A virtuosic love song for Duke Ellington

Performances by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra are always masterful examples of technical fluency. Playing music that covers the gamut of the jazz century, the orchestra’s artists apply their virtuosic individual skills to the creation of a stunning musical collectivity.

And they did that once again Friday at Disney Hall, in a program devoted to the “Love Songs” of Duke Ellington. Despite the title, with its inference that the evening would simply focus on romantic balladry, everything that Ellington (and his composing companion, Billy Strayhorn) touched bore the stamp of musical genius.

Marsalis knows the breadth of the Ellington canon as well as anyone, and his selections reached from such classics as “Sophisticated Lady” and “Prelude to a Kiss” to the far more infrequently heard “Lady of the Lavender Mist” and “Warm Valley.”

What emerged was both the brilliance of Ellington and the determination of Marsalis to keep this music alive -- not just in reissues, but also in performances simmering with vitality.

The standard of the evening was set early, when Marsalis, strolling around the stage, played a Bubber Miley-styled, plunger-muted solo introduction to “Creole Love Call.”

Other pieces featured virtually every member in the ensemble’s lineup of gifted soloists: Joe Temperley’s baritone saxophone on “Sophisticated Lady” and his stunning bass-clarinet version of “A Single Petal of a Rose”; trumpeter Ryan Kisor’s dramatic rendering of “Concerto for Cootie”; alto saxophonist Sherman Irby’s luscious readings of “Prelude to a Kiss” and “Warm Valley”; and Sean Jones’ trumpet on “In a Mellow Tone.”

Many of the arrangements had received carefully updated revisions.

But -- beyond the extraordinary technical skills of Marsalis and the players, beyond the capacity of Ellington’s music to sound as vital and, yes, as relevant as it did when it was first heard -- there was a pervasive sense of joy that illuminated everything that was performed, a transformative musical energy that reached out into the hall to embrace every member of the full house.