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KENTUCKY.COM

By Walter Tunis
CONTRIBUTING MUSIC WRITER

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis at the Kentucky Center in Louisville: What's with all the name changes? It's not the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra anymore, but the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. What hasn't changed, luckily, is the muscular musicianship and expansive repertoire Marsalis and his mates bring to a performance. Billed as part of "The Songs We Love Tour," this initially appeared to be a program of the overly familiar. Sunny Side of the Street, Autumn Leaves, Sweet Georgia Brown -- they all drew immediate sighs of recognition from the capacity crowd when Marsalis announced them. But the focus was on arrangements, such as a Bob Brookmeyer chart of My Funny Valentine first done for Gerry Mulligan. Top honors, though, went to "an arrangement of an arrangement" -- specifically, Lincoln Center saxman Ted Nash's joyous expansion of John Coltrane's rich version of My Favorite Things that came to life with a persuasive front line of five dynamite soprano saxophonists.