As a performer, Wynton Marsalis won eight Grammy Awards for his jazz and classical trumpeting skills. As a composer of the jazz oratorio Blood on the Fields, he became the first winner of a Pulitzer Prize for a non-classical composition. As an author, public speaker, public television personality and director of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, he has become a musical diplomat, a 21st-century Leonard Bernstein, lecturing and performing on six continents.
However, if Marsalis is tremendously accomplished, he is almost equally controversial. Many critics and musicians label Marsalis an artistic conservative with exclusionary aesthetic views, and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has been frequently accused of reverse racism and gender discrimination in its hiring practices.
After his recent lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith Education Forum, Marsalis sat down to discuss music and other related issues with Harvard Crimson writer Malik B. Ali and WERS-FM radio personality Simon Rentner.
The Harvard Crimson: Boston was recently visited by Sonny Rollins, whom many people consider to be jazz music's last living legend. Who are some of the great leading jazz musicians of the next generation, in your opinion?
Wynton Marsalis: Well, there's Marcus Roberts, a pianist from Jacksonville, Fl. He's a clear heavyweight.
THC: Would you say that he's spearheading a new jazz movement?
Read more in Arts
Shattered: 'Unbreakable' Not Quite Air-TightRecommended Articles
-
Cambridge Jazz Clubs Compete For CustomersOn a recent Monday night at Charlie's Tap Jazz Club in Central Square, notes of Miles Davis filtered through the
-
Marsalis Performs, Teaches JazzAn enthusiastic audience was offered three sides of world famous musician Wynton Marsalis--lecturer, performer and educator--at "About Music," an event
-
'What this music is really about': An Interveiw with Max RoachBy MALIK B. ALI Crimson Staff Writer Call Max Roach Mr. Cutting Edge. In the 1940s and 50s, Roach catalyzed
-
Composer Predicts Fusion Of Jazz, Classical Music"Ten to twenty years from now there will no longer be the split between jazz and classical music" that now
-
Swing(This week I'd like to turn the column over to my room-mate, Bill Hodson, who, unlike myself, is actually a
-
SWINGThe term "jam session" has become a household word recently, and as such has been kicked around quite improperly, to