Wynton Marsalis: Looking Forward and Back

From '80s jazz wunderkind to 21st century institution, the virtuoso trumpeter and composer measures the music's enduring vitality

By Alan Light
Special to MSN Music

Jan. 1, 2008

"There was a time when you could hardly find an acoustic bass player," says Wynton Marsalis. "Now there are so many of them. There are a lot of good young drummers coming up. There's a lot of knowledge now that just wasn't there before."

Credit for much of that knowledge has to go to Marsalis, one of the most influential and controversial figures in the history of jazz. Since emerging into the world as a hotshot trumpet-playing prodigy from New Orleans in the early 1980s, he has become the music's most public face -- tirelessly recording, teaching, speaking and touring, always championing the traditional principles of jazz to as many people as he can possibly reach.

Now 46, Marsalis is no longer a young upstart; he has virtually become an institution himself, with all the reverence and resentment that implies. Though some challenge his musical philosophies as overly conservative, no one can question the caliber of his musicianship. Over the course of almost 50 albums, he's won nine Grammy awards and a Pulitzer Prize, the first time that honor was given to a jazz musician.

His most visible legacy, though, is surely the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, where he serves as artistic director. JaLC, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2007, is the country's most extensive jazz education and performance center, complete with a luxurious, multitheater headquarters at New York's Columbus Circle -- the construction of which can largely be attributed to Marsalis' nonstop fundraising efforts.

Entering the new year, Marsalis is maintaining his usual breakneck schedule. Later this month, Columbia Records will release "Marsalis Standards," a collection of his recordings from the great American songbook over the years. From Jan. 16 to Feb. 12, he is leading the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on a tour of the West and Midwest that will focus on the love songs of Duke Ellington. Meanwhile, he is also deep into researching and writing a major new composition in honor of the 200th anniversary of Harlem's famous Abyssinian Baptist Church, which will premiere in April.

One of the keys to the continued success of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis offers, is the ability to look both forward and backward, at tradition and at innovation, at the same time. "Those things might seem opposite," he says, "but we need to do them both together, as if it's all one thing."

MSN Music: You've just wrapped up the 20th anniversary year of the Jazz at Lincoln Center program. What do you consider your biggest successes in that time, and what remain your biggest challenges?

Wynton Marsalis: The successes are the obvious ones -- we've stayed together, developed the different programs, built the library. We're able to tour, we were able to build the building and get it up in the center of Manhattan. Also, that we're able to be part of the community, to play on the subway, at picnics or people's birthday parties.

And of course there's the work we've done with people like Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Gerry Mulligan. All the different musicians we've commissioned, the different collaborations -- we've worked with a flamenco ensemble, with African musicians, played with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles. I could go on and on ... 

So what about the biggest challenges?

The biggest challenge, always, is to stay together and to better articulate our mission. To stay invigorated, and to continue to be respectful of our achievements.

We have six points that are important for us to follow: To conquer our immediate environment, meaning a mastery of ourselves first; to work with our extended family -- we're a nonprofit, or rather a social profit organization, and there are a lot of people who want to work with us to enrich the community; to make everything that we have available to people at all times.

Also, to integrate all aspects of our business, so that one part isn't doing something the other doesn't know about; to embody the music that we serve; and to both celebrate our achievements and embrace new ideas.

What is the biggest difference between the jazz community now and where it was 20 years ago?

There are more musicians, more younger musicians that can play. There's a generation of great piano players, with another coming up behind them -- there's a lot of people who can really play piano, which is a good sign, because the piano is such an important instrument in Western music.

So I have to ask, because I have a 5-year-old son: Is the piano always the best instrument to start a kid with?

Well, it's the best instrument to play because it's like an orchestra in itself. But you have to work with him to see what he wants to play.

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