Widely recognized as one of the top jazz pianists on the mainstream/bebop scene, Lenore’s jazz career has also included teaching, composing, recording and producing.

Lenore was Marian McPartland’s guest on National Public Radio’s award winning Piano Jazz, and named one of Yahoo’s top 100 Contemporary Pianists of 2003.

A winner of BET on Jazz Discovery, she has been featured at such major jazz clubs in the New York Metropolitan area as Birdland, Cleopatra’s Needle, The Iridium, Metronome, and national and international festivals such as Panasonic Village Jazz Festival, the East Coast Jazz Festival, International Association for Jazz Education showcase, Cape May Jazz Festival , the S.S.Norway Floating Jazz festival, Jazz Forum Arts summer festival.

On September 8, executive director Loren Schoenberg will welcome nonagenarian Max "The Saxman" Lucas, still swinging with fire at Harlem's Lenox Lounge every Wednesday evening with his son, organist Nathan Lucas. Max Lucas has witnessed all of the major stylistic changes in the history of the music. He jammed with Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk back in the glory years of jazz; he has also performed with Count Basie and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, under the direction of Mercer Ellington.

Born in New York's East Harlem, Johnny Colon (September 22) has been singing and playing guitar since the age of three. By the time he graduated from high school, he was playing the acoustic bass, trombone, piano, and guitar, also having studied classical voice and all the Latin rhythm instruments. In the early sixties he formed the first Johnny Colon Orchestra, a Charanga band. In 1967, Cotique records released Boogaloo Blues, a Latin music classic. In 1972, at the height of his recording career, Colon founded the East Harlem Music School, the first music school anywhere devoted exclusively to the teaching of Salsa. He still performs with the Johnny Colon Orchestra as the lead vocalist, composer, and arranger.

Photo by Howard A. Gitelson

On flute Tabackin stands alone as a pioneer in the fusion of Asian melody and jazz. Unlike the aggressive, in-your-face New York sound on tenor Lew's flute playing evokes exotic, subtle beauty and is simultaneously airy and earthy. He has constantly placed near the top for jazz flute on critics readers polls for decades.

Frank Wess, photo by Nancy Miller Elliott

Jazz at Lincoln Center launches the Jazz From Coast to Coast 2005-06 season with the Kansas City Festival from September 22 to 25 at Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City, surrounding the three days with all things unique to Kansas City: rich jazz tradition, the blues legacy and Kansas City-style barbecue. The not-for-profit organization devoted to jazz announced the Kansas City Festival schedule of events taking place in each of the main spaces at the performance arts facility located at Broadway at 60th St. and at Jazz Standard located at 116 E. 27th St. in New York City.

The festival kicks off with Kansas City: K.C. and The Count concerts featuring the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and special guest saxophonist and flutist Frank Wess in Rose Theater on September 22, 23 and 24 at 8:00pm.

Kansas City: K.C. and The Count featuring the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will be broadcast live on September 24 via radio partners WBGO Jazz88.3FM in the New York City area at 8pm ET and KCUR-FM in Kansas City at 7pm CT. XM Satellite Radio listeners nationwide will also hear the concert broadcast on select XM channels.

Bobby Watson's Boogie-Woogie Jump Band and the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra perform in The Allen Room on September 22, 23 and 24 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $40, $75, $130 and available at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office on Broadway at 60th St., by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or via www.jalc.org.