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Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, 29, has already released 14 albums and shown steady growth
SAN DIEGO — Six months shy of his 30th birthday, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has already ensured that he won’t ever be labeled an underachiever. During a recording career not quite 10 years old, he has released 14 albums as a leader—and that doesn’t count his classical or Christmas releases. Keep reading »
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An Interview with Wynton Marsalis, Winter 1991
The conversation took place after his talk and before the show, in a small room in the student center. A few other Vassar students joined us while Marsalis and a bespectacled companion (listed in my notes only as “specs”) enjoyed a fish dinner, prepared by a student chef. Keep reading »
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SAINT OR SINNER. When Wynton Marsalis comes marching in
One. two. one. two, here we go,” says Wynton Marsalis as the videotape rolls and the band starts in on another take. On the monitor, a private eye is bringing a woman up to his apartment and Marsalis calls for some sexy sounds to accompany the scene from Shannon’s Deal, director John Sayles’ TV series that features an original score by Marsalis. Keep reading »
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Academy of Achievement: Interview with Wynton Marsalis
Sometimes I’m thinking about music but its not formulated like a tune. It will just be something general that goes on in my mind all the time. Its not organized in the form of melodies, its just the whole type of poetic motion of music. Music has a certain type of ebb and flow, regardless of the tempo. Whenever I see myself in a situation where I meet a new person, I wonder what they would sound like in music. Keep reading »
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Marsalis and Rituals of Jazz
According to the media buzz, Wynton Marsalis is one of jazz’s new traditionalists—you know, those nicely-dressed young men who disdain rock-and-roll and play the sort of jazz college kids in the ‘60s used to adore. In fact, the 29-year old trumpeter (who performs in Shriver Hall this evening) is widely credited with having singlehandedly sparked the movement. Keep reading »
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Horns of Plenty - TIME Magazine
Miles Davis is onstage, but the young man in the dark blue Versace jacket couldn’t care less. He is concentrating on the one thing other than a trumpet mouthpiece that is capable of riveting his attention to the point of near obsession: a basketball hoop. For some reason, there is a basket in the open backstage area of New York’s Jones Beach Theater, and Wynton Marsalis is pumping balls into the net from every angle. Suddenly, he dribbles out 30 ft. from the goal and announces, “I bet $100 I can sink one from here. Keep reading »
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Wynton: Prophet in standard time - Downbeat (September 1990)
A rainy afternoon in Arlington Heights, IL. – just a mile up the street from the Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame – the photographer and his assistant convert one corner of Wynton’s hotel suite into a studio while he fiddles with his trumpet. Somebody tripped over it a couple days before and one valve sticks. “Do you have a name for your trumpet?” the photographer asks. “Johnson” Wynton replies, chuckles, and adds, “No, not really.” Keep reading »
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A star too soon
BARELY 28 years old but already ten years into his professional career, the New Orleans born trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is regarded by many as a modern master. This is greatly premature; for as good as he appears to be, the adulation of Marsalis suggests a stature equal to the best trumpeters in jazz history, including Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis. Keep reading »
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Sexy Wynton Marsalis
Call it trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ “blues period.” In his new album, A Crescent City Christmas Card, Marsalis continues the shift from cerebral to soulful that brought wide acclaim for last spring’s The Majesty of the Blues. Keep reading »
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Taking Back the Blues: A Conversation with Wynton Marsalis
In the packed-dirt courtyard behind Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheater, Wynton Marsalis entertains a crowd of hearty fans who have ventured backstage to meet him. The trumpeter, who an hour earlier led his band through a concert of grand and, at times, commanding music is polite and disarmingly quick-witted. Keep reading »