The Lehman Center for the Performing Arts will present Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Songs We Love,” a celebration of the history of American Jazz, spotlighting next-generation jazz stars and iconic songs from the 1920s to 1950s, on Saturday, March 11, at 4 p.m.

 

“Songs We Love” was first presented as the 2016 season opener at “Jazz at Lincoln Center” in Manhattan, according to the event promoters. True to its mission “to entertain, enrich and expand a global community for jazz through performance, education, and advocacy,” Jazz at Lincoln Center provides a wide range of concert presenters an opportunity to offer excellent jazz programming, while introducing to a broader audience the musicians who will reinterpret and reimagine the sound of jazz for years to come, the organizers said. For over three decades, Jazz at Lincoln Center has been a global advocate for jazz, culture, and arts education, they added.

 

According to the event organizers, in “Songs We Love,” described as a superb ensemble of up-and-coming players, schooled and tested on the stages of Jazz at Lincoln Center and concert halls around the world, the show will revisit some of the great songs from the first decades of jazz. Organizers of the show are encouraging attendees to join them on a journey through the early decades of jazz and experience what are described as the captivating styles of the genre’s iconic singers. This includes a talented ensemble, led by bandleader and trombonist, Mariel Bildsten, and vocalists, Vuyo Sotashe, Brianna Thomas, and Shenel Johns.

 

The repertoire includes gems such as the traditional blues, “See See Rider,” first recorded in 1924 by Ma Rainey, and Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.’s “God Bless the Child,” a classic ballad first recorded in 1941. The song was sparked by the line, “God bless the child that’s got his own,” which Holiday’s mother reportedly used in an argument with her daughter, promoters said.

 

The song was celebrated in 2001 as one of the “Songs of the Century” by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The program also includes jewels by masters of songcraft such as George Gershwin (“I Loves You Porgy”), Cole Porter (“So in Love”), and Harold Arlen (“Over the Rainbow,” sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz in 1939).