Invented in the early part of the 20th century in a new orleans, jazz has become synonymous with american music. Not just the u. S. , but around the world. America has produced incredible jazz legends, like duke ellington, count basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong. At the top of the chart is wynton marsalis, founder and director of jazz Lincoln Center. Hes a performer, educator, composer, and lives jazz 24 hours a day. Do you get tired of people calling you a jazz legend . Do you feel older when they say that to you . Wynton i like the word jazz, i dont like the legend. [laughter] david lets talk about your family for a moment. Sadly, your father passed away in april at the age of 85 because of covid. It must have been a very sad loss, because you were very close to him. Wynton for all of us, me, my brother, we loved him so much. He was such an example for us. Such a kind man. A man with a large worldview and a large person. He didnt do small things. He was very philosophical. He wasnt a touchyfeely person. He was from that generation where there wasnt a lot of hugging and i love yous going on, but underneath, there was a resolve and seriousness, just kind of a deep love. Not just for us, but he had many students who loved him and loved to tell stories about him. And he supported a lot of us. David father was a jazz pianist. You obviously looked up to your father. When you were growing up, you looked up to your father, was he someone who said i want you to be a trumpet player, a jazz trumpet player . Did he not push you into that . Wynton he didnt push any of us into anything. I always hung out with him. My father struggled when i was growing up, he was trying to play modern jazz in an era of segregation. And in the clubs, the populace didnt like that style of music. Much of my experience of going to sparsely populated clubs with him in colorful areas. I loved to go because i was always the only kid in the room. And it started when i was 3, 4, 5 years old, and continued until i got into high school and started to work myself. But i always went with him and identified with his struggle, because he continued to play, even though he didnt get audience support, was not well known, wasnt famous, struggled financially. He never complained and was very highminded in his theories of jazz and his belief in the necessity of it as a tool for healing people and raising consciousness, things like that. David so when you were growing up, you experienced racial discrimination, because it was a segregated area then . Is that right . Wynton yeah, that defined the entire segregation, discrimination, racism, that was part of life. Its not something you could its not philosophy im talking now. Its just if your neighborhood look a certain way, the white neighborhoods were a certain way, black people generally lived in our area. On one side of the railroad tracks. We had ditches in our street. Any kind of public system always worked against you, and it was what the system was. You didnt have distance from it, so it was its easy to look back on the things and experience it not the way you experienced it when you grew in it. When you grew in it, it very much was a fact of life. I happen to be someone who never liked it. I fought with it a lot. I had a lot of problems in that system. But most people adapted to it and were ok with it. They didnt like it, but sometimes youre in a bad situation. In this case, it was racism, it could be anything, a health situation, the degree to which youre really willing to fight against its based on your ability to accept the pain of fighting against it. David so, are you surprised about the black lives matter situation . Here we are in 2020, well advanced past the time you grew up, and we still have racial problems of that type. Wynton yeah, were not anywhere near advanced past what i grew up with, so no i am not surprised by it. I had the honor to go into so Many American schools through the 1980s and 1990s, and early 2000s, probably well over 1000 schools. We have a segregation in our systems in general. So no, it doesnt none of it is surprising to me. David today, as a famous jazz musician, youre recognized all over the country, in many places around the world, youre still suffering from racial discrimination. Do you still feel even despite your exalted status in the music world, youre not treated the same as you would be if you were white . Wynton yes, i feel that. I feel it in terms of the kind of intellectual patronization i receive, the low level of criticism of our music. Im subject to things of course, nothing like i grew up with, nor do i make a habit of complaining about it constantly, because im also treated with so much respect by so many people, that for me to complain would be past gratuitous. So if you asked me directly, i would say im treated unfairly by newspapers, the new york times, the way our institution is covered is abominable. Even though we get articles, the quality of those articles are always very poor, poor with their research, the writers often dont do the history and lack the intelligence and depth of engagement with the form to be qualified to speak on it to people of record. But because its jazz, it doesnt matter. Thats only in direct response to your question, because i dont want to confuse it with when i was growing up or the situation i found myself in, or my fathers situation, my grandfathers situation, im not doing that. And im very, very grateful for how ive been treated by people all over this country of all kind. David so theres a story that when you were 10, your father had you sit down with al hirt, maybe it was miles davis, and they said how would you like to play the trumpet . And they give you a trumpet. Is there anything true . Wynton when i was a six, my father was playing with al hirt, and he gave me a trumpet for my sixth birthday. Thats true. My father was later talking to miles davis and said im getting my son a trumpet. Before al got me a trumpet, my father was talking with miles. He said dont get that boy a trumpet. Its too hard. So thats a true story. David as you grew up, you were a Classical Musician more than a jazz musician. When you went to julliard, where you went to college, you were interested in Classical Music. Is that true . Wynton no, i grew up always wanting to play jazz, but jazz is always much more difficult to learn in that time, especially than Classical Music. Because my father was a jazz musician, i was around the music, raised in the culture, i loved the musicians. My father was a modern jazz musician. He wasnt playing new orleans jazz. When i was 10 or 11, he started to play new orleans music, and i also played in danny barkers Fairview Baptist church, which was a new orleans traditional band. Jazz was difficult at that time for a person my age and my generation to figure out what it was because it wasnt part of the american mythology. Whereas with Classical Music, you have competitions, classes you can go to, so you can get a track record on your resume. Like if you say, what did i do, you would say i won a competition to play the trumpet concerto with the philharmonic when i was 14. But i was playing jazz the whole time. What could i say that i did . I played in a club on a wednesday. David but in one year, you won a grammy, the only person to win a grammy in jazz and Classical Music in the same year. Wynton its a funny story about my father. He went to the grammys. He wasnt into those things, and he sat through the whole show and said, thats the grammys. At the end of the show, i won, i was in the hotel with him and my mother getting ready to go out to a party or something, and i was like my dad looked at me and was wondering, he said, im glad that was the grammys, im glad you won. Dont get me wrong, its great, but you dont think this means you can play, do you . [laughter] i started laughing, because i was like 22. I knew what he was saying, because i still had a long way to go to learn how to play. David what did people say, initially, when you said we need to do more jazz at Lincoln Center . Wynton the initial problem at rockefeller, they didnt like the music. It doesnt matter, the constitution wasnt written for the rights of africanamericans and native americans in mind, but the constitution can be amended, and it has been amended. David you could argue Classical Music came from europe, and other music came from other parts of the world, but jazz was invented in the u. S. , its a classic american invention, i would say. But why is it so hard for people to understand . Youve written a book about it, and you make it sound like its almost a religious experience to play jazz and understand jazz. Its important to be an individual who can play well, but also to play with a team. Can you explain why jazz is almost like a religion to people who care about jazz . Wynton well, jazz is our national art form. And as such, it objectifies a lot of our basic principles. And if a group of people are blessed to have an art form, which you can have a civilization, a society, and you may never create an art form that does that. Its a blessing. So america was blessed with a group of musicians in a social condition that produced this music. The music has three fundamental elements. The first is improvisation, which is our kind of individuality and what we believe in, we have rights and freedoms that are about the individual. Then swing, which is about nurturing common ground, finding balance with others, working out an agenda as you go along under the pressure of time. Then the blues, and the blues is an optimism that is not naave. Naive. Naive. The blues also implies an acuity. Thats a democratic thing. Suffice it to say everything in music ties into things we do, down to the three branches of government, like the Rhythm Section are, to amend the constitution is like adding to an arrangement. I can go on and on. After a while of giving you these example, you realize theyre not superficial things that are contrived, they come out of the american way of life. Its going to be a longer answer, but its important. The simple question of jazzs position in our country concerns the relationship of slavery to the american identity and our mythology as a country. Black americans, by and large in our country, have little or no knowledge of jazz. Jazz is the greatest achievement of the afro American Culture in the context of the American Culture, meaning its afroamerican, but it applies to all americans. Theres many things in africanAmerican Culture that apply to america. Our poor Public Education system makes sure a Certain Group remains ignorant. And the average white jazz writer is a rock singer, who for a long time wished jazz would be Something Else without black folks at the core of it, like jazz would just die away. Thats why if you study jazz, theres a longstanding tradition of article after article and decade after decade saying, is jazz dead . Thats probably one of the questions thats been asked most since the 1930s. All of this investment and the destruction of jazz is to further obscure a big lie that jazz uncovers, and its important to look at this. Its a serious thing to consider if we are to transform our nation. If we say our nation is based on human freedom, and were the first on earth founded on the glorious celebration of human freedom, dignity, and human rights, how do we reconcile and correct the systemic dehumanizing ownership brutalizing the large underclass of people for free labor because of their skin color . Its too much injustice to correct. So were forced to say that those people are responsible for the problem. Theyre less than human, and its just their condition. But if they arent, if its not their condition, that means our mythology and belief about ourselves isnt true. Is elvis not going to be the king . Where are you going to put jazz if elvis is the king . David if i were to go to listen to a tchaikovsky concert, or a beethoven concert, it will mostly be sounding the same, no matter where i listen to it and no matter what orchestra. They might play slightly better, slightly different, but you know what youll get when you sit down. With jazz, am i wrong that a jazz musician can kind of expand on what has been composed and play it differently every time . Is that part of what jazz is all about . Wynton thats the improvisation part. That one part allows you to get a lot of latitude to do things. Its like the way americans conduct business, all the innovations we have, the freedom we have to speak, the fact we think we can step into space and use our personality to transform a tradition. Yes, we have that freedom. But balancing that freedom is the responsibility to extend a courtesy and an understanding to other people with those freedoms and nurture that common space. Thats the part of jazz we struggle with. David so in your book on jazz, you talk about some of the greats you either played with or who influenced you. I would like to ask your brief comments on some of them. First is Louis Armstrong. You originally thought he was an uncle tom, but you changed your view, i guess . Wynton yes, because its hard for later generations to understand the challenges of earlier generations, norms, and things of show business and what Louis Armstrong did. It doesnt mean now i understand more of his genius and who he was and what he played. But it still doesnt mean when i look at the movies he made, the positions he went, i dont necessarily like that. I dont like where black people are in any american movies of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. As a matter of fact, some of it now, a lot of it now has that same type of destructive mythology. If you consider the fact that when i was a teenager, the heroic figure for black youth in movies were pimps. What is it for pimps to be your hero, the top of your mythology . To not get sidetracked, i thought that. But later, i understood who Louis Armstrong was as a musician. Thats a totally different story. He was a genius of such magnitude, you could lie about how great he was and you would not say enough. David so youre a composer, as well as a performer, educator, conductor, so forth. One of the great composers in the jazz world was duke ellington. Did he have any influence on you . Wynton great. I love duke. Dukes intelligence, dedication, over 2000 pieces, i love him. Because i grew up listening to Classical Music, i love beethoven. David what about Dizzy Gillespie . Was he an influence on you . Wynton the thing about dizzy that hit me first was the depth of his intelligence. I met him when i was 14. Just when he started talking with my dad and other musicians. Dizzy was very intelligent. Hes part of the reason we developed jazz at Lincoln Center. I didnt want to play in a big band. I always wanted to play small band music. Dizzy told me i called and asked him what he thought i should do. He said to lose ones orchestral heritage should not be considered an achievement. So, he was telling me you need to figure out how to keep our orchestral heritage. We paid a lot of dues to build up orchestral music in jazz. For us to give it away and say big band is oldfashioned, thats not intelligent. David lets talk about jazz at Lincoln Center. You began playing jazz at Lincoln Center in the late 1980s . Wynton 1987. David that evolved to jazz at Lincoln Center, which youre the artistic and music director of jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra, is that right . Wynton we wanted to fill a space in american arts and provide enough education and music and advocacy, enough concerts for us as a nation to have our native art form when it came time for us to address our mythology and correct it so that we can move forward as a nation. So we have succeeded beyond any of our wildest imagination with the volume of concerts weve been able to do. We built three concert halls in the middle of manhattan, on 59th street, the house of swing. We put on Concert Series over 30 years. We have 12 education programs. And even since this pandemic, weve put out over 600 pieces virtually. Were deeply engaged. David so when you started Lincoln Center, when Lincoln Center opened in the 1960s, people thought this is opera, symphonic music, Classical Music, you came along and said maybe we can have jazz. What did people say when you said we need to do more jazz at Lincoln Center . Wynton we had a lot of support from the top of the organization. Everybody was dedicated. When it was founded, they didnt think about the music or gave the initial founders didnt like the music, it doesnt matter. The constitution was not written with the rights of afroamericans and native americans in mind. But the constitution can be amended, and it has been amended. David how do you divide your time between playing, conducting, composing, and teaching . Wynton i work all the time. I dont separate anything. My work is also my hobby. David let me ask you, on a normal time before covid came, and hopefully when its gone, youll return to the situation as before are you on the road half the time . Or in new york, how do you divide your time between playing, conducting, composing, and teaching . Wynton i do many things. Im also the managing director of our organization. I deal with everything in our staff, the executive director and our management team, theyre all fantastic colleagues. If anything, i work all the time. I dont separate anything. My work is also my hobby. And this pandemic, i always respected all of my colleagues, but im going to tell you that the pandemic has given me such a greater appreciation of the quality of people ive been blessed to work with. Our orchestra, we still have the vast majority of our staff on, were open for business, the orchestra is so supportive of the mission of the organization. We have 11 arrangers in our orchestra. Thats something that has never happened. Composers, teach