Wynton

I’ve had the good fortune to talk with Wynton Marsalis on several occasions over the years. At least two of those occasions were telephone interviews organized to promote upcoming appearances in the area.

Initially I found Marsalis to be a little cool and reserved. The first interview did not yield a wealth of quotes for the article I was writing. As you’ll see below, the second interview produced some great quotes and I felt good after the phone call.

The two times I met Wynton I found him to be warm and genuine. On one occasion I was able to observe him bantering with some students. He gave each youngster unlimited time to ask their questions and allowed them to handle and inspect his horn. To me, this interaction was as impressive as any of his high-flying improvisations on the trumpet.

Jazz fans may not always agree on Wynton’s public pronouncements or on the way he conducts the business of Jazz At Lincoln Center. However, you cannot argue his sincerity nor diminish his skills and talents.

Here’s the article that resulted from our second interview with some additional quotes from the interview notes.

“I always love coming there to Harrisburg, always. It’s a big jazz community and people love swinging there.”

Trumpeter, bandleader and Pulitzer Prize winning composer Wynton Marsalis is on the phone from New York talking about his concert tour.

For the tour Marsalis is working in a small group format as opposed to the 16 member Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. He serves as the orchestra’s Music Director and has devoted the majority of his performing time over the past decade to the group.

Marsalis says he’s touring for the playing opportunities that come with a smaller group and to spread the band’s music as widely as possible. As he put it, “Like what I always tell the guys in the big band, with the big band every instrument is an extension of the other instruments. So with a smaller band it is much more flexible because there’s less people. It’s kinda like the difference between a small family and a big family. It is much more fun if you have a lot of people.”

Even though his tutoring goes on ‘behind the scenes' Marsalis has become widely know as a mentor of young jazz talent. He said, “A lot of kids come back stage after every gig. I was just saying that I heard a lot of kids that could play when we were out on the last tour. A lot of teenagers showed up who were really interested in playing. So it goes on always after gigs and kids come to my house too. But I don’t do a lot of formal teaching.”

“Through Jazz at Lincoln Center we have a lot of educational programs. The education programs can travel much more frequently than you can as an individual. You know I’ve been in many schools of course and I still love to teach.”

Marsalis doesn’t buy the notion that jazz is an art form that cannot be taught. He said, “Any thing can be taught. Anything that a person can do can be taught to another person. You can’t teach someone to become a type of genius.”

Marsalis continues, “That’s like saying someone can’t be taught how to write. They can be taught how to write. But that’s not going to make you Hemmingway.”

“One thing is for sure being taught something will make you much more advanced than if not being taught. Is that an argument for ignorance or something?”

“When Jazz is the subject there always seems to be an argument for the value of ignorance.”

“One things for sure there are many people all over the country who are not being taught and we know none of them can play. That’s not something we have to speculate on. We don’t have to speculate on what happens when you’re not taught.”

It is apparent that Marsalis has given a great deal of thought to his craft and the reasons he continues to routinely hit the road with his fellow musicians.

“I work for the people who come to the concerts. That’s who I’m working for and I’m there to see that they have a good time. I’m a musician and I try to see that they have a good time by playing music.”

“The whole thing is you’re there because the people are there. I’m very clear on why I’m playing concerts and that’s because the people are there. I work for the people who come to the concerts. That’s who I’m working for and I’m there to see that they have a good time. I’m a musician and I try to see that they have a good time by playing music. But to just acknowledge that fact that it is for people and not just you and you’re doing them a favor by playing and all of that prima Dona stuff. I don’t believe in that. Because there is a lot of other stuff they (the audience) could just as soon be doing and paying a lot less money for it too.”

“You know there is something you want to say and you can’t get to it because the words aren’t complete. Music is much more complete because there is a component of music over which you don’t have control. That component is the quality of the ability to transmit internal qualities of your consciousness and your emotional life. You don’t actually control that. Like a musician doesn’t control their sound. They can get a bigger sound or a smaller sound but what was in the sound of somebody like Joe Henderson or somebody like Lester Young, they didn’t actually control that, that was just their sound.”