\t\t\t![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/MarcusRobertsTrio2.jpg\")
The Marcus Roberts Trio, with virtuoso jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Rodney Jordan, will showcase their improvisational chops when they join NWS for an inventive interpretation of George Gershwin\u2019s
\n\u201cRhapsody in Blue.\u201d (Photo courtesy of New World Symphony)<\/p>\n
Jazz, that most American of idioms, has a cozy winter home in Miami, with festivals, series and individual concerts showcasing the expansiveness of a form that is arguably our country\u2019s greatest calling card to the musical world.<\/p>\n
Not to be left out of the celebration, on Friday, \u00a0Jan. 10, the musicians of the New World Symphony will perform at the Adrienne Arsht Center in a program highlighting jazz greats George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.<\/p>\n
Andrew Grams, a dynamic and generous conductor who has led orchestras throughout the United States and who has a penchant for working with young musicians, leaves snowy Cleveland to lead the NWS Fellows in the Strayhorn\/Ellington take on Tchaikovsky\u2019s \u201cNutcracker Suite,\u201d Ellington\u2019s \u201cBlack, Brown and Beige Suite,\u201d Darius Milhaud\u2019s \u201cLa Cr\u00e9ation du Monde,\u201d James P. Johnson\u2019s \u201cVictory Slide\u201d and Gershwin\u2019s \u201cRhapsody in Blue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grams\u2019 highlights that his visits to Miami in previous NWS performances have all been between the months of November and February.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I can say is that New World symphony has treated me very well,\u201d he says, noting that the temperature in Cleveland at that moment: 27 degrees.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AndrewGrams1.jpg\")
Andrew Grams, who began his career as a violinist in the pit at the New York City Ballet, relishes the opportunity
\nto work with young people like the NWS fellows. \u201cI try to give them a lot of things that I wish I had gotten before,\u201d
\nhe says. (Photo courtesy of New World Symphony)<\/p>\n
NWS kicks off the evening with the most wintery piece on the program, Strayhorn and Ellington\u2019s reimagined \u201cNutcracker. And if, as we slouch towards the tail-end of the holiday season, you stand convinced that you would rather eat the last dried-out piece of Aunt Bertha\u2019s fruitcake than partake of yet another \u201cNutcracker,\u201d you should really give the Strayhorn\/Ellington version a taste. With sections like \u201cToot Toot Tootie Toot\u201d and \u201cThe Peanut Brittle Brigade,\u201d it has considerably more rum\u2014and fun\u2014in it than the candied classical version piped through the aisles of shopping malls from Thanksgiving through December. \u201cSugar Rum Cherry?\u201d Coming right up.<\/p>\n
Strayhorn, the Duke\u2019s closest collaborator, once said that \u201cEllington plays the piano, but his real instrument is his band.\u201d Under Grams\u2019 baton, will NWS\u2019s Fellows attempt to produce what Strayhorn called \u201cthe Ellington Effect\u201d? That was where, with Duke at the helm, his group of highly distinctive, iconoclastic players would blend together to create an utterly original sound, without losing an iota of their individuality. \u00a0How does Grams go about getting players schooled in the classical tradition to swing?<\/p>\n
Grams says he reminds orchestras that playing jazz \u201cdoes require the precision and care that we give the canonical music that we go to school to learn\u2026it just requires us to care about things that are almost opposite to what we give a great deal of care to in our normal repertoire.\u201d As Ellington\u2019s band of brilliant oddballs exemplified, the spirit of jazz can never be fully captured by just notes on the page.<\/p>\n
According to Grams, the real test of the NWS players\u2019 embrace of the jazz genre will be the \u201cBlack, Brown and Beige Suite,\u201d which Ellington wrote in 1941. Its three sections, he said, were meant as \u201ca parallel\u201d to the history of Blacks in America.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a whole different can of worms,\u201d Grams says, \u201cbecause it is entirely Ellington using the jazz language by itself,\u201d and it has sent him down various research rabbit holes to suss out the secrets of the precise sound Ellington was aiming for in this ambitious work. Details, for example, such as the type of cymbal legendary drummer Sonny Greer used on the original recordings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat size cymbal do they use in order to make that kind of sound, so that it doesn\u2019t just sound like a Pops Orchestra trap set? I mean, it\u2019s a different sound,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m having to research all of these things that I would never have necessarily thought of before. It\u2019s going to be quite interesting to say, \u2018Okay, well it\u2019s written this way, but it\u2019s performed by Ellington and his crew this way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Gershwin\u2019s wildly popular \u201cRhapsody in Blue\u201d will present the orchestra with other challenges and opportunities when pianist Marcus Roberts, drummer Jason Marsalis (the younger brother of Wynton Marsalis) and bassist Rodney Jordan take the stage. Roberts, who hails from Jacksonville, got his start working with Wynton Marsalis and has figured prominently in the jazz world for over three decades. He promises that this will be a \u201cRhapsody\u201d as audiences have never heard it before. It\u2019s a piece he featured on his first major recording, and one he says he never plays the same way twice. Only a boy when he first heard the piece, he still remembers his reaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was maybe 12 or 13 and didn\u2019t know what it was, but I really liked it,\u201d he says. \u201cThe theme spoke to me. It just sounded American to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grams agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find it to be a masterpiece, but I also feel that it is a piece that is sort of embedded in the wide idea of America,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Roberts\u2019 1994 recording of \u201cRhapsody\u201d with Columbia Records was a singular take on a work that had been sanctified in the minds of listeners. The improvisational energy and the individual stamp that he offered was, for some, a shock to the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI caught hell for daring to do the things I chose to do. I\u2019d do interviews and everybody\u2019s like, \u2018How dare you? How can you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Grams, for one, is excited to be able to do this iconic work of the American canon with Roberts, \u201cjust to see what he and his crew are going to come up with when we rehearse it. And who knows what\u2019s going to happen in the concert?\u201d After all, Gershwin himself was improvising the piano cadenzas at the work\u2019s 1924 Aeolian Hall debut.<\/p>\n
With Rhapsody, Roberts says, \u201cI make sure that the thematic material of the piece is protected, but I do take it through its paces with true jazz improvisation, which means I let the themes come to me subconsciously.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lot of what happens in the hall, says Roberts, is dependent on the alchemy between musicians and audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want people to know that when they hear \u2018Rhapsody in Blue,\u2019 it is going to be a 2026 version of it. It will be created, like, spur of the moment, like I said, for them, with them,\u201d says Roberts, \u201cand it\u2019s going to be based on our spiritual interaction in the hall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Works like Gershwin\u2019s, performed by artists as different as the New World players and the Marcus Roberts Trio, speak to an optimistic vision of a nation that Roberts embraces.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re able to present this music collaboratively, we\u2019re able to have a great American composer\u2019s music being played by an orchestra by a very, you know, a bunch of different types of folks who have different backgrounds and we walk onstage and then here\u2019s this wonderful audience who\u2019s out there,\u201d says Roberts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these things symbolize the greatness of America,\u201d he says, \u201cwhat it really can be, what we can do in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Roberts, who is blind, will be listening to the reactions of his audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know in classical music, everybody has to be quiet through all the movements,\u201d he says. \u201cJazz, it ain\u2019t like that. So, if you feel moved to move your feet or clap your hands, whatever you need to do, we welcome that\u2026Have that dance feeling in the hall. That\u2019s what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
WHAT:\u00a0New World Symphony, \u201cRhapsody in Blue,\u201d with Andrew Grams, conductor, and the Marcus Roberts Trio<\/p>\n
WHEN:\u00a08 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 10<\/p>\n
WHERE:\u00a0Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami<\/p>\n
COST: $35 to $225<\/p>\n
INFORMATION:\u00a0305-673-3331 or\u00a0www.nws.edu<\/a><\/p>\n ArtburstMiami.com<\/a>\u00a0is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don\u2019t miss a story at\u00a0www.artburstmiami.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n eo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marcus Roberts Trio, with virtuoso jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Rodney Jordan, will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-106851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}