![]() ![]() It was around this age that he had a chance encounter with a young music student while riding the streetcar Uptown one day. However, it wasn’t until Wynton turned 12 himself that he started to become serious about his musicianship. The band was directed by the legendary banjoist Danny Barker and his appointed bandleader Leroy Jones. There, he was launched into the world of New Orleans jazz and brass band traditions. By eight years old, he had begun his musical journey with the historic Fairview Baptist Church Band, founded by Reverend Andrew Darby in 1970. When he was six, his father’s friend Al Hirt gifted Marsalis his first trumpet. Johnson led Wynton to first start to understand the intrinsic link between music and the human experience that it represents. Hearing how passionately Ellis and his musician friends talked about the Civil Rights Act, and key political figures of the time such as Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Lyndon B. He was curious about his father and his musician friends that would always come by the family home for a visit, or to shed tunes. In years to come, he would develop an avid desire to participate in the cultural community that surrounded him. He is the second of six sons, preceded by Branford Marsalis and followed by siblings Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya and Jason.įrom an early age, Wynton’s father Ellis encouraged him to channel himself into music. ![]() ![]() ![]() Wynton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 18, 1961, to jazz pianist and music educator Ellis Marsalis Jr. He maintains that music can elevate the quality of human engagement for individuals, social networks and cultural institutions throughout the world. Marsalis believes that music has the power to elevate our quality of life and lead us to both higher and lower levels of consciousness. Wynton Marsalis’ core beliefs are based on jazz fundamentals: freedom and individual creativity (improvisation), collective action and good manners (swing), as well as acceptance, gratitude and resilience (the blues). He is inspired to experiment in an ever-widening palette of forms and concepts that constitute some of the most advanced thinking in modern jazz and in American music on the broad scale. Marsalis performs and composes across the entire spectrum of jazz and has written jazz-influenced chamber music and symphonic works for revered classical ensembles across the US and abroad. Today, Marsalis continues the renaissance that he sparked in the early 1980s, attracting new generations of young talent to jazz and illuminating the mythic meanings of jazz fundamentals. Over the past four decades, Marsalis has rekindled and animated widespread international interest in jazz through performances, educational activities, books, curricula, and relentless advocacy on public platforms. Through these relationships Marsalis has ensured that the legacy of jazz music will continue to propagate for generations to come. He has taught and mentored a voluminous number of musicians who have gone on to play, teach and advocate in their own brilliant ways. From the very beginning of his career, education has been vital to his mission. He regularly performs in the most prestigious concert halls and is known to play until all hours of the morning in the most inconspicuous local clubs. Marsalis has been called the “Pied Piper” of jazz and the “Doctor of Swing.” Since his recording debut in 1982, he has released 127 jazz, classical and alternative recordings and won many awards, from a home cooked meal to honors that require a tuxedo. He presently serves as Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Director of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School, and President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. Wynton Marsalis is a world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and a leading advocate of American culture. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |