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A life in music: Wynton Marsalis
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.
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President Obama Talks About Jazz
Check out this clip of President Obama talking about jazz around the 2:35 mark. It features my recent trip to the White House.
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Wynton played for President Obama at White House
On Tuesday, January 20, 2009, the Wynton Marsalis Quintet played at the White House for President Barack Obama and 100 of his guests during a private party celebrating his inauguration.
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Third Screen: An Interview with Wynton Marsalis
Al Hirt may have given Wynton Marsalis his first trumpet. His dad may have stressed the value of meaningful education. New Orleans may have inspired him and surrounded him with the power of music growing up. His “Blood in the Fields” oratorio may have given him the Pulitzer Prize. And Brooklyn, he tells me, may have been the place where he first put together his world view. But no one village could have raised this child. For one thing, he doesn’t stand still. For another—trust me on this—if you think he’s a virtuoso on the trumpet, wait till you hear the virtuosity of the concert he’s doing for Martin Luther King and the Inauguration Monday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. It has jazz greats. It has dance legends. It has Jessye Norman, Angela Bassett, and Courtney Vance. And it has as its centerpiece a live conversation on jazz and democracy between Marsalis and retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who, according to Marsalis, “is just a country girl at heart who loves Bob Wells and the Texas Playboys.” I caught up with Marsalis by phone while he was on the road this weekend, somewhere between New York and Charleston, and we, too, talked jazz and democracy ... Keep reading »
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Wynton interviewed by BBC for “Notes to President Obama”
BBC World News America is asking personalities from various walks of life to tell president-elect Barack Obama what they think he should do when he takes up his new job on 20 January.
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