It's just a week before the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra hits the road for its latest tour. But don't ask one of its inside men to tell you what you're going to hear.

Ted Nash, the 15-member orchestra's crack arranger and ace sax-clarinet man can't say for sure. Nor can his boss ("and friend and colleague and inspiration"), Wynton Marsalis.

Marsalis is so busy pulling the final details of the tour together, he's unable to handle press interviews.

Nash blithely admits he's still in the dark at this point, which is less than a week away from the first date on the orchestra's "Duke Ellington Love Songs Tour," due at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts Saturday night (7:30 p.m., tickets still available).

"It's hard for me to tell you what's going to happen because we don't have the exact list of songs yet," he says.

Total enlightenment will come, he adds, during the pre-tour rehearsals - all two of them.

Never fear, though: Marsalis and Nash and the remaining 13 orchestra members are the kind of virtuosos who don't need more than two rehearsals to pull themselves together into one of America's premier jazz configurations.

Of course the "Duke Ellington Love Songs" moniker offers something of a tip-off.

And as the orchestra's arranger, Nash has the inside track on how the charts will need to be played when the final selections are made.

In addition to his standing as one of the jazz's world's A-list wind men (saxophone, clarinet, flute), Nash gets to take something like a classic Ellington ballad and celebrate it in both personal and reverential terms.

"You have complete freedom and poetic license to do what you want to do, but without losing the character of the song," he says.

And therein lies the challenge," says Nash, himself a composer of repute.

Not to mention a child prodigy who played his first gigs at 16 with Lionel Hampton and Quincy Jones, had his first composition recorded (by Louie Bellson) at 17, and was off to New York on his own by age 18 (being a Los Angeles native, he truly was on his own).

"As an arranger, you want to assert your feelings on the melodic structure while making sure that the structure is still apparent," Nash continues.

He knows that it's the original composition that counts: "It's not about you the arranger, it's about the service you're doing on behalf of the composition."

The spawn of a West Coast jazz dynasty, Nash seems to have a genetic assist or two: His father is trombonist Dick Nash and his uncle Ted Nash (the inspiration for his own name) is a reed man. Both made their names around Los Angeles as studio musicians.

When Uncle Ted's nephew decided to split for the East Coast, he was warned he was leaving the land of easy money (courtesy the ever-available studio work) for something far less certain.

"I was either very smart or very stupid, but I don't regret it and when look back now, I have to think, wow, look at how things happened."

Indeed.

In short order, the 18-year-old Nash was signed by the prestigious Concorde jazz label, recorded his first album and wound up a member of Gerry Mulligan's and Mel Lewis' bands, the latter for 10 years.

Nash's subsequent association with Marsalis came about "by luck, by being in the right place at the right time."

That time and place was a recording session Nash had playing clarinet with Marcus Roberts, one of Marsalis' quartet members in the '80s.

"He asked who that was on the clarinet. 'That's Ted Nash,' someone said." A short time later, the phone rang. It was Marsalis. He wanted Nash and his mean lip - the one that worked wonders on a reed.

From there, the relationship evolved to the point that it's at today, where not only is Marsalis his boss, he's also that colleague, friend and constant source of inspiration.

The reason for that, says Nash, is that the leader of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra delegates his authority with a distinct lack of ego and an apparent surplus of intellect.

"We generally take Wynton's vision and support it as best we can," says Nash. "But at the same time, you can tell him that he's doing something wrong and he'll just say, 'Oh, really? Then let's fix it.' "

That lack of tyranny at the top, says Nash, is why the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra can take 15 distinct musical egos and identities and submerge them into one seamless whole.

To that end, Nash will only say of himself: "I'll be one of the 15 guys playing on stage."

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At a glance

What: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 110 E. Mulberry St., Bloomington

Tickets: $50.50 to $56.50

Box office number: (866) 686-9541

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Arts Center to host Marsalis-inspired series painted by local artist

By Dan Craft | dcraft@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON - Talk about synergy in the Bloomington Cultural District.

Within the space of around two hours Saturday, two events will take place in two Cultural District venues, with two of the key participants exchanging visits.

Is this two much for comfort?

Hardly.

The synergy starts around 5 p.m. with the opening reception for a new exhibit at the McLean County Arts Center, "Jessica Benjamin: Paintings from The American Series."

On view will be a collection of Benjamin's striking oil portraits - several of which were commissioned by jazz trumpet maestro Wynton Marsalis to adorn the cover and the interior of his current CD, "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary."

Following the reception, the synergy kicks into high gear across the street at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

The man who asked Benjamin to create the graphics for his album will be performing on stage.

Benjamin will segue from the opening of her show to the concert.

And somewhere along the trajectory, Marsalis is expected to head over to the Arts Center for a view of the art he championed.

"Well, he better!," laughs Benjamin, who, though now a New Yorker like Marsalis, is really a hometown girl.

She grew up here (her family name comprises the "Ben" in Bentown, east of Bloomington).

And, above all, she earned her art stripes here, in the print-making Normal Editions Workshop at Illinois State University.

Though schooled in drawing, Benjamin's current works, titled "The American Series," are paintings that fuse components from separate individuals into a single portrait.

For example, the image adorning "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" is a fusion of a rap singer's face and a slave child's eyes.

Inside the CD, another of the images combines images of Vice President Dick Cheney and Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown.

The portraits entail images from the media joined through what she calls "a very crude form of photo-shopping, not using computers." In other words, she uses paint to join, say, the features of Cheney with those of Brown.

The collaboration occurred through a mutual acquaintance, says Benjamin.

"He contacted me about doing his album and said it was going to be political. The great thing about Wynton is that he has this saying that you hear again and again - 'Do your thing. Do what you do.' And that's what he said to me."

Marsalis submitted all the words and music on the album to Benjamin. From that point, her own creative instincts took over.

Marsalis loved the results. He not only ended up using about seven of the portraits for the CD, he arranged an exhibition of them at the New York Historical Society.

Though created specifically for Marsalis' album, the images are now part of a larger, ongoing project, "The American Series," which Benjamin wants to eventually reach the symbolic number of 50 (as in 50 United States).

She has completed 17, a dozen of which comprise the McLean County Arts Center exhibit, on view through Feb. 16.

The goal of the series, says Benjamin, is to create a portrait of the United States through the symbolic fusing of its people.

The results, she hopes, "will give viewers pause to ponder what we come to know about ourselves and others through the mass of visual imagery that collides with us every day and how this visual barrage affects our understanding of ourselves and our world."

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At a glance

What: Jessica Benjamin, paintings from "The American Series"

When: Saturday through Feb. 16

Where: McLean County Arts Center, 601 N. East St., Bloomington

Cost: Free

Information: (309) 829-0011

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High school musicians add to jazz weekend

BLOOMINGTON - The connection between Jessica Benjamin's art and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra's concert, both arriving Saturday, will be underscored by several special events.

The concert, featuring Wynton Marsalis, is in the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts; the exhibit, featuring art used on Marsalis' current CD, is next door at the McLean County Arts Center.

In conjunction with the exhibit and the concert, the Arts Center will host "High School Jazz at MCAC," beginning at noon.

Featured throughout the rest of the afternoon will be non-competitive performances by local high school jazz bands.

The day climaxes with the opening reception for Benjamin's show, from 5 to 7 p.m., followed by the concert with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at 7:30 p.m.

Admission to the high school jazz performances and the reception is free.