-
Wynton speaks about Congo Square on JALC Radio
On Jazz at Lincoln Center Radio, the currently featured show is Congo Square.
Keep reading »
You can listen to the complete show (Real Player required) or listen to some interesting interview about the composition. -
Plantation Polemics: From Slavery to Supercapitalism
With his vexed views on the subject of “tradition” Wynton Marsalis, who graced Jazzwise’s first cover ten years ago, has become the epitome of the starchy jazz conservative that many would-be jazz liberals love to hate. Keep reading »
-
Wynton Marsalis: Wynton Throws Down the Gauntlet
Like Howard Beale in Network, Wynton Marsalis is mad as hell and he’s not gonna take it anymore. Of course, the 45-year-old trumpeter-bandleader and celebrated jazz ambassador has always been riled and outraged, ever since he was an audacious, outspoken kid back in New Orleans. And over the course of the past 20 years, he has always spoken his mind in interviews or in casual conversation. Like his equally unguarded brother Branford, you know where Wynton stands. He pulls no punches, never attempts to obfuscate. Like him or not, he’s painfully direct, unwavering in his convictions.
Keep reading » -
Marsalis shoots straight from the lip
It’s only a few seconds, but silence is not what you expect from jazz’s outspoken and charismatic ambassador, better known for what he says than what he plays.
Keep reading »
Nor was it his typical mien during the Star’s brief afternoon backstage visit to the trumpeter-composer’s dressing room at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Manhattan headquarters. -
In the Mood for Festivals at Jazz at Lincoln Center
A theme of romance threads through the 2007-8 season for Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis, its artistic director, said in an interview yesterday. Keep reading »
-
Marsalis’ Sharp Social Critiques Come with Cool Riffs
Every decade or so, says jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, he likes to set his social views to music. The last time around, it was Blood on the Fields, which won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in music, a first for a jazz composition. Keep reading »
-
Shock of the new
Wynton Marsalis is 10 minutes into an angry denunciation of hip-hop and he’s just hitting his stride. “I call it ‘ghetto minstrelsy’,” he says. “Old school minstrels used to say they were ‘real darkies from the real plantation’. Hip-hop substitutes the plantation for the streets. Now you have to say that you’re from the streets, you shot some brothers, you went to jail. Rappers have to display the correct pathology. Rap has become a safari for people who get their thrills from watching African-American people debase themselves, men dressing in gold, calling themselves stupid names like Ludacris or 50 Cent, spending money on expensive fluff, using language like ‘bitch’ and ‘ho’ and ‘nigger’.”
Keep reading » -
Wynton’s 10 great places to get jazzed about great jazz
Swing your way through Black History Month with jazz. Rooted in African folk music traditions and the American soil, jazz was invented in the USA. Trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis shares his picks of top jazz clubs with Kathy Baruffi for USA TODAY. Marsalis is artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, the first complex ever built specifically for this indigenous music form. The state-of-the-art spaces include the cozy Dizzy Club Coca-Cola (jalc.org), where top talent is served together with great food and knockout views of the skyline.
Keep reading » -
Marsalis’ stunning opus transcends race and epochs
The New York Philharmonic messed up rhythms, the singers struggled to find their cues and conductor Kurt Masur begged for last-minute clarifications in a score that never had been performed before.
Keep reading »
Meanwhile, composer Wynton Marsalis paced the stage of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, attempting to answer 1,001 questions lobbed at him by instrumentalists, singers, technicians and practically everyone else within earshot. -
Hot corporations know how to swing
Leading a company is often compared to conducting an orchestra. But organizing a jazz band may be a more appropriate analogy. That’s because business leaders increasingly want to set free the creative juices of individuality while maintaining the discipline to make music, not noise. USA TODAY’s Del Jones went to Wynton Marsalis, 45, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, who was named one of America’s Best Leaders in 2006 by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and U.S. News & World Report.
Keep reading »