Stars come out for 1st International Jaz...

Stars come out for 1st International Jaz...

JC McIlwane/Getty Images

South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela performing at the International Jazz Day Concert at U.N. Headquarters in New York.

The audience for the inaugural concert of International Jazz Day at the United Nations on Monday was kissed, time and time again, by moments of sheer musical bliss.

There was a headspinning roster of talent inside the U.N. General Assembly Hall and an A-list of celebrity hosts, including Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro and Quincy Jones.

Compositions by George Gershwin, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington, among others, became democratic platforms for fluid ensemble cooperation and heartfelt individual expression.

Tony Bennetts rendition of Kurt Weills Lost in the Stars was musical story-telling at its best.

Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette and Wayne Shorter (all Miles Davis alumni) elaborated the tension and release of Davis Milestones.

After Freeman described the blues as the emotional and spiritual touchstone of jazz musicians around the world, musical director George Duke was joined by guitarist Derek Trucks, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, and guitar-playing vocalists Robert Cray and Susan Tedeschi to blow the blues away on Howlin Wolfs How Many More Years.

Flaunting her close familiarity with jazz styling, a svelte, sexy Chaka Khan sang a swingin version of Them There Eyes, with tenor sax man Joe Lovano uncoiling a solo, in honor of Ella Fitzgerald.

Jazz embracing peoples and musical forms around the world was a major theme.

African roots were honored when Angelique Kidjo and Lionel Loueke (both from Benin), Richard Bona (Cameroon), and the South African jazz icon Hugh Masekela, were joined by Stevie Wonder on harmonica and elder statesman saxophonist Jimmy Heath for rendition of Masekela's 1968 hit, Grazing in the Grass.

Sheila E. and Candido, 91, lit up the hall with lilting Latin jazz in a group led by drummer Bobby Sanabria. A duo of Hancock and Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang performing Tonight from West Side Story brought a breathtaking hush to the great hall.

Japanese piano wonder Hiromi Uehara, joined by trumpeter Terence Blanchard and Israeli saxophonist Eli Degibri, began the folk song Sakura, Sakura with a gentle touch that blossomed into two-handed fury.

East Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain leavened several songs, taking a thrilling solo on Cottontail after Dee Dee Bridgewater and Shankar Mahadevan scatting over fast changes in an Indian vocal style traded choruses.

Pianist Danilo Perez, from Panama, performed with special sensitivity to the blues accompanying an inspired Wynton Marsalis on St. James Infirmary, a folk song made famous by Louis Armstrong in 1928.