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Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer and bandleader, an educator and a leading advocate of American culture. He has created and performed an expansive range of music from quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras and tap dance to ballet, expanding the vocabulary for jazz and classical music with a vital body of work that places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers.
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Wynton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1961, to Ellis and Dolores Marsalis. He was named for the jazz pianist and composer Wynton Kelly.
Marsalis's brothers are: Branford Marsalis, Ellis Marsalis III, Delfeayo Marsalis, Mboya Kinyatta Marsalis, and Jason Marsalis. Branford, Delfeayo, Jason and father Ellis are also jazz musicians. Ellis III is a poet, photographer, and network engineer based in Baltimore. It’s safe to say, the Marsalis children are hard-working, talented individuals. |
The Fairview Baptist Church Band
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Wynton Marsalis
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Marsalis’ core beliefs and foundation for living are based on the principles of jazz. He promotes individual creativity (improvisation), collective cooperation (swing), gratitude and good manners (sophistication), and faces adversity with persistent optimism (the blues).
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Marsalis graduated in 1979 from both Benjamin Franklin High School with a 3.98 GPA and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (most NOCCA students attend traditional secondary school in the mornings and the arts school in the afternoons). At age 17, he was the youngest musician admitted to Tanglewood's Berkshire Music Center, where he won the school's Harvey Shapiro Award for outstanding brass student.
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Wynton Marsalis is a prolific and inventive composer. He is the world’s first jazz artist to perform and compose across the full jazz spectrum from its New Orleans roots to bebop to modern jazz. He has also composed a violin concerto and four symphonies to introduce new rhythms to the classical music canon.
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In 1995, PBS premiered”Marsalis on Music”, an educational television series on jazz and classical music hosted and written by Marsalis..
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Always swinging, Marsalis blows his trumpet with a clear tone, a depth of emotion and a unique, virtuosic style derived from an encyclopedic range of trumpet techniques. When you hear Marsalis play, you’re hearing life being played out through music.
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On April 23, 2006, almost a year after hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans, Wynton Marsalis conducted an innovative new work he had written called Congo Square. It took place in the Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans.
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There is a sculpture of musicians parading with their instruments to honor Armstrong and jazz. Marsalis’ composition celebrates the historic New Orleans area of Congo Square, which is located in Armstrong Park.
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Congo Square was the only place in America where African slaves were allowed to perform their own music and dance in the 1700’s and 1800’s. It helped establish the roots of American music by providing a way for African music to intermix with American forms of music. This is where American spirituals and jazz had their beginnings.
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Marsalis teamed up his outstanding players from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with an African group from Ghana called Odadaa, led by drum master Yacub Addy. Odadaa is made up of nine musicians performing on drums, flutes, bala-phones and bells. Yacub Addy is a hip, cosmopolitan musician who is also a composer and choreographer.
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Wynton Marsalis has been celebrated by Time Magazine as one of America’s 25 most influential people. He has received the National Medal of Arts and been proclaimed an international ambassador of goodwill for the United States. The United Nations appointed him a Messenger of Peace. And he has received honorary degrees from numerous universities.
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The most commonly recognized is the trumpet. The cornet is similar to the trumpet but has more tubing that circles round the instrument.
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A flugelhorn is large around like a cornet, but with less tubing.
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The flumpet is a hybrid of a trumpet and flugelhorn. It has irregular shaped tubing. The mouthpiece shown is like the one used by Marsalis, which is different from the standard bell-shaped mouthpiece usually seen on brass instruments.
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Then there is a double-belled trumpet! This is sort of like those electric guitars that are double guitars hooked together.
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In jazz music, mutes are often used with trumpets and trombones to create subtle differences in the tone color. It can muffle the sound to make it softer, or be moved towards and away from the bell to create a “waa-waa” sound effect.
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