Jazz at Lincoln Center Announces Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert -- Wynton Marsalis, Bill Cosby, Peter Cincotti, Elvis Costello, Paquito D'Rivera, Abbey Lincoln, Diana Krall, Jon Hendricks and More TBA!

September 17 at 7pm Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall, New York City Broadcast On National Public Radio, XM Satellite Radio, WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM, and Other Broadcast Partners TBA CD will be produced and released by Blue Note Records with all profits going to relief funds *Statement by Wynton Marsalis on New Orleans included NEW YORK, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Jazz at Lincoln Center today announced plans to produce the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert on Saturday, September 17 at 7pm at Rose Theater in Frederick P. Rose Hall on Broadway at 60th Street in New York City. The concert will seek to raise funds for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Bill Cosby will host the concert and Wynton Marsalis Peter Cincotti, Elvis Costello, Paquito D'Rivera, Abbey Lincoln, Diana Krall, Jon Hendricks and more tba. XM Satellite Radio will carry this concert live on their network from coast to coast on channel 70, the Real Jazz channel. Higher Ground will also be broadcast live via radio partner WBGO Jazz88.3FM in the New York City area and offered nationally and internationally via National Public Radio and its 807 member stations in the US, NPR Worldwide, and streamed live on http://www.npr.org, http://www.wbgo.org, http://www.xmradio.com. More broadcast information to follow. The event will be recorded by Jazz at Lincoln Center and a CD will be produced and released by Blue Note Records with all profits going to relief funds. Concert tickets will be available beginning on September 8th at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office at Broadway at 60th St., by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or via http://www.jalc.org. CenterCharge service fees will be donated to hurricane relief efforts. Ticket prices are $50, $100, $500, $1000, $5000, $10,000. Jazz at Lincoln Center is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. With the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, weekly national radio and television programs, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for children, advanced training through the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses and student and educator workshops. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, Chairman of the Board Lisa Schiff, President & CEO Derek E. Gordon, Executive Director Katherine E. Brown and Jazz at Lincoln Center board and staff, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce hundreds of events during its 2005-06 season. In October 2004, Jazz at Lincoln Center opened Frederick P. Rose Hall -- the first-ever performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz. For more information, visit http://www.jalc.org. Listing information: Producer: Jazz at Lincoln Center Event: Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert Hosted by Bill Cosby and featuring Wynton Marsalis, Peter Cincotti, Elvis Costello, Paquito D'Rivera, Abbey Lincoln, Diana Krall, Jon Hendricks and many more tba! Dates/Times: Saturday, September 17, 2005 at 7:00pm Location: Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall on Broadway at 60th Street Tickets: $50, $100, $500, $1000, $5000, $10,000 AVAILABLE AS OF SEPTEMBER 8TH at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall box office on Broadway at 60th Street (open Monday - Saturday, 10am-8:30pm and Sunday 11am-8:30pm), CenterCharge at 212-721-6500 or via http://www.jalc.org High resolution, downloadable photos available at http://www.jalc.org/presenters/images/index.html * Wynton Marsalis, Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center makes a statement about the devastation in his hometown of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina: New Orleans is the most unique of American cities because it is the only city in the world that created its own full culture -- architecture, music and festive ceremonies. It's of singular importance to the United States of America because it was the original melting pot with a mixture of Spanish, French, British, West African and American people living in the same city. The collision of these cultures created jazz and jazz is important because it's the only art form that objectifies the fundamental principals of American democracy. That's why it swept the country and the world representing the best of the United States. New Orleanians are blues people. We are resilient, so we are sure that our city will come back. This tragedy, however, provides an opportunity for the American people to demonstrate to ourselves and to the world that we are one nation determined to overcome our legacies of injustices based on race and class. At this time all New Orleanians need the nation to unite in a deafening crescendo of affirmation to silence that desperate cry that is this disaster. We need people with their prayers, their pocketbooks, and above all their sense of purpose to show the world just who the modern American is and then we'll put our city back together in even greater fashion. This is gut check time for all of us as Americans. In a country with the most incredible resources in the world we need the ingenuity of our best engineers to put the cultural heart of our nation back together. To put it together with 2005 technical expertise and with 2005 social consciousness, which means without accommodating the ignorance of racism and the deplorable conditions of poverty, and lack of education that have been allowed to fester in many great American cities since slavery. We're only as civilized as our level of hospitality. Let's demonstrate to the world that what actually makes America the most powerful nation on earth is not guns, pornography and material wealth but transcendent and abiding soul, something perhaps we have lost a grip on, and this catastrophe gives us a great opportunity to handle up on.