NEW YORK — The Queen of Soul made a surprise appearance at the House of Swing, helping the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra usher in the holiday season at its first concert in its newly refurbished home.

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis had a special gift for the audience when he introduced Aretha Franklin in the middle of Thursday night’s annual “Big Band Holidays” concert at the Rose Theater. The concert followed a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by Bette Midler to open the new Mica and Ahmet Ertegun Atrium at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Aretha Franklin walked onstage in the middle of a Wynton Marsalis concert in New York City in 2015. She played piano and sang “O Tannenbaum” and then covered “My Cup Runneth Over.” The Associated Press

Franklin, walking onstage to a standing ovation, said, “Wynton, I think maybe I’ll change the program just a little bit.”

Accompanying herself on piano, she then sang the Christmas carol “O Tannenbaum” in English and German. She followed with a soulful, gospel-infused version of the Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt tune “My Cup Runneth Over,” an outtake from her 1972 album “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” which she recently added to her concert repertoire.

The 73-year-old diva, joking that “this happens to be my 50th year in the business and I’m feeling it,” dedicated her performance to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, who died in 2006. Ertegun signed Franklin to the label in 1967 and helped turn her into the Queen of Soul by recording such hits as “Respect.”

Mica Ertegun, a prominent interior designer, chose to honor her late husband’s legacy by providing the lead gift and taking an active role in the makeover of the public spaces connecting Jazz at Lincoln Center’s three performance venues.

Related Stories