For those not in the know, Thad Jones was still in his mid-50s when he originally recorded “My Centennial,” little more than halfway to the landmark birthday suggested by the composition’s title – hardly out of character for a trumpeter, composer and bandleader who was always well ahead of his time.

With Joes’ untimely passing in 1986 at the age of 63, the responsibility of commemorating his actual centennial – March 28, 2023, to be exact – falls to the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the now-legendary ensemble that he co-founded in 1966 as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.

Centennial: The Music of Thad Jones (due out August 30th via BCM+D Records), is a vibrant celebration of an unparalleled body of work and an estimable legacy, renewed and revivified every Monday night on the stage of the most revered jazz club on the planet.

“I always say that we have two things going for us that no other band has,” explains bass trombonist Douglas Purviance, who joined the VJO in 1978 and now serves as its business manager. “That’s Thad Jones’ music and a steady gig at the Mecca of jazz. It’s every jazz musician’s goal to play the Village Vanguard, and we get to do that every week. It’s magic every Monday.”

The magic was extended to a week long enchantment in February 2024, as it is every year, to celebrate the ensemble’s own anniversary. Late in 1965, Jones -- middle brother of the famed jazz family that also included pianist Hank and drummer Elvin -- and the drummer Mel Lewis had agreed to share the helm of a new big band, booking three nights the following February to test the concept on the stage of the Village Vanguard.

The club’s cantankerous owner, Max Gordon, grudgingly acknowledged the Orchestra’s successful debut, reportedly suggesting, “We’ll keep it going until it tapers off.”

Nearly six decades and more than 2,700 Monday nights later, the Vanguard is still waiting. The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra modernized the big band sound as the world changed through the late 60s and early 70s.

Jones’ writing and arranging drew upon the inspiration of the two most iconic bands in jazz history, elegantly interweaving the complexity and elegance of Duke Ellington with the fervor and blues roots of Count Basie, in whose band Jones had launched his career.

Disc 1:
1. Interloper (9:40)
2. Antigua (8:31)
3. Blues in a Minute (12:31)
4. 61st & Rich’it (12:52)
5. A Child Is Born (6:33)
6. Tow Away Zone (10:46)

The set-list, which reaches all the way back to the band’s beginnings, opens the first disc on the expressively free flowing Interloper and then brings us the sparkling Antigua, the veritably cinematic gem Blues in a Minute, the emotively entrancing 61st & Rich’it (which itself serves as a tribute to another foundational band member, original Orchestra bassist Richard Davis, who passed away in September 2023), and then we get both the dutifully spellbinding ballad A Child is Born and the spirited Tow Away Zone.

Disc 2:
7. Back Bone (11:02)
8. My Centennial (11:38)
9. All of Me (8:05)
10. Once Around (9:29)
11. Easy Livin’ (8:54)
12. Don’t Git Sassy (14:29)

Along next on this vibrant two-album set captured live on stage at the ensemble’s Monday night home for nearly six decades, the iconic Village Vanguard, the second disc opens on the luxuriant Back Bone and the fervently-charged My Centennial, and they are then in turn backed seamlessly by the sumptuous All of Me, the all-embracing Once Around, the recording rounding out on an impassioned Easy Livin’, closing on the soulful finger-snapper Don’t Git Sassy.