Listen to Wynton Marsalis Narrate a Jazzy “Twas the Night Before Christmas” in 1989
The 28-year-old trumpeter has just launched the first jazz program at NYC's Lincoln Center.
Photo: Getty Images Music Features
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On Dec. 21, 1989, two years after he co-founded the jazz program at New York’s Lincoln Center that he directs to this day, Wynton Marsalis performed the first of a two-show Christmas program at Alice Tully Hall called “A Classical Jazz Christmas.” Combining traditional carols and seasonal songs, Marsalis and his sextet fronted the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra for a set that included “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow,” “We Three Kings” and Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.”
Listen in as the trumpeter, then 28 years old, narrates an eight-minute rendition of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” And while you’re here, take a peek inside our huge vault of exclusive jazz recordings going back 60 years.