I’ve recently discovered one can view online concerts at the Jazz at Lincoln Center, led by Wynton Marsalis. I’ve been listening to Jazz for years, thanks primarily to my spouse’s appreciation of the music and his immersion as a fan in the jazz world, exposing me to great talents, past and present. We’ve traveled to live stage performances over the years, including attending the Monterey Jazz Fest, a Chicago Jazz Fest, and traveled at least three times to the Newport Jazz Festival. There are many new artists he has exposed me to, from Gregory Porter to the young pianist, Joey Alexander. The musicians have their own favorites, and interchange who they play with on various stages or recordings. You can follow an individual and be exposed to more talent each year. Loud and live or soft in the background, jazz is exciting yet calming. It was not always my go to music. Growing up in Chicago, I love the blues, and frequented the blues clubs. When I met Neil in Chicago, he took me on dates to Andy’s Jazz Club, and in Minneapolis, the Dakota. My appreciation has grown over the years. This week, I listened to an interview with Wynton Marsalis which nearly brought me to tears. He noted that the Afro-American creation of jazz is the cultures’ greatest American achievement. Sadly, all voices, even in music, are not heard. We have a long way to go to ensure freedoms and rights for all Americans. Read on about Wynton Marsalis’ experience, legendary success and intelligent leadership.

Wynton Marsalis intrigued me when he spoke about how journalists don’t understand enough about the jazz and its form to be qualified to write about it. What also struck me was how his comments parallel complaints from BIPOC about the publishing industry, which is working now to be more inclusive of non-white voices, ever so slowly. Marsalis is an advocate on many levels. He notes that the level of action each person takes depends on their stamina; on their tolerance for pain as they fight discrimination. “The degree of fighting has to do with the degree of pain one is willing to endure in the fight.” Some give up, accept and conform to / comply within systematic discrimination, while others take higher risks, repeatedly raise their voices, put themselves at risk, until they can’t endure the pain any longer. I listened to the interview twice, to catch all he had to say. Here, I include a transcription, in case the interview is hard to find in the future.

African-Americans invented Jazz. Wynton Marsalis is the Managing Director and Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center. He’s a musician, a composer, a teacher, a person who lives jazz 24 hours a day. He is a Jazz legend. What follows is an unofficial transcript of David Rubenstein’s interview with Wynton Marsalis, recorded in Oct. 2020.  Questions appear in bold.

Wynton Marsalis – The David Rubenstein Show:  October-2020 – Transcript

Your father died in April 2020 from COVID at age 85.

He was very philosophical, offered his deep love to us; to his students. My father, a prominent jazz pianist, played modern jazz in an era of a segregated country in clubs among a populist that didn’t like that style of music. I went with my father to sparsely populated clubs in colorful areas. My father was not famous, not well known, didn’t receive audience support. My father struggled never complained, He struggled financially, yet he was very high minded in belief in jazz and the necessity of it as a tool for healing people and raising consciousness. I identified with his struggle.

Segregation, discrimination, racism was a part of life. It was not a philosophy I’m talking about. It was a part of life.  How it was. White neighborhoods were a certain way; my neighborhood was a certain way. Black people lived on one side of the railroad tracks, we still had ditches in our streets. Systems worked against you. It was what the system was, and you didn’t have distance from it. You can look back, but when you grew up in it, it was very much a fact of life. I was someone that never liked it and I fought with it a lot. I had a lot of problems in that system, but most people adapted to the system and were okay with it; they didn’t like it. Sometimes you’re in a bad (discriminatory) situation. It could be a healthcare discrimination situation. The degree to which you are willing to fight against is it is more about the degree to which you are willing to accept the pain of fighting against it.

Are you surprised about Black Lives Matter Activism? We are never anywhere near past what I grew up with. I’ve been in over one thousand schools. We have a problem with segregation, in general. None of it is surprising to me. Our poor public education system makes sure that a certain group remains ignorant.

Do you feel despite your exalted status – head of the Lincoln Center for Jazz — and more; you are famous. Do you feel you are not treated the same as if you were white?

Yes I feel that. Intellectual patronization that I receive, the low level in expertise in the subject matter. The NY TIMES is abominable. Article after article, the lack of depth and quality in the poorly researched articles; the lack of intelligence, the ill-qualified journalists assigned to a story without any depth of the engagement with the form are not qualified to speak /write on it with people of record. Because it is jazz, to the paper, it doesn’t matter.

On how he got his start, Wynton at age six, is given a trumpet.

I always wanted to play jazz. It is more difficulty to learn than classical music. My father was playing modern jazz; I played in a New Orleans Church band jazz. For my age at the time it was very difficult; because Jazz is not a part of American mythology, there were no competitions. There were classical music competition; classes you could take to gain a track record for your resume; so if someone asked “What did you do / accomplish? You have something to show. At 14, I won a competition to play with the Phil Harmonic, but I was playing classical. For jazz, what could I say I did? I played jazz in Tyler’s band in a beer garden on a Wednesday.

You won a Grammy for Classical music and a Grammy for Jazz music in the same year!

Yes, but my father watched the Grammy’s. He thought it was very interesting and recognized it as a big deal. “Wow,” he said, but he pulled me aside back at the hotel. I was age 22 and he said, “Man, I’m glad you won! But…You don’t think this means you can play, do you?” I had a long way to go to learn how to play!

You can argue that Classical music came from Europe; but Jazz was invented in the United States. It’s a classic American invention; why is it hard to understand? Your book, Moving to a Higher Ground, notes it is like a religious experience to play and understand jazz; you can play as an individual, but you also must play as part of a team. Can you explain why you compare it to a religion?

Jazz is our national art form. As such, it objectifies our basic principles. A civilization / society that has an art form; it is a blessing. America was blessed with a group of musicians living in a social condition that produced this music. The music has three fundamental elements.

1. The first is improvisation, which is our kind of individuality and what we believe in rights and freedoms that are about the individual.
2. Second element is SWING, which is about nurturing common ground, finding balance with other people, working out an agenda as you go along under the pressure of time.
3. Third is Blues. The Blues is an optimism that is not naïve; so the Blues also implies an acuity a democratic thing;

Now, suffice it to say that everything in the music we do ties into things that we do; down to the three branches of government; like the rhythm section or to amend the Constitution is like adding to an arrangement. I can go on and on… After a while, after more examples, you will realize these are not superficial things that are not contrived. That they actually come out of the American way of life.

The central question of Jazz‘s position in our country comes down to 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 in the American culture, Jazz is the greatest achievement of the Afro American Culture, in the context of American culture, meaning it is Afro America, but it applies to all Americans.

The average White Jazz musician is actually a rock fan who has actually wishes that Jazz would be something else without Black folks being a at the core of it; or that maybe wishes that Jazz would just die away.

If you study Jazz, there is a long-standing tradition, in article after article, in decade after decade, is saying, “Is Jazz dead?” This question has been asked the most since the 1930s. All of this investment in the destruction of jazz is to further obscure a big lie, that Jazz uncovers.

This is important to look at this: This is a serious thing to consider if we are to transform our nation. If we say our nation is based on human freedom, and we are the first on earth founded on the glorious celebration of human dignity and rights, how do we then reconcile and correct the systemic dehumanization ownership and the continued acts, the brutalizing underclass people…because it provided income? It’s too much injustice to correct. So, we are forced to say, people make excuses to say, “that those (Black) people are responsible for the problem! They are less than human, and it is just their condition.” But if they aren’t; if it is not their condition, it means that is a mythology, that this belief is not true!

Jazz isn’t so much about a form of music where you don’t know what you are going to get. Is that you know Jazz won’t be played the same all the time, is that what Jazz is all about?  – David Rubenstein

That’s (refers just to) the improvisation part; that one part which allows you latitude to do what you want. It’s like how Americans conduct business; all the innovations; the freedom we have to speak, the fact that we can step into a space and use our personality to transform a tradition, yes we have that freedom. But balancing that freedom, is that we have the responsibility to extend a courtesy and an understanding to other people who have those freedoms and nurture that common space; that’s the part of Jazz Americans struggle with.

Now, is Elvis gonna not be the King?  Where are you going to put Jazz if Elvis is the King?

——Read more here: (https://thegrio.com/2011/08/11/why-african-americans-are-ambivalent-about-elvis/)

Greats that you played with or influenced you:—Did you perceive Louie Armstrong as an Uncle Tom?

It’s hard for today’s generation to understand what the norms and challenges of generations before us were. Now I understand more of his genius and who he was and what he played, but it still doesn’t mean that when I look at the movies he made, the positions he took, I don’t like that; I don’t like the way that Black people were portrayed in any of the old movies during the 1930s and 1940s and 50s. As a matter of fact, some movies now, a lot of it now, portray the same type of destructive mythology; when you consider the fact that when I was a teenager the heroic role for a Black youth was a pimp was on movie screen. What is it for a pimp to be a hero? For that role was at the top of the mythology! To not get sidetracked by that, I do say now that Louis Armstrong was a genius, and I can talk about his achievements, and if you spoke of his accomplishments, you still would not be saying enough.

You are a composer – Duke Ellington was a composer. Did he have any influence on you?

I love Duke. His intelligence, his dedication – wrote over 2000 pieces! I love him, I grew up listening to classical music, I also love Beethoven.

What about Dizzie Gillespie?

The thing about Dizzie Gillespie, the depth of his intelligence, when I met him when I was 14, my father and I, listening to him speak, he was so intelligent; he is probably the reason we have now Jazz at the Lincoln Center. Because I like playing in small bands, I didn’t like a big band, Dizzie told me, “To lose one’s orchestral heritage is to lose this achievement. We paid a lot of dues for the orchestral heritage. To give that all away and say a big band is old fashioned; that is not intelligent.”

You started playing Jazz at Lincoln Center in 1987; You are now the Musical Director/ founder of the Jazz At Lincoln Center

Yes, we wanted to fill a space in the American Arts and provide enough education and art and advocacy; enough concerts for our nation; to have our native art form to address our mythology, to correct it, so we can move forward as a nation.

So we’ve succeeded by our wildest imagination, with the volume of concerts we’ve been able to do! We’ve built three concert halls in the middle of Manhattan, the House of Swing, we’ve put on concert series over 30 years. Even since this pandemic, we’ve put out more than 500 or 600 pieces virtually. We are deeply engaged.

Lincoln Center opened in 1960 ; You came along and said we needed more Jazz. What did people say?

We had support from the top. Maybe initial founders, maybe Rockerfeller, maybe the founder of Lincoln Center didn’t know or like jazz; but the Constitution was not written for the Afro American and Native Americans in mind. But the Constitution can be amended. and it has been amended. We have tremendous support.

How do you divide you time?

I work all the time. My work is my hobby. I’m also the Managing Director. I respect all of my colleagues, especially our orchestra. We are open for businessl we are getting things done; we have 11 arrangers in our orchestra; something that has never happened. We have composers, teachers, all the people’s dedication will bring me to tears. We are struggling like all arts organizations are because we lost our opportunity our ability to earn revenue. We are committed to achieve our mission even under this duress. That is a greatest blessing in my life to work with this high quality caliber of people. I will do this until I die!

Overseas – is Jazz popular?

Jazz has never been popular, even in the United States. Overseas, not like Funk was popular or like Rock n Roll is popular. It’s not popular. Jazz is meaningful and necessary Those who are interested in that like Jazz. Those who are not, they don’t like Jazz, there are other things to like. We need to teach our kids about the music. It is a national art form. I always make the point: What is going to be new in Jazz?  People are going to listen to it; that’s what’s going to be new in Jazz.

What is it that makes Jazz as a listener so compelling, compared to other forms of music?

It has a development section, so you have to follow what musicians play and from what point. It’s what I love about the Beethoven sympathy: It’s not one thing repeated over and over again. It was a thing, and then another thing, and then another thing. Jazz in the world is most like conversation; jazz as a music it’s an individualization, you have a lot of great musicians you can interface with, Lester Young, Billie Holiday to Chic Corea , Herbie Hancock, you can just keep naming musicians, you have great groups that you can love that play in different forms; then you have the whole Afro Latin form of Jazz that takes you from Brazil to Cuba to Puerto Rico, it integrates your citizenship and understanding of the world; and mostly importantly it gives you tremendous pride in being American. Because we didn’t have to denigrate or do anything to cut anybody down to create this music. It is a non-predatory form; it is a symbiotic form; and you can be as rich as you want to be in jazz, and nobody else has to be poor.  

Source: Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center managing and artistic director, talks about growing up with racism, who his biggest influencers were, and how he kept performing during the pandemic. He appears on the latest episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.” The interview was recorded Oct. 31, 2020. (Source: Bloomberg) https://Bloomberg.com/peer-to-peer