If I could snap my fingers and be in one place tonight it would be my birthplace, New York City. I'd be at the Frederick P. Rose Jazz Hall inaugural celebration, six blocks south of Lincoln Center to be exact. And I'd be listening to jazz purist Wynton Marsalis, the founding artistic director of the city's new grand, yet intimate home of jazz.

After a sixteen-year $128 million campaign, Marsalis will play his trumpet on his 43rd birthday at the Frederick P. Rose Hall which opens its doors tonight at 9 p.m. ET.

Thanks to the City of New York, Allen & Co., Coca-Cola, The Irene Diamond Fund, The Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Foundation and countless other supporters, the people of New York will get not one new jazz performance stage or two. They will get three theaters in the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle.

The late Frederick P. Rose, a New York builder and philanthropist, gave $10 million to the effort, which is why the entire center and main concert hall are named after him. Allen & Co., an investment firm, also invested $10 million, which is why the amphitheater with the big picture window is called the Allen Room. Coca-Cola gave $10 million, too, and thus the center's nightclub is called Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.

The Center is the most powerful non-profit institution in the world dedicated to jazz.

Just take a look at The Jazz Center's esteemed Board of Directors:

Shahara Ahmad-Llewellyn, Vice Chair; Vice Chairman, Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Company

Ed Bradley, Correspondent, 60 Minutes, CBS News

Robert H. Burns, Chairman, Robert H. Burns Holdings Ltd.

Diane M. Coffey, Vice Chair; Managing Director, Peter J. Solomon Co., L.P.

Alan D. Cohn, Treasurer; Senior Vice President, Investments, Salomon Smith Barney

Christopher Dark, Managing Director, Citigroup

Gordon J. Davis, Founding Chairman, Senior Partner, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, L.L.P.

Gail May Engelberg, Trustee, The Engelberg Foundation

Ahmet Ertegun, 1947 Founding Chairman of The Atlantic Recording Corporation and Author of What I'd Like To Say: The Atlantic Story

Hughlyn F. Fierce, President and CEO, Jazz at Lincoln Center

Pamela Fiori, Editor-in-Chief, Town & Country Magazine

Michael D. Fricklas, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Viacom Inc.

Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University

Robert L. Johnson, Founder and CEO, Black Entertainment Television

Dena Kaye, President, Danny Kaye & Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation

June Noble Larkin, Chairman and President, Edward John Noble Foundation

Thomas H. Lee, Managing Director, Thomas H. Lee Capital, LLC

John A. Levin, Chairman and CEO, John A. Levin & Co., Inc.

Edward T. Lewis, Chairman and CEO, Essence Communications, Inc.

Adam Lindemann, President, Lindemann Capital

Photo Credit: Newsweek's Jake Chessum

Wynton Marsalis, Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center

Albert Murray, Secretary; Novelist, Cultural Historian

Peter Norton, President, Peter Norton Family Foundation

Michael F. Price, President, MFP Investors LLC

Robert A. Pritzker, President and CEO, Colson Associates, Inc.

Keith Reinhard, Chairman, DDB Worldwide Inc.

Jonathan F. P. Rose, President, Jonathan Rose & Companies

Mark Rosenthal, President and COO, MTV Networks

Jack Rudin, Vice Chair; Co-Chairman, Rudin Management Co., Inc.

Ashley R. Schiff, Associate Vice President, Rubenstein Communications

Lisa Schiff, Chairman, Managing Director, After Nine Holdings

Melanie Shorin, Co-Chairman, Jazz at Lincoln Center Chairman's Circle

David J. Stern, Commissioner, National Basketball Association

Faye Wattleton, President, Center for the Advancement of Women

George Wein, Founder and CEO, Festival Productions

George Weissman, Director Emeritus, Retired Chairman, Philip Morris Companies Inc.

With this power, Artistic Director Marsalis & Company hope to help create new heroes in the field of jazz.

If the hero scope reaches west to San Francisco and east to Great Britain, a few artists we'd nominate include:

The U.K's Soul Sessions 17 year-old, Joss Stone

Britain's Twentysomething year-old, Jamie Cullum

Diana Krall

San Francisco's eclectic People, Places And Songs singer / songwriter / teacher, Jesse Foster

One day, some of these current generation artists may join legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey (the first jazz artist I ever invested in) and Elvin Jones, who have supported and counseled Marsalis since he started playing gigs at the age of twelve.

Marsalis and others involved in the creation of the new facility also hope to inspire renewed interest in the music of jazz.

"I want people to be aware of jazz, to make the music available through recordings and broadcasts and to produce more jazz musicians," Marsalis said. "Rose Hall will be a place to address all aspects of our music."

"The opening of our 'House of Swing' ushers in a new era of jazz," Mr. Marsalis added. "As artists, we've continued to evolve, but our performing spaces haven't. So we've built a house that really swings with the way jazz works, the way jazz feels, and most of all, the way jazz sounds."

The Center's Mission & Purpose

To enrich the artistic substance and perpetuate the democratic spirit of America's music.

From down home and elegant concert performances by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra... to entertaining educational programs that bring the sound and feeling of jazz into the lives of thousands of kids and grownups... to innovative collaborative programs with artists in diverse idioms: they offer top quality musicianship and universal friendship.

By taking the feeling of jazz on tour and by inviting artists and audiences from all over the world into their new home in New York City, Frederick P. Rose Hall, they bring people together for a simple purpose:

to have a profoundly good time

Welcome is their motto.

Between the new Lincoln Center, the Village Vanguard and other jazz clubs in Manhattan, JALC executive director Derek Gordon, who came aboard in July after 12 years as senior VP of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., may be able to help the city's vision become a reality.

Gordon calls Rose Hall "unique."

He said, "I've seen the growth of cultural institutions with jazz being part of the vision," he says. "But having jazz at the center develops a new paradigm."

The Center located at Broadway and 60th Street will host lectures, a weekly radio show, the 15-piece Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO) and many concerts starting with the first one tonight at 9pm.

By that time, the New York Yankees will likely know whether or not they will be going to the World Series. That is, unless we have another twelve-inning game, like last night.

Those who love baseball and jazz music will be able to turn their attention to the celebration tonight -- hosted in-part by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

What I would give for four of the 1,200 seats in Rose Hall, the world's first concert hall dedicated specifically to jazz?!

The Hall was designed by world-renowned architect Rafael Vinoly, who also created the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

Wynton helped define the space," Vinoly said. "It was important to get out of the pattern set by classical music where there's a notion of the artist being unapproachable and separated from the audience. Jazz requires an intimacy."

"Jazz is also an impromptu music that is played as almost a social event," he continued. "It can be played anywhere, so I designed the building so that nearly every space can be used for performance. In addition to the three venues, music can be played in the atrium, educational areas and rehearsal studios. The important concept is that music can transform the space, not vice versa."

In addition to the 100,000 square foot, 1,200 seat theater, the new hall contains the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame named after Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun (who also serves on the Center's Board -- see above) and his brother, the jazz producer Nesuhi Ertegun. The one room multi-media hall serves as a tribute to the inaugural class of inductees:

Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Dizzy Gillespie
Bix Beiderbecke
Lester Young
Charlie Parker
Sidney Bechet
John Coltrane
Miles Davis
Coleman Hawkins
Billie Holiday
Thelonious Monk
Jelly Roll Morton
Art Tatum.

The greater hall also houses recording studios, classrooms and two other elegant performance venues: an intimate 140-seat cafe, a 550-seat amphitheater with a 50-by-90-foot window providing a striking view of the New York skyline.

The Hall of Fame is open to the public, free-of-charge.

The cafe will host a jazz concert every night of the year.

The other two stages will host regular jazz concerts, plus opera, dance recitals and other performances.

In addition, there is an educational facility called the Irene Diamond Education Center. Two classrooms will host regular jazz classes for adults including Jazz 101, plus "WeBop" classes for kids two-to-five years of age.

"You wanna have a good time? Come here," says the birthday boy. "This is something historic. There's never been anything like this -- never."

Marsalis added, "People will come from all over the world to visit this House of Swing."

Thanks to PBS we'll at least be able to live vicariously through those in the house tonight.

PBS will air the gala concert live.

Tonight's Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) performances include:

-- The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO) with Wynton Marsalis, featuring Ellis Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Joe Lovano, Abbey Lincoln, Tony Bennett and others, at the Rose Theater.

-- The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra with Arturo O'Farrill featuring Paquito D'Rivera, at the Allen Room.

-- The Bill Charlap Trio with guests, at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

From 8-11 p.m., the evening's performances will be distributed worldwide by National Public Radio, broadcast locally by NPR's cultural affiliate, WBGO (88.3 FM), and available on the web at:

Public Service Announcement

Help preserve the future of America's classic music by becoming a member of the world's premier non-commercial Jazz Radio Station WBGO

Call 973.643.4300 now! And help them reach their goal of 20,000 members. (Only 155 left at the time this story is posted.)

An Impressive Three-Week Line-up

The Jazz Center's three-week Grand Opening Festival runs October 18th - November 6th with a series of shows by such noteworthies as vocalists Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves and Freddy Cole. Also on tap: Taj Mahal and Randy Weston, among others, in the "3 Shades of Blues" evening; and comedian Bill Cosby in his "Stand Up for Jazz" performance with the LCJO.

Dizzy's Club, which plans to feature music 365 nights a year, opens October 21st with the three-week Dizzy Gillespie Festival, a celebration of the legendary trumpeter's music starring Paquito D'Rivera, Nicholas Payton, Antonio Sanchez, Monty Alexander and other musicians.

Shows at Dizzy's Club from Tuesday through Sunday will have a $30 cover (plus minimum); Monday night will feature "Upstarts" gigs by young musicians that will have a $15 cover. There will also be a $10 cover for the late-night jam "hang sets" to begin after the final sets each evening.

Marsalis is also excited about the possibilities of the mixing and matching of musicians.

"We want the best here," he says.

"And we always want to make the space accessible to the different communities of jazz. We want it to be flexible to accommodate everything, from film to community activities to music with theater. We want this space to be used as a resource for all arts with the spirit of jazz."

In preparation for making your destination, New York's new Jazz Mecca, get all the planned performances and details at:

Congratulations New York and Happy Birthday Wynton!

To send Mr. Marsalis birthday wishes and/or a note of congratulations, please write:

Wynton Marsalis
Artistic Director
Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC)
33 West 60th Street
Floor 11
New York, NY 10023-7999

To learn more about the man behind the trumpet, go to:

For those not familiar with this legendary Pulitzer Prize, Classical and Jazz Grammy award-winning artist, consider his 1987 Marsalis Standard Time, Vol.1 CD.

Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra with Arturo O'Farrill

About Jazz at Lincoln Center

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 Julliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses, film programs, and student and educator workshops.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, President & CEO Hughlyn F. Fierce, Executive Director Derek E. Gordon, Chairman of the Board Lisa Schiff and Jazz at Lincoln Center Board and staff, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce hundreds of events during its 2004-05 season.

This is the inaugural season in Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home — Frederick P. Rose Hall — the first-ever performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz.

Inspire & Be Inspired(R).

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful and culturally rich living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King