Down on the Bayou where the mighty Mississippi kisses Lake Pontchartrain and spills into the Gulf of Mexico. There sits that jewel of the Southland. What the French lost to the British who gave it to the Spanish who lost it back to the French who sold it to America for….. Well, some folks say Jefferson conned Napoleon in a card game and won it for some jambalaya and a chicory coffee.
Wynton Marsalis loves the sound of New York City. For the 48-year-old jazzman, there’s a thrilling harmony in the jangle of the streets. “If you listen beneath the surface of noise—the construction, the sound of the traffic, beneath the rumble of the subway—you can get down to the different interactions between people,” he says.
NEW YORK - Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis offered thanks over the holiday weekend to fans who have stuck with him through the years by presenting a free concert in the intimate setting of Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
About 130 tickets to Marsalis’ Fan Appreciation Concert were distributed randomly among the thousands of subscribers to his e-newsletter. An additional 14,000 fans watched a free live stream of Sunday night’s performance by Marsalis’ quintet on his Facebook page, according to his executive assistant, Meghan Thornton.
Toddlers filled a classroom one recent Saturday morning inside Frederick P. Rose Hall. Most sat in a circle brandishing toy shakers, some wandered off in the stagger of the newly walking. Welcome to WeBop!, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s program for children 8 months to 5 years old, at which singer Patrice Turner cleverly fit the words to the children’s book “Goodnight, Moon” into John Coltrane’s “Central Park West.”
Check out an excerpt from Wynton’s “Jazz Is Life Music” :
“In the past thirty years, I have had the good fortune to teach thousands of bands and an incalculable number of students in diverse settings. Though each situation is unique, students share many of the same concerns in pursuit of a more profound relationship with music and with life through music. Every style of music presents distinct challenges which demand the development of different skills. Jazz requires creativity, communication and community.
On inauguration day in Washington earlier this year, the Wynton Marsalis Quintet played a private party at the White House in honour of President Obama. The two men are the same age, but long before Obama came to prominence, Marsalis had been a national figure and so while he says “as a liberal and a Democrat I, of course, feel that things are better in America”, he is experienced enough to know that change, particularly in the areas he cares about most, might not come as quickly as he would like.
Wynton posted this as an answer to his last question during the Facebook Q&A. There are 7 basic rungs of resistance up the ladder of artistic success.
I will start from the lowest rung to the highest.
1. Ignorance - Not your fault. Generally the result of a polluted environment. No one knows, so you don’t know.
Example: You think funk is jazz.
2. Miseducation - Your teachers are well meaning, but just don’t know. It’s no one’s fault. Example: someone tells you, you have to study classical music to become a jazz musician. Bad advice.
Wynton is now in Washington, DC, to play for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Following you can find a quote from Wynton’s commentary about the role of jazz music, democracy and the presidential inauguration, published yesterday on CNN. You can also give a look to the interview he gave for the Huffington Post.
On the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, let’s recognize the pernicious effects of separating people by generic categories. In the fields of science and technology, we accept that one generation builds on another. But in the popular worlds of culture, there’s a generation war in which “young” is considered energetic and good and “old” equals passé and tired. So inaccurate. Culture provides a stream of forever-fresh ideas. The generations need one another…….
……President Obama’s inauguration is not a beginning, but the continuation of a glorious history that is hallmarked by the American people’s desire to be one. Our Constitution demands it. And it forces us to a life much greater than the Founding Fathers could have possibly imagined. In the words of Duke Ellington, supreme master of the blues, “The people are my people.” Hallelujah.
© Wynton Marsalis
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