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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.
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Wynton playing at Barbican Hall
I saw the Duke Ellington Orchestra once, when Duke was dying, and his leading soloists were winding down their musical lives. But it still sounded like a group of inspired chancers who liked mixing order and happenstance.
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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’.”
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Blowing up a storm
Born into America’s ‘first family of jazz’, Wynton Marsalis has achieved global success in both traditional and contemporary music as a trumpeter, composer and artistic director. But his purist line and trenchant views on what has been described as ‘black classical music’ have provoked controversy. Maya Jaggi reports Keep reading »
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Homage to the Duke
Wynton Marsalis, they say, is somewhat exasperated by his reputation for proselytising seriousness and would like the world to know him more as a man with a mission who nevertheless knows how to have a good time. Keep reading »