Composer, Trumpeter, and the leader of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis is now listed in the database. Wynton Marsalis has collaborated with several ballet and dance companies, most notably the New York City Ballet and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In total, Marsalis composed six ballets listed in the database.
One of the difficulties of finding works by jazz composers is since jazz is left out of traditional publishing houses, most jazz composers publish under their own name. In this case, Marsalis’s publishing name is Skayne’s Music. Self publishing gives control and ownership to the composers who choose to publish outside of traditional publishing houses. But when it comes to researching and finding these ballets and operas, self publishing makes it harder to find their works. Marsalis is a big enough name and his catalog is well detailed so adding Marsalis was fairly easy. But for other jazz composers who don’t have his platform, finding their works will be more difficult.
Here’s a clip from the film, Accent on the Offbeat, which shows a movement from Jazz with the New York City Ballet.
the Operatic Saxophone 