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Wynton Marsalis Gave an American Music History Lesson, Complete with Song
Since America’s founding in 1776, the arts have been representative of American culture. The tempo of music runs through the United States, connecting it in a way nothing else can, Wynton Marsalis said. A nation torn apart by politics and race and identity can be restored through the freedom the arts bring — a freedom that teaches the American people who they are. Keep reading »
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Trumpet and coffee in hand: Marsalis visiting Phillips Brooks House
Marsalis, others sketch New Orleans during morning at Phillips Brooks House
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The music that didn’t stop: Harvard Lecture #6
In final lecture of his series, Marsalis outlines the rise of jazz against backdrop of repression
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Wynton Marsalis on the Soul of Jazz
In the city of New Orleans, after the Civil War and into the first decade of the twentieth century, brass bands could be heard playing at baseball games, churches, political rallies—and even in homes, to call children to dinner. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis to conclude lecture-performance series at Harvard University
Wynton Marsalis will conclude his six-lecture series at Sanders Theater on January 30 with a lecture performance focusing on New Orleans and the birth of Jazz. Currently the Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis is an acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, educator, and advocate for the arts.
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Marsalis’ lecture, “New Orleans: The Birth of Jazz” will cover a significant portion of the wide cross-section of musical styles that constitute the roots of Jazz. Marsalis will illuminate the music’s identity by examining its repertoire, functions, venues and most significant musical figures, chief amongst them, Buddy Bolden, the legendary “First Man of Jazz.” Joining Marsalis are: Lucien Barbarin (trombone), Jonathan Batiste (piano), Troy Davis (drums), Vince Giordano (tuba/bass), Victor Goines (reeds), Ricky Gordon (percussion), Marcus Printup (cornet), Don Vappie (banjo/guitar), and Dr. Michael White (clarinet) -
The jazz orchestra, brick by brick
Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis and his virtuoso Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra treated a Sanders Theatre audience to a three-hour master class Thursday evening that re-created a pivotal quarter century of jazz innovation against the backdrop of American history. His combination lecture and performance, “Setting the Communal Table: The Evolution of the Jazz Orchestra,” centered on jazz’s exploding popularity from the 1920s to the early ’40s. It was the penultimate in a six lecture-performance series by Marsalis sponsored by the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost, with the goal of fostering “a conversation about the arts on campus,” according to Harvard President Drew Faust, who attended the event. Keep reading »
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Wynton Marsalis returns to Harvard for the fifth in his series of lectures-performance
Wynton Marsalis will continue his lecture series this month, featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Sanders Theatre on Sept. 26.
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Marsalis’ lecture, “Setting the Communal Table: The Evolution of the Jazz Orchestra,” will illustrate the relationship of written to improvised music and solo to ensemble playing, showcase important and unique musical techniques, and provide philosophical and communal insights. The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. and will be live streamed at Harvard.edu/livestream. -
Jazz as conversation - Marsalis explores instincts, teamwork behind a good performance
Great jazz requires a strange alchemy of instinct and expertise, of empathy and teamwork from its musicians — a fact few know better than famed artist and composer Wynton Marsalis. Jazz is a conversation, but a nuanced, swift, and complicated one, he said.
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At Sanders Theatre on Wednesday, Marsalis and a band of all-star musicians both discussed and demonstrated how to achieve that balance in “At the Speed of Instinct: Choosing Together to Play and Stay Together,” the fourth of Marsalis’ six-part lecture series at Harvard that began in 2011. Coming just two day’s after Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, the performance provided a collective respite for the campus. -
Wynton Marsalis returns to Harvard for the fourth in his series of lectures-performance
“We will discuss and demonstrate the techniques, concepts, methods, opportunities and objectives that encourage spontaneous, intelligent and cohesive group decision-making in our music. We will also illuminate how each member of the quintet asserts, accompanies and adjusts to balance the freedom of improvisation with the sacrificial demands of finding and maintaining our common rhythm, known as swing.”
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Reviews and Photos from Wynton’s Third Harvard Lecture “Meet Me at the Crossroads”
Wynton Marsalis recently gave the third of six epic lectures that he is slated to give at Harvard University. He promised that this one wasn’t going to be 4 and half hours long, as the last one was. When he got started, the result was part history lesson, part concert, part spoken-word poetry reading. Three hours into the show, his agenda became clear: He was telling a timeless story about love. For Charlie “Yardbird’’ Parker, inventor of bebop. For Bessie Smith, teller of the low-down nasty truth. For Woody Guthrie, who sang about running from the law. For all those who sang about being both broke and broken-hearted. For every artist who cared more about art than celebrity.
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