Marsalis, all that jazz, Wynton Marsalis speaks softly, but it doesn't take long to appreciate his charisma as a teacher. A music teacher or role model, certainly, but on a broader plane, a philosopher who applies the principles of good jazz -- whether hot and swinging or smooth and cool -- to the science of life.
hit Blaisdell
By John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com"(Jazz musicians) try to be masters of the present, and that's a skill that we all concentrate on all the time. It's so much easier to retreat into the past or speculate about the future (and) comment on what things ought to be instead of just dealing with what they are, whereas in jazz you're forced to address the present moment," the great trumpet player said by phone Saturday from his Singapore hotel room.
Marsalis, who plays a return engagement here with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra tonight at the Blaisdell Concert Hall, says jazz also teaches the importance of not being judgmental.
"In the amount of time that you judge what another musician is playing, you've lost the opportunity to make music out of it. If you and I are playing together, and you play some notes I don't like, and I starting thinking about it ... in that amount of time, I could have been playing something, and that's gone now. So we don't spend so much time judging things, but trying to understand situations and accept them and doing things to shape the reality of the moment."
Marsalis is in his 10th year of leading and touring with the LCJO. In that time he's amassed a set list of "a hundred and something songs." He sets the program on a night-by-night basis, always subject to change as the concert progresses.
"We have an idea of what we're going to do before we start, and then we're flexible with it. ... You can improvise, but you have some themes and things that are set that you improvise off of.
"It's a matter of following the conversation of the musicians and also getting a feeling for the soul of the musician that's being expressed that goes beyond words," the musician said.
Tonight's performance, with the best seats priced at $72, is a far cry from the first time Marsalis played here in the mid-1980s. Serious local jazz fans will remember his engagement at Trappers, one of series of weeklong residencies by major jazz artists.
"We still play at clubs, and we always go for jam sessions; that's almost a nightly thing. After our concerts, we go to places and play. (In Singapore) we've been going to a couple of jazz clubs every night."
In keeping with Marsalis' long-standing commitment to musical education, three members of the LCJO will be participating in a master clinic with the jazz bands from the University of Hawaii and Iolani School. After the student performances are critiqued, they'll be able to observe Marsalis and the LCJO during the group's pre-concert soundcheck today.
Portions of the concert are also scheduled to be filmed as part of a larger documentary on Marsalis, the LCJO and the dubbed "United We Stand" tour.
MARSALIS says he's looking forward to a few extra days in Hawaii and the opportunity to renew acquaintances with local musicians and jazz fans, and catching up on the progress of students he heard here during past visits.
His own career is studded with milestones: Being invited to join Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers at 18; releasing his first solo album on Columbia; becoming the first artist to win Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical music (the first artist to do it two years in a row); delivering a brilliant musical exploration of the African-American holocaust, "Blood on the Fields," and becoming the first jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize for music.
Marsalis acknowledges the accolades, but sees everything as part of a natural progression.
"There's a lot of first times I've tried things, but I've been very fortunate in that in the time I've been out here playing, I've had many times like that. The first time we recorded with the septet. The first Ellington concert with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra ... and most recently "All Rise" (his latest album with the LCJO, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Morgan Start University Choir). New things are always coming. No one thing really stands out."
One of his biggest projects at the moment is the development of a new performance, broadcast and education facility at New York City's Lincoln Center, that will include two concert venues and a jazz club seating about 120. One of the biggest challenges has been raising the money to build the facility. (For more information, go to www.jazzatlincolncenter.org.)
"We want to create the right feeling in the halls so that people will see it as a house of the arts and want to go in, and for it to be amenable to the integration of the arts through the spirit of jazz.
"We're trying to just create a revolution in feeling around the music by inviting more and more people into the feeling of jazz, because it's a warm feeling. It's down-home and it's sophisticated, so that what's our whole thing is ... that's why we play the entire spectrum of the music."
Performing with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Wynton Marsalis
In concert: 8 p.m. today
Place: Blaisdell Concert Hall
Tickets: $27 to $72
Call: 792-2000
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