Jazz luminary Wynton Marsalis [ tickets ] helms New York City's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra [ tickets ] during the group's winter tour of the U.S.

Marsalis and company open the run in late January, and are scheduled to tour the states through mid-March. Most dates are set on the West Coast.

The itinerary includes a March 12 performance in Santa Barbara, CA, that is part of LCJO's Jazz for Young People program. These concerts are for children, their parents and educators, and are described on LCJO's website as "part performance and part narrative, and often include audience participation." Topics at past Jazz for Young People events have included the blues, improvisation, New Orleans jazz, swing dance, Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane.

The fifteen-member LCJO tours annually, and is the "house orchestra" for Jazz at Lincoln Center activities. The group performs compositions and arrangements made famous by composers such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus, as well as commissioned works by Benny Carter, Joe Henderson, Jimmy Heath, Chico O'Farrill, members of the LCJO and others.

The LCJO lineup features music director/trumpeter Marsalis; Seneca Black, Ryan Kisor and Marcus Printup on trumpet; Ron Westray, André Hayward and Vincent Gardner on trombone; Wess "Warmdaddy" Anderson, Walter Blanding Jr., Victor Goines, Ted Nash and Joe Temperley on reeds; Eric Lewis on piano; Carlos Henriquez on bass; and Herlin Riley on drums.