-
Two beats
Around three-fifteen on a recent afternoon, the trombone player and music producer Delfeayo Marsalis sat in the control room of a studio in the West Fifties and said to his brother Wynton and eleven other musicians, “We’re rolling, this is Take 68.” The musicians were recording “Tournament Galop,” a Romantic piano piece that was written by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who was born in New Orleans in 1829. Take 67 had been Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 6, also written for the piano but arranged in this case for piano and brass. Both pieces will accompany a new silent film, “Louis,” a fictionalized account of the childhood of Louis Armstrong. When “Louis” is shown, in five cities over seven days at the end of August, Marsalis and the others will perform the score live. They were recording the soundtrack for a CD.
Keep reading » -
Wynton Marsalis gets the Berlin Phil to swing
Equally at home in both the classical and jazz genres, Wynton Marsalis is one of the most renowned trumpeters and composers of our time. He is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. Keep reading »
-
At Trumpeter’s Home, the Door’s Always Open
On Thursday evening, Joey Pero walked past Lincoln Center and stepped into the lobby of a luxury high-rise apartment building on West 66th Street and told the doorman, “We’re here to see Wynton.” Keep reading »
-
Wynton Marsalis Awarded French Legion of Honor in NYC
Wynton Marsalis received France’s highest distinction last week in New York – the insignia of chevalier of the Legion of Honor, an honor that was first awarded by Napoleon Bonaparte. Keep reading »
-
Wynton Marsalis Featured In Vogue Magazine
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.
Keep reading » -
Wynton on Downbeat: 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.
Keep reading » -
Wynton Marsalis’s Enduring Opus
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.”
Keep reading » -
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.
Keep reading » -
Ellis Marsalis and Sons Plan Rare Family Performance at Jazz Festival
Except in their living room back home in New Orleans, there have been only a few times when the entire Marsalis family has gathered in one spot to make music together. On Monday, Ellis Marsalis—the father and guiding spirit of America’s first family of jazz—and his four music-playing sons will appear at the Kennedy Center for their first joint appearance in Washington. Keep reading »
-
Wynton Marsalis Goes to Washington
Even a day later, Wynton Marsalis couldn’t explain why he was crying so hard during the speech he gave last Monday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “Man, I don’t know,” he told me. “I’m not really a person that’s effusive. I’m a quiet type of person. Dick Vermeil”—the notoriously teary ex-NFL coach—“that’s not me.” Keep reading »