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The Return of the Broadway Boogie-Woogie
THE choreographer Garth Fagan and Wynton Marsalis, the co-founder and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, go way back. They met in the 1980’s when Mr. Fagan, a jazz aficionado, took his dancers to New York clubs to hear Mr. Marsalis play. “I knew we could learn from him,” Mr. Fagan said in a recent conference call with Mr. Marsalis. “I sensed we saw things the same way.” Eventually he invited Mr. Marsalis to a rehearsal at the company’s headquarters in Rochester.
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New York Diarist: Strength in Swing
Immediately following the landing of Hurricane Katrina, I received hundreds of phone calls from all over the world. They offered sympathy and resources. I don’t get those phone calls now. The ones I receive now are rife with disgust at bureaucratic fumbling, with rage at an unspecified they who are in charge of everything from predicting which levees would break to choosing which people will return. They made it happen.
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35 Who Made a Difference: Wynton Marsalis
“We’re blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last word.” This is an utterly characteristic statement by Wynton Marsalis, the trumpeter, composer and jazz impresario. He spoke those words in a television interview shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated his hometown of New Orleans. Within days he was playing in gigs to raise money for Katrina victims, including a huge benefit concert, “Higher Ground,” produced by Jazz At Lincoln Center, of which he is the artistic director. It has raised more than $2 million. Bob Dylan once remarked that a hero was “someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.” By that measure, Marsalis is a hero bona fide.
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Native Son: Wynton Marsalis
Born in New Orleans in 1961, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is the most prominent member of one of the city’s esteemed jazz families. He has won nine jazz and classical Grammys since 1983, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for his jazz opera Blood on the Fields. He is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.
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Marsalis Hosts Jazzy Hurricane Benefit Concert
Trumpet star Wynton Marsalis, co-founder and director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, is hosting a benefit concert and auction Saturday night to raise money for the Higher Ground Hurricane Fund. Artists lending their talents include James Taylor, Buckwheat Zydeco, Norah Jones and many others. Keep reading »
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Marsalis on Jazz: His five favorite classic recordings
We caught up with Wynton Marsalis, the 43-year-old jazz trumpeter and composer, as he was preparing for the fall concert series at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, where he is artistic director. The new program salutes the great cities of jazz; tonight Mr. Marsalis and other artists will perform in a hurricane-relief benefit concert for New Orleans. Here, the Pulitzer-winning musician tells us why he thinks these five albums deserve consideration as the finest jazz recordings of all time.
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Wynton’s Journey to New Orleans on ABC 20/20
Wynton Marsalis is on a journey back home. He’s on a mission to console friends, inspire hope and see firsthand his beloved New Orleans—the city he calls the soul of the country.
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Wynton Marsalis: Blowing his own trumpet
The leading voice in American jazz is bringing his epic work for choir, orchestra and jazz band to Britain. All the music of his country is there, the composer tells Michael Church Keep reading »
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Saving America’s Soul Kitchen
Now the levee breach has been fixed. The people have been evacuated. Army Corps of Engineers magicians will pump the city dry, and the slow (but quicker than we think) job of rebuilding will begin. Then there will be no 24-hour news coverage. The spin doctors’ narrative will create a wall of illusion thicker than the new levees. The job of turning our national disaster into sound-bite-size commercials with somber string music will be left to TV. The story will be sanitized as our nation’s politicians congratulate themselves on a job well done. Americans of all stripes will demonstrate saintly concern for one another. It’s what we do in a crisis.
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Wynton interviewed by French newspaper Le Monde
Wynton talked to the french newspaper Le Monde, about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. 
Here is the interview translated in English
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