In this first class, Brianna will look at the early life of Nina Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon.

Members-only open sound check with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Go behind the scenes while the orchestra tunes up for Black, Brown & Beige & The Best of Basie.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis plays essential big band music by Duke Ellington and Count Basie. For the first part of the evening,the JLCO will swing through a number of classic Basie standards, channeling the unstoppable swing and iconic blues riffs that always brought the house down. The second half of the concert  will be a full performance of Ellington's groundbreaking masterpiece Black, Brown & Beige. Originally composed for his 1943 debut at Carnegie Hall, it was advertised as "Duke Ellington's first symphony," and Ellington described the powerful three-movement suite as a "tonal parallel to the history of the American Negro."