Houstonians have a rare chance to see arguably the best jazz band on Earth this fall. The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts will be hosting Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra on November 16 for a single evening. Tickets go on sale this Friday, July 25 and can be purchased at TheHobbyCenter.org.

“We are honored to welcome the incomparable Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to Sarofim Hall at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts this November. Managing and artistic director, trumpeter, and bandleader Wynton Marsalis is revered as one of our nation's greatest and most influential artists. Wynton and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra epitomize high artistic quality and are a perfect fit for the Hobby Center as we expand our scope of artistic programming beyond Broadway,” Mark Folkes, president and CEO of the Hobby Center said in a statement. “The cherry on top is that we get to collaborate with a thriving local arts organization, Jazz Houston, in presenting this performance, with the nationally respected Jazz Houston Youth Orchestra opening the program!”

Marsalis is the greatest active jazz trumpeter, and a living connection to the explosion of jazz into the mainstream in the 1970s and '80s. He recorded his first album in 1982 after touring with Herbie Hancock, another crossover jazz pioneer that helped usher new styles and combinations into the format.

The evening's set list will contain classic jazz selections from Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Charles Mingus, as well as new compositions and arrangements that highlight the continued evolution of jazz as a living art form.

Marsalis's penchant for reaching new audiences led him to leading Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Founded in 1988, it aimed to bring jazz to people who had never experienced it before, especially children. Marsalis took over as artistic director in 1991, becoming the preeminent jazz group in the world. Marsalis, backed by the band, won a Pulitzer Prize for the 1997 album Blood on the Fields. The group founded its own record label, Blue Engine, in 2015.

In keeping with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestras' message of inspiring the next generation, the concert will open with a performance by the Jazz Houston Youth Orchestra. Twenty-two of the city's finest young musicians will play for 20 minutes as prelude.

“This collaboration with the Hobby Center is a celebration of our city’s deep jazz legacy and a powerful opportunity to inspire the next generation, starting with the young talents of the Jazz Houston Youth Orchestra,” said Vincent Gardner, co-founder and artistic director of Jazz Houston and longtime member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. “Playing in Houston with Wynton and the JLCO is more than a concert — it’s a homecoming of sorts. It’s going to be an unforgettable night, not to be missed!”