Afro-Latin jazz puts swing in UNLV

Friday, March 10, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

For jazz fans, there's one particularly special ticket in town this weekend.

Lincoln Center's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the UNLV auditorium as part of the New York Stage & Beyond Series.

Led by pianist Arturo O'Farrill, the 18-member orchestra will perform new works and classic pieces by Tito Puente and Chico O'Farrill, among others. Arturo O'Farrill is the son of late trumpeter Chico O'Farrill, who collaborated with Dizzy Gillespie and played with several Cuban bands in Cuba and the United States.

"This is an all-star band steeped in Latin tradition," said Bruce Paulson, a former member of the NBC "Tonight Show" band under Doc Severinsen. Paulson, who teaches jazz studies and trombone at UNLV, also spent a year recording and playing with the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band.

"If you want to hear Latin jazz played as it's supposed to be played, this would be the band to go hear. They're maintaining the legacy of great traditional Latin artists and carrying it forward with new works."

Afro-Latin jazz originated in the 1940s as Gillespie and Stan Kenton experimented with mixing jazz with rhythms from Africa and Latin America.

"African and Latin influences, these two combined are one of the most important aspects of all jazz and New York is the real hotbed for Afro-Latin Jazz," Paulson said.

The orchestra was created in 2002 by O'Farrill, the group's music director, and Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Tickets are $45, $60 and $90. Call 895-1575.

Mountain world in film

A high-altitude hockey tournament in Ladakhi, India, and rock climbing in Indian Creek, Utah, are a couple of outdoor adventures featured in the Banff Mountain Film Festival stopping in Las Vegas next week on its world tour. The festival, which highlights films on mountain sports, adventure and environmental interests, will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Clark County Library Theater, 1401 E. Flamingo Road. Admission is free, but tickets are required. For more information, call 507-3459.

Pulitzer Prize

UNLV's Boyd School of Law announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Jack Rakove will be the speaker for its second annual Philip Pro Lecture in Legal History on March 27.

The Stanford University professor, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1997 for his book, "Original Meaning: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution," is a constitutional historian.

His lecture, "Presidential Commander: Constitutional Myth, Political Reality," will question the Bush administration's interpretation of executive power during wartime.

The lecture is open to the public and will be in Room 102 of the law school. Admission is free. Call 895-3671.