-
Video: Wynton and Sandra Day O’Connor discuss jazz music and government
Last January, at JALC, Wynton and The Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor filmed short clips discussing the relationship between the U.S. government and jazz music. The result was broadcast on Martin Luther King Day during Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Let Freedom Swing!” concert in Washington D.C., on January 19, 2009. Following you can watch the clips, entitled: *Democracy, Unity and American Art…*
Keep reading » -
Let’s treasure the old along with the new
(CNN)—On the dawn of the most historic inauguration of our time, we nervously await “change we can believe in.”
Keep reading »
Politicians and pundits analyze every pre-presidential utterance and come to quick conclusions about what will happen under the new administration. -
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 »