The acclaimed Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by music director and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, will perform selections from band member/ jazz reedman Ted Nash’s new jazz suite, “Portrait in Seven Shades,” Wednesday night, March 17, in Hill Auditorium.

The work consists of 7 movements, each inspired by a master of modern art — Chagall, Dali, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Pollack and Van Gogh. The concert also features selections by Count Basie, Mary Lou Williams and others.

Listen to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra album “Portrait in Seven Shades”:

This performance marks the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s 12th University Musical Society-sponsored concert and Marsalis’ 13th UMS appearance.

In addition to leading his own groups and being an instrumental member of the New York-based Jazz Composers Collective, Ted Nash has been involved for nearly a decade with Jazz at Lincoln Center. AnnArbor.com recently caught up with him by phone at his New York City-area home.

Q: What are the origins of “Portrait in Seven Shades”? Wynton commissioned me to write a long-form piece. He wanted an opportunity to feature something of mine at some future date. It didn’t take me long to come up with something that would give me real inspiration.

Q: Why artists? Is that an interest of yours? Are you an artist yourself? I’ve never been a painter. I’ve dabbled a bit in sketching and painting, but I don’t think I’m very good. I love the arts in general, I love combining the arts, crossing music with different art forms — we do it with dance, and theater sometimes. I remember my first visits to New York with my family when I was 10, to the Guggenheim, and seeing the Chagall painting “Green Violinist” — it just created such a fantasy in my head. I thought it would be amazing to choose different iconic painters and write a movement for each one. … We draw a lot of parallels between art and music when we talk about things like textures and colors and shapes. I think also artists and musicians share a lot in terms of what we go through as artists. I feel drawn to painters for that reason.

Q: Is there a reason you chose the painters you did? They are all pretty well known. I had a big list originally that included painters that were not household names, including a painter that was a friend of my family’s when I was growing up, and there were painters like (Willem) de Kooning and (Robert) Motherwell that weren’t so well known, but I chose the heavy hitters. In one sense, it’s a risk to choose famous painters, because people have already formulated certain ideas and feelings about their paintings and what music maybe should accompany that. But I thought it would be a great experience for people — it would give them a new perspective on something with which they are already familiar.

Q: Did you immerse yourself in the works at art museums? Read artist biographies? How did you get in the frame of mind to write these pieces? I did all of that. The Museum of Modern Art, which houses the main collection that I used, I developed a nice relationship with them and they allowed me to come to the museum at off hours whenever I wanted to. I could see (Van Gogh’s) “Starry Night” or (Picasso’s) “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” up close without anybody else in the room, to kind of get a feeling for it without distractions. Sometimes I’d even bring an instrument to the museum and play, kind of mix with the vibration of the painting. I also did a lot of research biographically, I Googled a lot of the painters and found different articles that helped me understand them as people too, their techniques and what their objectives were as artists, which is important to me.

Ted Nash talks about artist Jackson Pollock and “Portrait in Seven Shades”: (For more videos about “Portrait” artists, visit the MoMAvideos channel on YouTube.)

Q: Did you keep coming back to any particular work of art? “Starry Night” was important for me, because it’s famous, I’ve known it for so long and a lot of people identify with it, but it also shows the view from Van Gogh’s window in the mental hospital he was in at the time. I wrote lyrics for that movement — I refer to that view and the colors of that painting. Also, with Salvador Dali, there were several images from “Persistence of Memory” — it’s got the dripping clocks, I wanted to use that image and some of the things it suggests in the music itself — different ways of dealing with time, bending time, were really important.

Q: Were characteristics of the artists’ personalities incorporated in “Seven Shades?” Monet, yes. It was the impressionistic style of his art, and maybe certain harmonies are suggested by the impressionist period of music, which I love so much. With Pollock, it was really a reaction to how he worked — like the splatters, the way he would throw the paint on the canvas. I treated the piano as a canvas, and sort of threw splatters of notes. I hit certain phrases sort of accidentally on purpose. Like the way he worked, it looks very random, but it is very organized. Each painter, (with) each movement I did, really took on its own sort of life.

PREVIEW Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Who: One of the country's top jazz ensembles, led by Wynton Marsalis. What: New suite "Portrait in Seven Shades," plus some old favorites. When: 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 17. Where: Hill Auditorium, 825 North University Avenue. How much: $10-$54, available online at www.ums.org, by phone at 734-764-2538, or from the ticket office at the Michigan League. Free Education Event: WEMU music director and host Linda Yohn and others will explore the work of frequent UMS performer / Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra leader Wynton Marsalis at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 16 at the Ann Arbor District Library Multipurpose Room.

Q: Do you have a favorite artist among the group in “Seven Shades?” I think Matisse is probably my favorite artist out of the group, just based on looking at his paintings and getting a certain feeling from them based on the colors and shapes. Picasso I think is probably the most amazing artist of all time. He’s sort of the Miles Davis of the art world. What an influence he’s had on other artists and movements of art. There are a couple in that group that were not my favorite painters, Pollock was not, and Dali was not. I really respect what they were doing, but looking at their paintings, they weren’t the ones that moved me as much. I thought choosing them would be good for the music because it would give me such a difference to deal with because the artists are so different.

Q: How will the Ann Arbor show be structured? The first half will be a collection of works, our favorite stuff, probably a combination of music by well-known composers and jazz musicians, and maybe things by other members of the band, and Wynton certainly. The second half will be my work.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add? We will be selling the CD, which came out February 2. If people enjoy the music they should pick up the CD, as it has really great liner notes and has some paintings printed in it, and the band sounds so amazing. I believe they will be having me sign CDs, so if people want to stick around I’ll be doing that.

Roger LeLievre is a freelance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com.