Out & About

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The New York Sun

Wynton Marsalis didn’t rest for a moment during the Jazz at Lincoln Center gala Wednesday night. He roamed his new home greeting 1,000 friends and fans including Robert Redford and Robert De Niro. “Most of the people here I know intimately. You can imagine what it’s like going through the room,” Mr. Marsalis said.


Only after guests had cleared out did he loosen his tie and relax – in the privacy of his dressing room.


“I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat tonight,” he said. So he had dinner at home in the afternoon: jerk chicken, peas, sweet plantains, and strong New Orleans coffee.


It was as exciting an evening for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s board members as it was for Mr. Marsalis.


“The week has been a roller coaster – with all the high points,” said the chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s board, Lisa Schiff, owner of the jazz recording label After Nine Music. One of those highs was “seeing my friend Liza come back strong,” referring to Liza Minnelli, who performed.


“When she did ‘New York, New York’ it wasn’t just about her, it was about us and the city.”


Jazz at Lincoln Center’s journey to this point had its share of bumps.


“We’ve had fire, flood, we’ve had everything but raging pestilence,” she said.


Just a month ago, water was pouring through Dizzy’s Club. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, what’s happening to us.’ But everyone just knuckled down that much harder,” she said.


Ms. Schiff shared the evening with her husband, David; her daughter, Ashley, also a board member; her sons, Drew and Scott; and extended family, including the parent’s of Drew’s wife Karenna, Vice President Gore and his wife, Tipper.


As for her own imprint on the organization: “I never expected to be chairwoman, never, but having decided to take the job because Wynton asked me to, I decided I would see this through, to the best of my ability.”


It was not an evening to single out any one donation or achievement.


“We honored the music. All the egos got left at he door,” said Gordon Davis, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s founding chairman and a senior partner at LeBoeuf, Lamb.


Mr. Davis said having a home like this “was beyond even our wildest dreams when we started in 1988, 1989,” and even when the project was planned, in 1997. The initial budget was $30 million – the final budget, $130 million.


In addition to its fund-raising capabilities, one of the strengths of the Jazz at Lincoln Center board is its diversity.


“We’re certainly a reflection of what this city is becoming more and more. What’s elite and what’s important comes from all different directions,” Mr. Davis said.


Board member Michael Fricklas, Viacom’s general counsel, credited Mr. Davis for envisioning Jazz at Lincoln Center “as a way to bring diversity to Lincoln Center.”


Mr. Fricklas, the chairman of the nominating committee, said, “We want to bring diversity in different ways.” He noted that “the financial goal may be lowered for prospective board members if they bring something else. We’re all jazz fans. Commitment is a big part of it.”


Other board members present included Town and Country’s editor, Pamela Fiori, who entertained Arie and Coco Kopelman at her table; the former president of MTV, Mark Rosenthal; the chairman of DDB, Keith Reinhard; Melanie Shorin; Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.; the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern; and the president of the Center for the Advancement of Women, Faye Wattleton.


Guests included the first African American to become a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, James Cole Jr.; Bloomberg LP’s director of philanthropy, Erana Stennett; Jane Silver, the executive director of the Irene Diamond Fund, which made the largest private donation to Jazz at Lincoln Center; and the chairman of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Raymond McGuire, whose gala is Monday night.


The New York Sun

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