Branford Marsalis & Dianne Reeves Celebrate John Coltrane

Saxophone great and NEA Jazz Master Branford Marsalis and his superlative quartet are joined by fellow NEA Jazz Master and jazz’s greatest vocalist, Dianne Reeves, for a week devoted to the immortal music of John Coltrane, in honor of the centennial of his birth.

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential and revered figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz master, three-time Grammy Award winner, and Tony and EMMY Award nominee is equally at home performing concertos with symphony orchestras and sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead, but the core of his musical universe remains the Branford Marsalis Quartet. After more than three decades of existence with minimal personnel changes, this celebrated ensemble is revered for its uncompromising interpretation of a kaleidoscopic range of both original compositions and jazz and popular classics.

The Branford Marsalis Quartet and Dianne Reeves will release a tribute album which revisits Coltrane’s seminal 1963 collaboration with Johnny Hartman. Originally recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in March of 1963, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman was a sublime showcase for Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, who gave remarkable depth and sensitivity to a selection of standards including Irving Berlin’s “They Say It’s Wonderful,” Guy Wood’s “My One and Only Love,” and the definitive version of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.” Bringing the songs to life was the distinctive, evocative baritone of crooner Johnny Hartman, who was the only vocalist Coltrane ever collaborated with.

Interpreting the songs with her own singular gifts, Reeves is a five-time GRAMMY winner who is accurately called “The most admired jazz diva since the heyday of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday” (NY Times). She is an artist who embodies the music’s enduring values of elegance, class, and improvisational poise, with an innate feel for swing.