The Herald of Our Swinging Heritage
It sounds like a scene from the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. The teenage Wynton Marsalis is walking home from school in New Orleans, carrying his books and papers in a blue American Tourister suitcase. Neighborhood kids hoot, because, really-a teenager carrying his books in a suitcase?
Wynton himself isn't crazy about schlepping the luggage. But he's in 11th grade, has a lot of books, and needs something big enough to hold them all. The Tourister happened to be in his home, so he took it. And the jeers from kids at the corner do not discourage him. "My attitude was, f--- this," he says. "They are not going to make me feel bad about trying to pursue an education."
It was exactly the sort of move-rebellion by way of respect for tradition-that would come to define Marsalis's remarkable career. Arguably the most famous jazz musician in the world, he has sold over 5 million records and won nine Grammy awards. He has even won a Pulitzer Prize-the first for a jazz musician-for Blood on the Fields, a three-hour jazz oratorio about the life of an African couple sold into slavery.
More notably, Marsalis has used his success to advance the jazz community. In a September speech to the World Business Forum, he spoke of one of his heroes: "Louis Armstrong didn't invent jazz, but he brought it to the people." He could have been talking about himself as well. In 1987, Marsalis cofounded (and is currently artistic director of) Jazz at Lincoln Center, dedicated to both performing the music and teaching its heritage. The program offers 400 jazz events a year in 15 countries, educational outreach programs, and support for high school bands.
Few artists have had such a sweeping impact. "He is a very important critic and a very important fundraiser and institutionalizer of his art form," says Gerald Early, professor of English and African-American studies at Washington University. "He covers a range of roles few people occupy."
Marsalis's boyhood buddy, Victor Goines, artistic director for jazz studies at Juilliard and a reed player in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, puts it this way: Marsalis "has done everything within his power to make jazz something that takes place in the home on a day-to-day basis."
Not that he hasn't had his share of hecklers. A 2003 article in the Atlantic Monthly argued that Marsalis musically is narrowly neo-traditionalist, reviving the past rather than embracing the future. In a 1998 New York Times story, the composer and pianist George Russell said of Marsalis and his allies, "They've put a damper on the main ingredient of jazz, which is innovation." Others have characterized Marsalis as an old-school soldier in a battle within the jazz world.
Marsalis, in turn, is bemused. Is there really a jazz war going on? No one told him. "I don't want to play jazz that sounds like the European avant-garde-not because I'm against it, but because it does not make sense for me to do." He then reels off a long list of the kinds of music he plays, from Armstrong to John Coltrane, from flamenco to classical. "Narrow with relation to what?" he wants to know.
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