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News Updates

  • Marsalis and Co.‘s Mellow Feeling

    Posted on August 21st, 1997 in Review

    Although trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year for his jazz opera “Blood on the Fields,” is in greater demand than ever, he remains loyal to the small clubs that helped nurture his talent. That’s the good news. The bad news is his engagement at Blues Alley through Sunday night is sold out.   Keep reading »

  • N.Y. Gets Marsalis To Trumpet The Arts

    Posted on August 4th, 1997 in News

    Wynton Marsalis, the first jazz composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for music, is taking a seat on the New York State Council on the Arts in Albany.   Keep reading »

  • Returning Duke’s Love for a City

    Posted on July 2nd, 1997 in Review

    The thick knot of politicians heaved like longshoremen as they pulled on a yellow rope dangling from a pulley yesterday afternoon at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street. The band played ‘‘Satin Doll.’’ Lost somewhere in the cluster of raised arms were Bobby Short, the cabaret singer, and Robert Graham, the sculptor, who had made the event possible.   Keep reading »

  • Marsalis Unbound

    Posted on June 22nd, 1997 in Review

    Following a limited number of concert performances, Wynton Marsalis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composition “Blood on the Fields” has finally arrived on CD, allowing it the wider audience it deserves.   Keep reading »

  • A Swinging Travelogue, With Ellington as Guide

    Posted on May 13th, 1997 in Review

    How Chinese is Duke Ellington’s ‘‘Chinoiserie,’’ how African is his ‘‘Liberian Suite’‘? Do they become more so by a particularly forceful rendering of a little pentatonic melody, a particularly dense malleting of the tom-toms?   Keep reading »

  • Jazz at the Center

    Posted on May 12th, 1997 in Profiles & Interviews

    When Wynton Marsalis received the Pulitzer Prize recently for his three-and-a-half slavery oratorio, Blood on the Fields, he was the first jazz composer ever so recognized (Duke Ellington was specifically rejected by the board). But Marsalis - whose success at 35 as a composer, popularizer, teacher and institution-builder is unrivaled—is still an angry young man, albeit a charming and eloquent one.   Keep reading »

  • Blood Brothers

    Posted on May 10th, 1997 in Profiles & Interviews

    SLAVERY: NOW THAT’S A THEME TO SINK YOUR TEETH INTO. WYNTON MARSALIS THOUGHT SO, and he has - emotionally, mentally, spiritually and musically. With his current “epic oratorio” Blood On The Fields, featuring the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and singers Miles Griffith, Cassandra Wilson and Jon Hendricks, the intrepid Marsalis has taken a personal look into one of the most ignominious chapters in our nation’s history   Keep reading »

  • Wynton Marsalis is first jazz musician to win Pulitzer Prize

    Posted on April 28th, 1997 in Profiles & Interviews

    Wynton Marsalis says becoming the first jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize is not about him—it’s about the music. Marsalis won the prestigious prize for music for his epic jazz opera. Blood on the Fields, which focuses on the tragedy of slavery in America. Until now, the Pulitzer Prize for music has traditionally recognized classical compositions.   Keep reading »

  • For Basie, Red Hot Blues

    Posted on April 19th, 1997 in Review

    The blues settled into Alice Tully Hall on Thursday night with the arrival of the singer Dennis Rowland. Mr. Rowland was there to play the role of Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s show, ‘‘Swingin’ the Blues for Count Basie.’’   Keep reading »

  • Wynton Marsalis: Interview by Ted Panken

    Posted on April 14th, 1997 in Profiles & Interviews

    The Reigning Genius of Jazz to his admirers, the Emperor With No Clothes to his debunkers, Wynton Marsalis has attracted public attention and provoked ferociously divergent responses like few musicians in the music’s history. Since his emergence in the early 1980’s as a trumpet virtuoso and composer-bandleader, the result of Marsalis’ choice and treatment of material and his penchant for salty public statements is a public persona akin to a massive lightning rod or magnet that absorbs and repels the roiling opinions and attitudes informing the contemporary Jazz zeitgeist.   Keep reading »