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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release September 18, 1998
                  MILLENNIUM EVENING AT THE WHITE HOUSE
                    JAZZ: AN EXPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY

The President and Mrs. Clinton have announced the 4th Millennium Evening at the White House will be "Jazz: An Expression of Democracy," featuring the Grammy Award-winning artist Wynton Marsalis, and celebrated jazz musician Marian McPartland. The event will take place in the East Room of the White House on Friday, September 18 at 7:30 p.m.

The President and Mrs. Clinton will take part in a discussion of jazz as an unique art form that has reflected and transformed American society. The history of jazz in the United States, as well as its impact around the world, will be told in words and music accompanied by a 17 piece band made up of renowned jazz musicians.

Millennium Evenings at the White House is a series of lectures and cultural showcases that highlight creativity and inventiveness through our ideas, art and scientific discoveries. The lectures, presented by prominent scholars, creators and visionaries are accessible to the public via broadcast and cybercast. The President and Mrs. Clinton encourage the public to participate by e-mailing questions or comments either before or during the cybercast, provided by Sun Microsystems. These may be sent via the White House Web Site (http://www.whitehouse.gov). The web site will post satellite coordinates (on C and KU bands) and serve as a link to the cybercast. On the KU Band Satellite - Telstar 5, Transponder - K-24, Orbital Slot - 97 degrees, and Downlink Frequency - 12022 MHZ (V). On the C Band Satellite - Telestar 5, Transponder - C-7, Orbital Slot - 97 degrees, and Downlink Frequency - 3840 MHZ (V). It will also be available via the web page of Sun Microsystems (http://www.sun.com).

Wynton Marsalis is among the most popular and accomplished musicians of his generation. He is the first musician to have received Grammy Awards for both jazz and classical recordings in the same year. Marsalis is also a dedicated jazz educator, serving as Artistic Director for "Jazz at Lincoln Center," a repertory performance series he co-founded in 1987. He conducts master classes for young musicians throughout America and hosts numerous concert series, radio shows and television programs. He is also serving as Senior Creative Consultant for the production of "Jazz," a nine-part documentary television series by film maker Ken Burns.

Marian McPartland is best known as the hostess of the long running National Public Radio program, "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz." Since 1979, McPartland has interviewed and performed with over 400 guest artists from the world of jazz. Born in Windsor, England, Margaret Marian Turner began her musical career at the age of three by attempting to emulate her mother who loved to play Chopin waltzes on the piano. By her teens McPartland was practicing eight hours a day and enrolled at London's prestigious Guildhall School of Music. In the 1940s she met the charismatic Chicago Cornetist, Jimmy McPartland. The two were married in Germany in 1945 and returned to Jimmy's home town following the end of the war.

Other participating musicians and commentators include: Dr. David Baker, Dr. Billy Taylor, Loren Schoenberg and Dianne Reeves.

Previous Millennium Evenings featured Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn lecturing on core American ideas which must be preserved into the next millennium, Cambridge University physicist Stephen Hawking who discussed "Imagination and Change: Science in the Next Millennium," and "A Celebration of American Poetry" with Poets Laureate Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass and Rita Dove.

The Millennium Evening on jazz is co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with support from Sun Microsystems, VH1, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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