Rock Chalk Suite celebrates the magic that happens when jazz and basketball meet! Commissioned for Kansas University, the album honors KU’s athletic achievements with a piece by each JLCO member honoring a different KU basketball legend.

The goal of the album was to create a sense of community, and so I had the idea of using the lines of a basketball to create a community map. As a child, creating these maps that outlined where various public services such as schools, libraries, and churches were located was my first introduction to the idea of the larger community in my own neighborhood.

This map motif incorporates the KU Jayhawks’ team colors of red, blue, and yellow while also representing the ties between Jazz at Lincoln Center and KU as part of a larger community where basketball and jazz fans alike can celebrate together.

Header photo above by Shulamit Seidler-Feller for Jazz at Lincoln Center