WYNTON MARSALIS is a world-renowned trumpeter, composer, educator and leading advocate of American culture. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, he made his recording debut as a leader in 1982, and has since recorded more than eighty jazz and classical recordings, and has won nine GRAMMY® awards. In 1983, he became the first and only artist to win both classical and jazz GRAMMYs® in the same year. Today Wynton is the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards® in five consecutive years (1983-1987).
Marsalis is the recipient of honorary doctorates from over twenty-five of America’s top academic institutions including Columbia, Harvard, Howard, Princeton, and Yale. His creativity has been celebrated the world over. In 1997, Marsalis became the first jazz artist to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his oratorio Blood on the Fields, commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center. In 2001, he was appointed Messenger of Peace by Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and in 2005 Wynton received the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States government. In September 2016, he was honored to receive the National Humanities Medal for his work inspiring music lovers everywhere to embrace America’s quintessential sound.
Marsalis has authored six books including: Jazz ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits (Candlewick, 2005), illustrated by poster artist Paul Rogers; Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (Random House, 2008), with Geoffrey C. Ward; andmost recently, Squeak, Rumble, Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! (Candlewick, 2012), also illustrated by Paul Rogers.
Marsalis helped lead the effort to construct Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home— Frederick P. Rose Hall—the first education, performance, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz, which opened its doors in October 2004. He currently serves as Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Managing and Artistic Director and Director of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School.
Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life
Marsalis gives readers a seat on his old septet’s tour bus for a ride down memory lane. It’s the early 1990s, and the trumpeter is coming into his own as a composer, despite his tight road schedule (check-in at hotel, go to sound check, eat supper, iron the suit, play the gig, snooze a bit, hit the road). Should a day off (or a few free hours) arise, he’s speaking at a local school, composing a ballet, recording an album or playing a ballad to his sons on the phone. Loosely using a sort of call-and-response style, the book swings between Vigeland’s (Stalking the Shark: Passion and Pressure on the Pro Golf Tour) fly-on-the-wall documentation and the poetic solos of Marsalis, philosophizing on jazz, joy, love and lifeall synonymous for him. For better or for worse, it’s easy to lose one’s sense of time and place on the roadand it’s equally easy to do so in this book.
Wynton Marsalis - 2015 Marian Anderson Award Speech
Acceptance Speech touching upon the injustices imposed on minorities
Wynton Marsalis - Northwestern University
2009 Commencement Speech and Performance
Wynton Marsalis on American Graduate Day, September 17, 2016
Wynton talking about his mentor, his father Ellis Marsalis, and mentoring, for American Graduate Day 2016.
Wynton Marsalis - 26th Grammy Awards
Wynton Marsalis won Grammy Awards for both Classical and Jazz. He performed selections from both genres in the 1984 national broadcast of the awards c
Wynton Marsalis - Collegeboard Pencils Down 2015 Keynote
The Wynton Marsalis Collegeboard “Pencils Down 2015” keynote & performance with the Wynton Marsalis Quartet
Wynton Marsalis - The 22nd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts & Public Policy
Wynton's "The Ballad of the American Arts" lecture mixed with performance presented to a capacity crowd at the Kennedy Center.
On Moving to A Higher Ground
“Wynton Marsalis is absolutely the one to write this book. Here he is as young as morning, as fresh as dew, and already called one of the jazz greats. He is not only a seer and an exemplary musician, but a poet as well. He informs us that jazz was created, among other things, to expose the hypocrisy and absurdity of racism and other ignorances in our country. Poetry was given to human beings for the same reason – [This book] is an absolute joy to read.”
Maya Angelou
On Arts Rhetoric, & Swing: The Writings of Wynton Maralis
"This beautifully written teachers' guide provides ready-to-use discussion points and essay questions along with clearly identified standards and terms. It makes me wish I were a student once again, learning the incredible connections between the arts, coming alive for the first time to the pulse of life in jazz and the written word.”
Nancy Nestor-Baker PhD The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology
On Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life by Wynton Marsalis & Carl Vigeland
"American jazz sweetheart Marsalis gives readers a seat on his old septet's tour bus for a ride down memory lane (see Q&A, p. 58). It's the early 1990s, and the trumpeter is coming into his own as a composer, despite his tight road schedule (check-in at hotel, go to sound check, eat supper, iron the suit, play the gig, snooze a bit, hit the road). Should a day off (or a few free hours) arise, he's speaking at a local school, composing a ballet, recording an album or playing a ballad to his sons on the phone. "He'd take his naps in the next life," writes coauthor Vigeland, who tagged along on tour. Marsalis's productivity and growth during this period would lead to nine Grammys, a Pulitzer (previously awarded only to classical composers) and his directorship of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Loosely using a sort of call-and-response style, the book swings between Vigeland's (Stalking the Shark: Passion and Pressure on the Pro Golf Tour) fly-on-the-wall documentation and the poetic solos of Marsalis, philosophizing on jazz, joy, love and lifeall synonymous for him. For better or for worse, it's easy to lose one's sense of time and place on the roadand it's equally easy to do so in this book. "The narrative's logic is one of feeling, not geography or chronology, and it develops accretively, elliptically," explains Vigeland. At their best, the authors show how Marsalis's road experiences shape his music and the tightness (musically and personally) of the septet. The glimpse into Marsalis's New Orleans upbringing in that famous first family of jazz (Ellis, his father, and Branford, his brother) fascinates, but leaves the reader hungry for more. Agent, Wayne Kabak, William Morris Agency. (June) Forecast: Marsalis's high profile and the success of Ken Burns's jazz book and documentary film (to which Marsalis contributed) will arouse interest in the artist's musical coming-of-age. Other biographies on Marsalis exist, but this is notable for its mixture of an outsider's perspective with that of the musician."
Publisher's Weekly Review
"Using the written-word equivalents of such documentary film techniques as the slow fade-out and the cutaway, this collaborative personal history presents an intimate view of life on the road, in the recording studio, and in concerts with trumpeter Marsalis, his ensemble, and road crew in the early 1990s. This period saw Marsalis, currently director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, honing his chops at little clubs and composing songs. While not a traditional biography, this book provides a very real, personal glimpse of Marsalis, as both musician and man. Trumpeter and music writer Vigeland, who tagged along with the septet, here allows his coauthor's sense of humor to shine through. The book's film-inspired techniques make for an unpredictable, ever-evolving reading experience, and readers will come away with a feeling for life on the road, stripped of its many false stereotypes. Recommended for all public and academic libraries; those that already own Marsalis and Frank Stewart's Sweet Swing Blues on the Road (Norton, 1994) should definitely purchase this sequel." James Perone, Mount Union Coll., Alliance, OH Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
