Photos courtesy jalc.org

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra

IO Jukebox

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra

• Dizzy Moods
• Don't Be Afraid, the Clown's Afraid, Too

If you go

• When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday
• Where: Jefferson Center, 541 Luck Ave., Roanoke
• Cost: $58; $52; half price for students
• Contact: 345-2550, jeffcenter.org
• On the Web: jalc.org; myspace.com; myspace.com/vincentgardner

Vincent Gardner

Wynton Marsalis

It would be enough just to have Wynton Marsalis onstage.

Jazz music's most prominent trumpet player has nine Grammy awards and was the first jazz composer to win a Pulitzer Prize (for "Blood on the Fields"). He's acknowledged as a master of his instrument.

But how about having 14 other equally talented players? They'll be onstage, too, at Jefferson Center's Shaftman Hall on Tuesday night when Marsalis leads the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in a 7:30 p.m. show.

Marsalis, 46, is on deadline to finish a new composition and is promoting the release of his latest book, so he wasn't available for an interview before this show. But getting a Jazz at Lincoln Center sideman on the line is a pretty decent consolation.

Trombone player Vincent Gardner, who was raised in Hampton, was happy to talk about the show.

For Gardner, 35, whose resume includes pop gigs with such artists as Lauren Hill and Matchbox 20, it's impossible to pick a favorite among the band's soloists. And if it's true, as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra's MySpace page proclaims, that this is the greatest big band in the universe, Gardner says he doesn't let its talent and power affect him too much.

"You can't think about it," Gardner said. "You just go to make music. And it's so fun. ... The band is just so great, and we have so much fun and play so much different music. It stays fresh all the time. So you don't think about it. You're just happy to be playing."

Don't expect a night full of Marsalis solos. Every member of this group has experience as a band leader, and each one can "stand up and play a great solo" at any time, Gardner said, offering a short lesson in jazz orchestra history.

"In the big band era, most players were great readers that could play in a jazz style with jazz phrasing, and then there was a featured soloist," he said. "But with us, everybody in the band can play.

"Wynton always says the hardest part of his job is making sure that everybody plays a solo every night, trying to make sure that all 15 guys in the band get to play."

Despite all that talent, egos don't clash, he said. In fact, any two members of the band can get along at just about any time. Gardner said he and the band's oldest member, baritone sax player Joe Temperley, 80 years old and a native of Scotland, are buds. It's a good stroke of fortune in a band this size.

"I'm sure he selects someone [for the band] more on their musicality than their personality," he said. "It just so happens that everybody's cool."

With the Lincoln Center band, the music and its history are both important. Part of the organization's mission is to spread jazz knowledge and a sense of its past to new audiences. So expect to hear plenty of classic charts Tuesday.

"We encompass the whole jazz tradition," Gardner said. "So you know, all the music from what you would call traditional, maybe, older New Orleans music, to the most avant-garde -- Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler. And we cover everything in between. Hard bop and bebop and all of that."

The older stuff won't sound boringly familiar, because this band is able to make those songs its own, Gardner said. Whether playing individual solos, intensely rehearsed ensemble work or group improvisation, the band is ready, he said.

"It makes it a lot of fun to play, because you have freedom to add your own personal statements to the written music," he said.

Then there are the newer songs. Part of the Jazz at Lincoln Center mission is to commission compositions, and Marsalis has written plenty. But so have other band members. Gardner said he has written at least four big-band charts for the show, and has a commission for another one due in April.

Gardner has recorded three albums of his own, with the most recent, "Vin-Slidin," scheduled for release in spring. What has he learned from working with Marsalis?

"He's always prepared for everything," Gardner said. "He studies a lot and prepares for whatever musical situation he's about to get into. Seeing him leading an organization like Jazz at Lincoln Center, with so many components to it, and so many people that pull him in different directions all the time, I see that he keeps it under control. Every possible situation is covered."