Mr. Swing Ambassador for the Culturally Rich Student

Photo by Frank Stewart

Wynton Marsalis, easily the most accomplished jazz artist and composer of his generation, has a thing or two to say about enriching the cultural lives of kids. In the two decades he has soared to fame as a jazz classicist, he has also established himself as one of the most passionate advocates for arts education in schools. Why does he care? NEA Today has a chat.

In the New York headquarters of the world-renown Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis moves from one meeting to the next with the easy, down-home manner of the guy next door. If you didn't know, it would be hard to believe that this 41-year-old trumpeter with the boyish grin is perhaps the most influential man in jazz today. But the r?sum? tells the tale. Through hundreds of performances, recordings, and compositions, Marsalis has wowed listeners around the world and, against the odds, propelled jazz to the forefront of American culture. Six years ago he became the first jazz artist to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize in music for his work, Blood on the Fields. A classical talent, he also holds the unique honor of winning Grammy awards in the same year for both classical and jazz recordings. Today, he counts nine Grammys to his name.

Yet it is in his role as educator that Marsalis has most dramatically broken the mold of musical Wonder Boy. As artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, his work in education has been prolific and intensely student-centered. He's developed a jazz curriculum for teachers and students, launched an interactive Web site for parents and educators, sponsored student competitions, conducted master classes and workshops, and taught and lectured in communities big and small--all to promote this central message: that a good arts education is the antidote to a "culturally bankrupt" society.

But a systemic problem looms large, Marsalis says.

"Right now at the federal level," he told the National Press Club recently, "we invest a grand total of $1 per child in arts education. That's not even enough to buy a Milky Way, let alone an instrument. The Department of Education earmarks just $34 million a year for music education. That's not enough for the basics: for curriculum development, instruments, and teacher training."

He noted studies showing the positive impact of music on a child's spatial abilities, reading skills, self-esteem and creativity, then sounded a call for the doubling of the $50 million federal budget for arts education. State and local governments, he said, "are struggling just to keep schools open and most are spending a fortune to meet accountability standards" under the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But the arts, he says, "aren't something that can be measured with a multiple-choice test."

Not surprisingly, it is through the venue he knows best and loves--jazz--that Marsalis has worked hardest to change the public mindset about its cultural duty to kids. NEA Today's Marilyn Milloy talked with him about his work and his hopes.

Why isn't jazz celebrated more in schools?
Marsalis: Because so few people teach it. You figure something so important to the national identity would be taught. But it's usually not included in the music studied by most teachers--or really anybody--when they go to college.

Why?
Marsalis: In part because it comes from Black people. There's no classical art discipline that originated from Black culture that's ever been taught with any level of seriousness and on a mass scale in our country. It's as if jazz, the foundation of American popular music and American popular song, wasn't even a part of American culture. But it's not a matter of pointing fingers at white people saying, "oh, white folks should be teaching this." Nobody is teaching it much. And the people who seem least interested in teaching it is Black people. Just as classical musicians have had an inferiority complex about their music, African Americans have had a complex about our culture.

How, then, can the average music teacher who knows little or nothing about this art form begin to make a difference in the lives of the kids you're trying to reach?
Marsalis: They can start by not placing so much emphasis on written music in general. Music, I feel, should be taught like we teach words. The early kids should just play all from hearing. You know how to speak long before you sit in an English class. You can talk before you can read, and the fact that you can talk helps you to read. Kids should get used to hearing, especially if they're musicians.

Is that the idea behind your jazz curriculum--helping kids, first and foremost, learn to listen?
Marsalis: Kids and teachers. I'm constantly thinking about the challenges for teachers--especially the ones who are not feeling a connection with the music because of their own cultural upbringing or inclinations. I'm trying to get them to see how it can be used to educate kids in many different ways. They have to be shown. That's why (on the CDs) I'm the one teaching the class; they don't have to teach it. They just listen to what I'm doing and they naturally come upon things. They see what it is. "Oh, okay, that's what the rhythm is. It's not complicated."

What's the really great thing about the music that you want kids to "get"?
Marsalis: First, it places a premium on improvisation. Which means that you can use what's at hand to create something that will work, given a situation that has never existed. So, at any given moment, in a place of jazz, if you're very dissatisfied with what everybody else is doing, there're endless possibilities. Instead of you getting mad because the drummer is playing too loud, you have to figure out how to deal with that. You can't stop playing the trumpet and tell the piano player what notes you want him to play, what chords. You have to handle whatever he's playing.

And the listener can share in this dynamic?
Marsalis: Absolutely. You can hear the trumpet player grappling with the drummer. You can hear the musicians working with the material at hand and making up things. You can hear them interpreting not just American music, but different music that comes from around the world. You can hear them embellishing themes and coming up with things through their use of technical skill. You can hear them interpreting classic pieces in American history, like American popular song. You can also hear swing rhythm, which is a combination of the waltz and the march. You hear how it intersects with our way of life. For example, it can be amended--like the Constitution.

What's the lesson for students?
Marsalis: They learn about the sacrificial aspect of democracy--what rights of yours do you give up for other people to have rights? So when you hear a person go with a drummer, instead of just playing all of what they want to play, that's part of it.

What else?
Marsalis: Historical perspective--a lot of that. Confidence in your individuality. A way to perceive the world that's not judgmental.

How's that?
Marsalis: Because jazz musicians don't judge. They don't say it has to be this way. They say it could be this way. But, it could also be that way. Which means understanding the range of what it means to be human.

Do you think educators can really adapt this art form enough to include it in their curriculum?
Marsalis: Well, in the end that's up to them. This music has been accepted all over the world--France, England, Africa, Japan, South Africa, Senegal. Musicians have won awards. Duke Ellington--50 years of work. Louis Armstrong--millions of albums bought. That speaks for itself.

Still, you're competing against Lil Bow Wow and Dr. Dre and Eminem.
Marsalis: So much of that is trash, and as time goes on the trash just gets replaced with different trash. Trash is a constant. But Duke Ellington, Lewis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra--the best stuff remains. There will always be tension between the two, but you don't fight it. You can't.

Where did this desire to educate and enlighten come from?
Marsalis: My daddy. I saw him doing it--teaching, talking about music. It was cool, especially considering he didn't have music when he was growing up. He came to the music. I was born into it.

But you do connect well with kids.
Marsalis: I've been talking to them for years. Big assemblies, small classrooms, band rooms, music students, kids in Japan, Singapore, New York, Omaha. I just go because I like kids. And after years of doing it, you get experience relating to them. And they can tell it.

Is engaging with them what drives your passion for advocating for arts in schools?
Marsalis: What I know is that the other way is not working. This whole emphasis on testing and making kids compete with people scientifically--it's creating an elite corps of students who, granted, can compete with anyone. But, for most students, that doesn't work. You need another way to deal with the mythology, the soul of people--to teach them what it means to be an adult, what it means to be alive. That will improve our national life. Not smarter students, but more informed, humane students.

Lighting the Jazz Fires

NEA member Clarence Acox is not just any ol' Wynton Marsalis fan. Five times Acox and his Garfield High School Jazz Band from Seattle, Washington, have been finalists in Marsalis' annual Essentially Ellington high school jazz band competition. That means five times director Acox and his students have gotten the royal treatment at New York's Lincoln Center, performing to huge audiences, against some of the best bands in the country, and, of course, with the master himself. This year, for the first time, the group gleefully walked away with first place. Says Acox, "From the time you walk through the door, the response is total love for those kids....It's just a great all-around experience."

An affinity for jazz, he says, has come naturally for many of his students, mainly because Seattle offers such a wildly supportive environment for it. In fact, the area has produced more Essentially Ellington finalists and winners--most of them from public schools--than any other area in the country.

Marsalis hopes this fire will light everywhere. He's developed a 10-CD jazz curriculum--Jazz for Young People™--that teachers in a variety of disciplines can use. Narrated by Marsalis, the curriculum (order at www.jazzatlincolncenter .org), comes with teaching guides, videos, and musical demonstrations. Recently Marsalis launched an interactive Web site, www.JazzForYoungPeople.org, which lets kids watch a concert, download a jazz session, and learn about the history of jazz through biographies, photos, and fun activities.