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A 2006 DownBeat Feature on Wynton Marsalis, Who Turned 50 Yesterday
I couldn’t attend Wynton Marsalis’s four 50th birthday concerts in which he presented repertoire from his 30+ years in the music business. All accounts state — no doubt accurately — that to witness them was an extraordinary experience. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis going strong at 50
By jazz standards, 50 is young — at least when you consider that pioneers such as saxophonist Benny Carter and trumpeter Doc Cheatham were playing beautifully into their 90s. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis - interview with Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2
Jamie Cullum showcases his love for all types of jazz, and music rooted in jazz, from its heritage to the future. This week, he chats to the American trumpeter, composer, bandleader and music educator Wynton Marsalis about his life and incredible music career. Keep reading »
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Fifteen Questions with Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis: In a jazz band, the drummer conducts. A leader must embody a spirit. The leader embodies the spirit, and the musicians choose to follow it. That’s how it goes ... but I rehearse the band, you know what I mean? That’s how I lead. There’s a hierarchy, a check down system built on mutual respect and understanding. My band has chosen to accept my leadership. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis strikes a mellow note
As a guest of the Market Theatre’s 6/12 Conversation series on Tuesday, he was a model of self-effacing modesty: a man who’s still learning (“Art Blakey told me I sounded ‘sad’—and he was right”), who’s made more than his share of mistakes, who owes what he is to generations of trumpet-players as well as to his family and community. It was impossible not to warm to his humanity and humour. Keep reading »
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PBS NewsHour: Wynton Marsalis Pays Homage to Jazz’s Past by Investing in Its Future
Part-competition, part-celebration, 110 high school bands entered this year’s Essentially Ellington Jazz Competition, submitting recorded performances for the judges. Just 15 were chosen. Jeffrey Brown sits down with the man behind it all: jazz great Wynton Marsalis.
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50 great moments in jazz: Wynton Marsalis goes back to basics
Like Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett and the late Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis is one of a handful of jazz instrumentalists whose name is known beyond the world of the jazz cognoscenti. But unlike the other three, Marsalis has polarised opinion more than any other jazz artist of the last 30 years.
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A consummately skilful trumpeter, an ambitious large-scale composer and a shrewd campaigner for jazz, he has become one of the biggest international stars of a tradition that was already being marginalised by rock and pop-influenced jazz by the time he burst on to the scene as a teenage virtuoso in the early-80s. -
“Wynton Goes to Harvard” - An Interview with the Wall Street Journal
Pulitzer-prize winning jazzman Wynton Marsalis considers himself both student and teacher of music, which is why it comes as no surprise that his newest undertaking is a two-year lecture series at Harvard University.
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Beginning on April 28, Marsalis will lecture and perform a class entitled “Music as Metaphor.” The nine-time Grammy award winner currently serves as the artistic director for Jazz at Lincoln Center, a role he will keep throughout the lecture series. Speakeasy talked with Marsalis about the coming series, his love of last-minute pressures and the concept of improvisation. -
Team Marsalis: All in The Family
Jason Marsalis looks serious as he fiddles with his drum sticks at Manhattan’s Apple Store. He’s sitting at his trap set, paces away from his dad, pianist Ellis, getting ready to hit. But then again, Jason often looks serious. Perhaps the snap he brings to his music demands it ... or perhaps not. As the father and son start to ignite with bassist Jason Stewart, the drummer begins to get his grin on. The spry way he delivers his swing pretty much demands a smile or two. Goading his dad’s glide over the keys, he helps bring an elan to the room. The Marsalises have a way of quickly connecting. Keep reading »
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Famous trumpet player Wynton Marsalis spreads gospel of committment to young people through music
Practice. As in dedication. Also see: integrity. Every time he gets a chance, Wynton Marsalis lays a message on young people that requires no fancy instrument, just a solo commitment. The jazz and classical trumpeter and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer got that chance recently at a Passport to Manhood program in the gym of the Boys & Girls Club of New Rochelle. He shot some hoops — hitching up his suspenders and complaining that he hadn’t worked on his game in the two years it took to write his last symphony. He shared a meal of dirty rice, fried fish and potato salad, then delivered the challenge. Keep reading »