Adonis Rose and his New Orleans Jazz Orchestra take the stage alongside Orrin Evans leading the Captain Black Big Band for Jazz In June: Battle of the Big Bands, hosted by and featuring the vocals of Ravinia Jazz Advisor Kurt Elling, and the standard-setting bassist Rufus Reid, a co-Artistic Director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Jazz Program, also guests across the evening. Each Grammy Award-winning ensemble hails from a community vital to Black music, New Orleans and Philadelphia, and will provide an evening of unmatched jazz. The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra exists with the belief that jazz can be the catalyst for positive and permanent change in the community, running the city’s acclaimed Jazz Market. Evans’s Captain Black Big Band moves with versatility between big band and small ensemble playing, a flexible and tightrope-walking unit whose daring approach lends their music an exhilarating edge. The two groups face off in Ravinia’s Pavilion.

Before the big bands take the stage, the young professional musicians from this summer’s RSMI Jazz Program play a set in the Pavilion—a prelude to their annual Jazz Grandstand concert of all original works next week—and the phenomenal Chicago Public High School musicians of the Ravinia Jazz Scholars take the Carousel Stage soon after the park opens. Students of Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play, the Scholars work throughout the year with eight of Chicago’s top performing and teaching artists—the Ravinia Jazz Mentors—and play shows around the Chicago area and at Ravinia each year on their way to beginning professional careers.

Miscellaneous Information
Tickets: $46-$80

Admission Cost

For more information, call 847.266.5100 [email protected]

< Back to Calendar of Events