Wynton Marsalis

The Center and the Calling

A great deal has gone down since that first handshake with Wynton Marsalis, back when we both had the sun of Aruba on our backs and a fresh wind in our ambitions. It was 1989, the Aruba Jazz Festival—where conch shells hummed low under the brassy call of the headliners, and Wynton was already a man in full. That kind of purpose can rattle a stage, and it sure did. He walked in with the posture of someone already carrying more than a horn, carrying a mandate.

By 1996, when I sat down with Marsalis for a proper interview, he was in the early stages of institutional nation-building—assembling not just concerts, but a full-scale cultural edifice with walls, educational programs, and a mission statement. He’d taken the heat for it, too. In jazz, as in politics, moving quickly makes you suspect. And Wynton moved like a man on a deadline from God.

We met again at Jazz at Lincoln Center—where dreams met drywall and the music had an address. The Centre, with its gleaming skyline perch at Broadway and 60th, was no mere recital hall. It was a proclamation: that jazz, born in barrelhouses and sanctified in church basements, deserved its palace. Rose Theatre, Appel Room, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola—it all spoke to a long-overdue coronation.

That day in '96, the mood was as sharp as a three-piece suit. PBS had just launched Marsalis on Music, and the air in the room buzzed with both legacy and intent. Wynton didn’t speak in casual syntax—he said in paragraphs. Every phrase carved from a century of struggle, theory, and second lines. Nine Grammys at his side, a Pulitzer looming in the distance—he was less a performer than a cultural architect.

“There’s a difference between playing jazz and living it,” he told me. “You have to make it make sense beyond the solo.” And that, I think, is what drove him—this impossible ambition to make jazz stand not just as music, but as a model: democratic, improvisational, unapologetically Black, and brilliantly American.

Over the decades, I’ve caught up with Wynton in fleeting snapshots—onstage in Toronto with Jon Hendricks trading syllables for swing, on the Montreal stage under the big lights, or leading a septet through a maze of Ellingtonian resolve. Each time, the man had grown taller—not in stature, but in bearing. A man in charge of something sacred.

Marsalis was never just blowing notes—he was building cathedrals. Notes with foundations. Choruses with columns. Even his detractors, of whom there were plenty, couldn’t deny the architecture.

Now, with 95 albums behind him and hundreds of students who trace their musical DNA to his example, Marsalis continues to walk that same narrow ridge between virtuosity and vision. He teaches. He travels. He plays. Always the center, always the calling.

And I think back to that first time in Aruba, when the sea spoke one rhythm and Wynton another, and realize—some artists follow the sound. The rare ones, like Wynton, are the sound.

Bill King: In October, PBS aired a four-part television special, Marsalis on Music. What was the focus of these programs?

Wynton Marsalis: The first show was about rhythm, how we hear rhythm, and what rhythm is. The second show was about hearing form: the blues form, song form and theme and variations. We go through the 32-bar song form.

The third is titled "From Sousa to Satchmo." It’s about how the New Orleans band style comes out of John Philip Sousa’s band style.

The fourth show is about practicing – How to practice and what to pay attention to.

B.K.: You also have a 26-part National Public Radio series, Making Music, waiting to air. What will be the range of content on these programs?

W.M.: We’ll cover everything from “What is a solo?” and “What is swing?” to blues around the world and “Who was Thelonious Monk?” There are 26 hours' worth of shows.

I have interviewed a wide range of musicians, including Joshua Redman, John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Milt Jackson, Jackie McLean, Marcus Roberts, and Wallace Roney.

B.K: In January, you’re scheduled to release a recording of Monk compositions. Have you tried interpreting Monk’s music from a different perspective than most of the recordings currently available?

W.M: I wrote some original arrangements of his compositions.

B.K: Are these small group sessions?

W.M: They are comprised of the players in my septet.

B.K.: Your Saturday morning series, Jazz for Young People at Lincoln Center, has been a sold-out affair. Have you found young people responsive to your jazz primer?

W.M: Yeah, they like it. I get them playing kazoos. We pick different topics. Recently, we did one on Monk. We did one on improvisation. What is an arrangement? Who was Louis Armstrong? What are the drums?

We have done so many that I can hardly remember them all. It’s very loose.

We have a home-type feel. It’s not polished. I make sure it’s not over-rehearsed. I want it to be spontaneous, so the kids can feel that it’s something natural.

They don’t ask questions because it’s only an hour. Sometimes we get them to come up on the stage and demonstrate. We’ll play something on the piano, then stop and let the kids sing something in the breaks.

B.K: In 1987, you co-founded the Lincoln Centre jazz program and currently serve as its artistic director. This has provided you with a forum to present several commissioned works as a composer. What have been some of the musical highlights of your tenure?

W.M: For me, just writing any of the music. Everything from In This House on This Morning, a piece we wrote on a religious service, and one called Blood in the Fields, all about slavery, to a string quartet for the Orion String Quartet, which was done in conjunction with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

B.K: Your evolution as a composer seems to coincide with your responsibilities at the Center. Has the experience expanded your interest in writing longer forms?

W.M: Yes. It has. It’s allowed me to write more music. Even before that, I was trying to write, but this opportunity allowed me to be affiliated with other disciplines.

B.K.: Blood on the Fields has a secular oratorio in 20 sections presenting a narrative about slavery in the South. How much research was involved in preparing the composition?

W.M: There was a lot in terms of trying to research all I wanted to communicate and to get a feel and texture for how those people felt life.

B.K: What elements make the piece demanding on singers?

W.M: It’s tough. The intervals are demanding. The entrances and melodies are also very difficult.

B.K: What other details and traditions are woven into the fabric of the composition?

W.M: I tried to get as much as I know in it – from a 12/8 church feel, different shuffles and blues to ballads, groove tunes and contrapuntal sections.

B.K: I remember the music you wrote for the film The Big Easy and how effective you were in using the orchestral palette. Was that your first attempt at presenting your compositions in a large ensemble context?

W.M: That was my first attempt. I had planned to do different things, but it was just a matter of time. I enjoyed writing for that film.

B.K.: Did you have much conducting experience prior to your directorship at Lincoln Center, and do you find it satisfying?

W.M: No. Conducting is okay, but I’d rather play.

B.K.: How do you structure rehearsals, the mood and the pressure of time?

W.M: A lot of the time, rehearsals look like pandemonium. People are arguing and playing. I try to run through things a couple of times, then let the musicians figure it out.

I’ll make comments on the architecture of the piece. We’ll rehearse a section we have a lot of trouble with, but I believe in playing.

B.K: What skills do you look for in players who become part of your environment?

W.M: I look for players who can hear and play with soul, intensity and feeling.

B.K.: Were you hurt by the criticism levelled at you over your choices of musicians and programming at Lincoln Center?

W.M: No, that’s part of it. You can’t get into a fight without expecting to get hit. It just means we are successful.

B.K: Do you sense the enormous success of your overall vision has silenced much of the negativism?

W.M: I think the negativism is a result of the old axiom, “If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em.”

B.K: The one summer concert many are still discussing is the battle of the bands between the jazz orchestras of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center this past July. Was this as much fun for you as it was for the many who attended?

W.M: Yeah, we like that. Jon Faddis and I are cool because when I first came to New York, I would often visit his house. He and I are real good friends.

B.K: Any new players we should be listening to?

W.M: There are always some young good ones out there playing. Nicholas Payton on the trumpet, Teodruss Avery on the saxophone, Jack Terrasson, Benny Green, Cyrus Chestnut, Eric Reed; there’s a pile of good piano players on the scene.

B.K: Ever get to shoot hoops anymore?

W.M: Yeah, I play a little ball now and then. I went out and put a 100 percent on my friends the other day. I went nine for nine. I’ll be hearing about that for the next two years.

B.K: From the inside or outside?

W.M: Come on, from the outside. I’m too old and slow to be going inside.