006

50. Across the Track Blues
51. All Too Soon
52. Idiom ’59 – Part II
53. Braggin’ in Brass
54. I’m Just a Lucky So and So
55. Latin American Sunshine (from Latin American Suite)

2007

56. Flaming Sword
57. Jumpin Punkins
58. Old Man Blues
59. Joe Avery’s Blues
60. Sophisticated Lady (2007)
61. C Jam Blues

2008

62. Blue Serge
63. Jam-A-Ditty
64. Theme (from The Asphalt Jungle)
65. The Mooche (2008)
66. Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
67. Blue Ramble

2009

68. Again and Again
69. Jeep’s Blues
70. Moon Over Cuba
71. Movin Uptown
72. Perdido (2009)
73. Symphony in Riffs

2011

74. Tippin’ on the Q.T.
75. Concerto for Cootie (2011)
76. Rockin’ in Rhythm (2011)
77. Portrait of Louis Armstrong (from New Orleans Suite) (2011)
78. Black and Tan Fantasy
79. Every Day (I Have the Blues)

2013

80. Royal Garden Blues
81. Echoes of Harlem (2013)
82. Bonga
83. Lightnin’
84. Blood Count
85. The Second Line (from New Orleans Suite)

2014

86. Chinoiserie (from The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse)
87. Dissonance in Blues
88. Teri
89. Uptown Downbeat
90. Perdido (2014)
91. Flirtibird
92. I Like the Sunset (from The Liberian Suite)
93. Nancy Jo

2015

94. Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies
95. Brasilliance
96. Chelsea Bridge
97. Cotton Club Stomp
98. Memphis Blues
99. Total Jazz

2016

100. Magnolias Dripping with Molasses
101. Down South Camp Meeting
102. Laura
103. Christopher Columbus
104. Louis Blues
105. Blue Goose

2017

106. Carnegie Blues
107. So Easy
108. Sugar Hill Penthouse
109. Stay On It
110. If You Could See Me Now
111. Dameron Stomp
112. Bojangles
113. East St. Louis Toodle-oo

2018

114. Banquet Scene (from Timon of Athens)
115. Blue Minor
116. Harlem Congo
117. I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But the Blues
118. Lindy Hopper’s Delight
119. Liza (All the Clouds’ll Roll Away)
120. Ready, Go!
121. The Sheik of Araby

2019

122. Afro-Bossa (Bula)
123. Blues to Be There
124. Bugle Call Rag
125. Little Karin
126. Solid Old Man
127. Stablemates
128. Straw Boss
129. Whisper Not

2021

130. Caravan (2021)
131. Cotton Tail
132. Harlem Airshaft (2021)
133. I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)
134. Isfahan (2021)
135. Rockin’ in Rhythm

2022

136. Black Butterfly
137. Blue and Sentimental
138. Trombonio-Bustoso-Issimo (aka “Trombone Buster”)
139. Good Morning Blues
140. Blue Room
141. Topsy

2023

142. Blues a la Machito
143. Chloe
144. Congo Mulence
145. Fancy Dan
146. Kenya
147. Oyeme
148. Portrait of Sidney Bechet
149. Just Scratchin’ the Surface

2024

150. Addi
151. Boo Dah
152. Exposition Swing
153. The Giddybug Gallop
154. Golden Cress
155. Miss Lucy
156. Rent Party Blues
157. Silk Lace

2025

158. Aristocracy à la Jean Lafitte (from New Orleans Suite)
159. Black Beauty
160. Blues for New Orleans (from New Orleans Suite)
161. Elegy to a Man
162. Mullenium
163. The Opener
164. Thruway
165. Thanks for the Beautiful Land on the Delta (from New Orleans Suite)
166. What Am I Here For?