WEBVTT - Wynton Marsalis 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:03.920 This is Bloomberg Best. Bloomberg Best is about the insight 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.480 and the context that we get from our guests. It's 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:07.880 a great way to catch up on some of the 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.520 stories you might have missed on the Bloomberg stories you're 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:14.600 not going to find in any other news organizations. Bloomberg 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.440 Best Bloomberg's Best stories of the week, powered by twenty 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.320 seven hundred journalists and analysts in more than a hundred 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.599 twenty countries around the world. I'm at Baxter and On 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.920 Denise Pelligrini on this weekend edition of Bloomberg Best. It 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.800 objectifies a lot about basic prisons. Jazz is a national 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.159 art form now, is Elvi is going to not be 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.360 the King Man, Well, you're gonna put jazz i Felgus 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.080 of the King Whitten Marcellus on why some insists jazz 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.840 is dead. For somebody like me to complain is I'd 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.080 have to be out of my mind. The Jazz great 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.400 and managing director at Lincoln Center on music, race and 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:54.720 the world. All this and more coming up in the 0:00:54.760 --> 0:01:00.160 next hour of Bloomberg Best. All right, we've been looking 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.639 forward to this one for weeks, oh have we? That's right, 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.120 The one and only went and Marcellus on all the 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.640 big topics. We had a chance to hear from him 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.480 on the David Rubens Toun Show Peer to Peer Conversations. 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.080 Let's listen in. So, do you get tired of people 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.560 calling you a jazz legend? You feel older when they 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.280 say that to you. Yeah, I like the word jazz. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.760 I don't like the legend. Um. Let's talk about your 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.520 family for a moment. Sadly, your father passed away in 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.920 April at the age of eighty five because of COVID. 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:34.920 So it must have been a very sad loss because 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.240 you were very close to him, of course, Yeah, for 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.559 all of us, for me and my brothers, of course, 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:41.480 as he's our father. We loved him so much. He 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.360 was such a such an example for us, and he was. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.160 He's such a kind man and a man with a 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.320 with a large worldview and also a large person. He 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.480 never he didn't do small things. He was very philosophical. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.600 He wasn't a touchy feely type of person. He's from 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:57.560 that generation to It wasn't a lot of hugging and 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.160 I love it, I love you was going on, but 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:05.000 there was underneath a lot of of resolve and and seriousness. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.360 And just just kind of deep love not just for us, 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.359 but also he had many students who who love him 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.000 and and love to tell stories about him, and he 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.840 supported a lot of a lot of us. So, for 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.080 those who may not be familiar, your father was a very, 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.679 very prominent jazz pianist. When you were growing up, did 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.800 you you obviously looked up to your father. Um was 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:26.560 he somebody who said I want you to be a 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:28.840 trumpet player. I want you to be a jazz trumpet player. 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.840 Did he not push you into that? No, he didn't 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.000 push any of us into anything. You know, I went, 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.919 I always hung out with him. My father really struggled 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:38.440 when I was growing up. He was trying to play 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.680 modern jazz uh in segrette in the era of segregation 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:44.840 and in clubs and with a populist that didn't like 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.079 that style of music. So much of my experience was 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.040 going to sparsely populated clubs with him and UH in 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.080 colorful areas. So I love to go because I was 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.160 always the only kid in the room. And it started 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.440 when I was three, four or five years old, and 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.240 it continued until I got into high school and started 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.680 to work myself. But I always went with him and 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.480 identified with his struggle really because he continued to play 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:11.840 even though he didn't get audience support. He was not 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.560 well known, he wasn't famous, He struggled financially. He never complained, 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.680 and he had he was very high minded in his 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.880 belief in jazz and and and in his belief in 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.000 the necessity of it as as a as a tool 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.839 for healing people, in raising consciousness and things like that. 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.000 So when you were growing up, you obviously experienced racial 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.799 discrimination because there was a segregated area. That is that right, 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:40.480 yah know, that defined the entire uh segregation, discrimination, racism. 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.640 That was just a part of life. Like it's it's 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:47.120 not something you could uh as, there's not philosophy, I'm 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:49.800 talking now, it's just how was your neighborhood looked a 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.800 certain way the white neighborhoods was a certain way. Black 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.320 people generally lived in our area on one side of 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.960 railroad tracks. We had still had ditches in our streets, 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.960 and any type of systems always worked against you, and 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.760 you you had to uh, it was just what it was, 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.480 what the system was. You didn't have distance from it, 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:10.800 so you didn't have It's easy to look back on 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.680 a thing and experience it not the way you experienced 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.960 it when you grew in it. When you grew in it, 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.120 it was very much a fact of life. So I 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.640 happened to be someone who never liked it. So I 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:23.359 fought with it a lot and had a lot of 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.680 problems in that system. But most people adapted to it 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.240 and we're okay with it. They didn't like it, but 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.400 they would sometimes. Sometimes you're not in a bad situation 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.760 in this case, we talked about racism. It could be anything, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.920 could be a health situation. The degree to what you're 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.160 willing to fight against it really is is based on 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.760 your your your ability to accept the pain of fighting 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.200 against it. So are you surprised about the Black Lives 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.960 Matter situation? Here we are in the year, well advanced 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.120 past the time that you grew up, and we still 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:00.440 have racial problems of that type. Yeah, we're not anywhere 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.640 near advanced past what I grew up with, So no, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.120 I'm not surprised by it. I had the honor to 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.760 go into so many American schools throughout the eighties and 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:14.000 nineties and early two thousand's it probably will over a 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.040 thousand schools. So we have a segregation in our systems 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.160 in general. So no, no, it doesn't none of None 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.640 of it is surprising to me. So today, as a 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.719 famous jazz musician, you're recognized all over the country, in 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.360 many places around the world. Do you feel you are 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.800 still suffering from racial discrimination? Do you still feel, even 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.720 despite your exalted status in the music world, you are 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:37.400 really not treated the same as you would be if 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.440 you were white. Yes, I feel that. I feel that 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:45.640 in terms of the kind of intellectual patronization that I received, 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.440 the low level of criticism of our music. Um, I'm 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:52.839 subject to things, of course, nothing like what I grew 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.880 up with. Nor do I make a habit of complaining 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.440 about it constantly because I'm also treated in a way 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.400 with so much respect by so many people. Did for 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.839 me to complain would be it would be past gratuitous. 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.880 So you asked me the question directly, Yes, I will say, 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.440 have been treated unfairly by by newspapers something like the 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.680 New York Times. The way our institution jazz and then 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.279 concerning it has been covered is abominable. Even though we 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.760 get articles, the quality of those articles are always very poor, 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.920 poorly research the writers oftentimes down to the history and 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.240 lack the intelligence and depth of engagement with the form 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.239 to be qualified to speak on it in a paper 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:37.120 of record. But because it's jazz, it doesn't matter. So 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.120 that's only in direct response to your question because I 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.359 don't want to. I don't want to confuse it with 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.520 when I was growing up. Are the situations that I 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.920 found myself and on my father's situational grandfathers, or let's 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.480 go back in the generations. So I'm not doing that, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.359 and I'm very, very grateful for how I've been treated 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.479 by people all over this country of all kinds. So 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.200 there's a story that when you were time, your father 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.000 had you sit down with I think Al Hurt and 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.600 maybe it's Miles Davis, and they said, how would you 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:07.080 like to play the trumpet? And they gave you a 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.440 trumpet to play. Is there anything true to that? You know, 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.840 when I was six, my father was playing without her 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.840 and al Hert gave me a trumpet for my sixth birthday, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.280 So that's true. And my father Lady was talking to 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.160 Miles Davis. He said, I'm getting my son a trumpet. 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.040 Before before al got me a trumpet, my father was 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.400 talking to Miles. You're standing without your mole, said don't 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.880 get that boy a trumpets too hard. So that is 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.680 a true story. Okay, So as you grew up, you 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.400 were actually, as I understand that, a classical musician more 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.520 than a jazz musician. And when you went to Juilliard 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.640 where you went to college, Um, you were interested in 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.760 classical music. Is that true? No. I grew up always 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.280 wanting to play jazz, but jazz was It's always much 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.000 more difficult to learn in that time, especially than classical music. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.000 Because my father's a jazz musician. I was always around 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:00.960 the music. I was raised in the culture. I love 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.360 the musicians. My father was a modern jazz musician. He 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.520 wasn't playing New Orleans jazz, but at a certain time, 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:09.720 when I was maybe ten or eleven, he started to 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.680 play New Orleans music. And I also played and Danny 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.559 Parker's fairew Baptist Church Band, which was a New Orleans 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:20.560 traditional band jazz. It was difficult at that time for 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:22.440 a person of my age, in my generation to figure 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.840 out what it was because it was not a part 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.240 of the American mythology, whereas the classical music. He had 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.240 competitions and and and classes you could go to so 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.600 you could get a track record on your on your 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.760 on your resume, Like if you see what did I do? 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:37.640 It will say when I was fourteen, I want a 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.520 competition to play the Hiding Trumpet Concerto with the New 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.400 Orleans Philharmonic. But I was playing jazz the whole time. 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:45.760 But what could I say that I did? I played 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.000 in the club called Tyler's Beer Gardens on on on 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.880 a Wednesday. But one year you want to Grammy. The 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.400 only person I ever went a Grammy and jazz and 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.120 the classical music in the same year. It's funny story 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.960 about my father. He went to the Grammys. He even 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.200 was not into those kind of things, and he sat 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.080 through the whole show and he was like, wow, you know, 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.560 just the Grammys. So at the end of the show 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.360 I won. I was in the back in the hotel 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:09.720 with him and my mother. I was like, you know, 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.400 getting ready to go out to the party or something, 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.600 and I was I was like, yeah, man. My daddy 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:16.520 looked at me and he was wondering. He said, man, 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.160 he said, I'm glad that was the Grammys. He said, yeah, 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:22.040 I'm glad you want. I mean, don't don't get me wrong, 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.080 it's great to do it, but you don't think this 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.240 means you can play, do you? So? I still at 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.400 laughed because I was like twenty two and I knew 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.240 what he was saying, because I still, of course had 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.000 a long way to go to learn how to play. 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.000 You could argue classical music came from Europe, and you 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.199 can argue that other parts of music came from other 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.040 parts of the world. But jazz was invented in the 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.560 United States, and it's a classic American kind of invention. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.280 I would say, um, but why is it so hard 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.320 for some people to understand that You've written a book 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.560 about it, and you make it in your book sound 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.720 like it's almost a religious experience to play jazz and 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.440 understand jazz. It's important to be an individual and who 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.120 can play well, but also to play with the team. 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.920 Can you explain why jazz is almost like a religion 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.840 to people who care about jass? Well, jazz is our 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:12.000 national art form and as such, it objectifies a lot 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.240 of our basic principles. And if a group of people 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.200 are are blessed to have an art form which you 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.040 can have a civilization and a society, you may never 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.800 create an art form that has that does that. It's 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.400 a blessing. So America was blessed with a group of 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.800 musicians and a social condition that produced this music. That 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.959 the music has three fundamental elements. The first is improvisation, 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.720 which is our kind of individuality and what we what 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:39.760 we believe in. We have rights and freedoms and things 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.840 that are about the individual. Then swing, which is about 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.560 nurturing common ground, finding balance with other people, working out 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.360 an agenda as you go along under the pressure of time. 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.800 And then the blues. And the blues is an optimism, 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.520 it's not naive. So the blues also implies an acuity. 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.920 That's that's a democratic thing. Now, suffice to say that 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.000 everything in the music ties into things that we do, 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.720 down to the three branches of government, like the rivem 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.080 section are what to a man, the Constitution is like 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:11.960 adding to an arrangement. I could go on and on, 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.680 and after a while of giving you these examples, you'll 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.800 realize these are not superficial things that are contrived, that 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.480 they actually come out of the American way of life. 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:22.679 Now to kind of give you it's gonna be a 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.600 little longer answer, but it's important because the central question 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:32.040 of jazz's position in our country concerns the relationship of 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:36.760 slavery to the American identity and our mythology as a country. 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.920 Black Americans buying large in our country have little or 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:44.160 no knowledge of jazz, and uh, jazz is the greatest 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.440 achievement of the Afro American culture in the context of 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.559 the American culture, meaning it's Afro American, but it applies 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.840 to all Americas, as many things in American culture apply 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:58.199 to all Americas. Our poor public education system make sure 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.920 that a certain group remains ignorant. And the average white 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.200 jazz writer is actually a rock fan who's for a 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.760 long time, which the jazz will actually be something else 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.839 without black folks at the core of it. But it 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.440 maybe jazz will just die away. That's why if you 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.880 study jazz, there's a longstanding tradition of article after article, 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.560 the decade after decade saying it's jazz dead. That's probably 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:24.640 one of the most questions that's been asked since the 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.719 nineteen thirties. Now, all of this investment and the destruction 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.280 of jazz is to further obscure a big lie that 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:36.080 jazz uncovers. And it's important to look at this because 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.640 it's it's a serious it's a serious thing to consider 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.400 if we are to transform our nation. If we say 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.360 our nation is based on human freedom, and we're the 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:49.040 first on earth founded on the glorious celebration of human freedom, dignity, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.080 and rights, how do we then reconcile and correct the 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:56.400 systemic the humanizing ownership, brutalizing a large underclass of people 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.560 for free labor because of their skin color. It's too 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.560 much in justice to correct, so we're forced to say 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.080 that those people are responsible for the problem. They're less 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.960 than human and it's just their condition. But if they aren't, 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.200 if it's not their condition, it means that omnithology and 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.000 belief about ourselves is not true. Now, if Elvis gonna 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.000 not be the king, man, well you're gonna put jazz 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.040 if Elvis of the king. So let me ask you, 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:23.439 if I were to go to and listen to a 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:28.280 Tchaikovsky concert or a Beethoven concert, it's gonna be mostly 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.360 sounding the same and where never, no matter where I'm 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:33.080 gonna listen to it, no matter what the orchestra, they 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.200 basically might play slightly better, slightly different, but basically you 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.920 know what you're gonna get when you sit down with jazz, 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.199 Am I wrong in that a jazz musician can kind 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.080 of expand on what has been composed and kind of 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.320 play it differently every different time. Is that part of 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.439 what jazz is? Uh? All about? The improvisation part? That 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.720 one part allows you to You have a lot of 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.680 latitude to do things. It's like the way Americans conduct business, 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.640 all the innovations. We have the freedom we have to speak, 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.120 the fact that we think we can step into space 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.440 and use our personality to transform a tradition. Yes, we 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.240 have that freedom. But balancing that freedom is we have 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.480 the responsibility to extend a courtesy and an understanding to 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.920 other people who have those freedoms and nurture that common space. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.520 That's the part of jazz we struggle with. So in 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:21.880 your book on Jazz, you talk about some of the 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.200 grades who either played with or who influenced you, and 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.560 I just like to ask your brief comments on some 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.080 of them. Uh. Versus Louis Armstrong, you originally thought he 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.040 was as you say and Uncle Tom, but you obviously 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.120 changed your view. I guess yeah, because it's it was 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:40.960 It's hard for for later generations to understand, uh, the 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.280 challenges of earlier generation, and and and and norms and 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.800 and things of show business and what Louis Armstrong did, 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.680 it doesn't mean that necessarily, even with my now I 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.760 understand more of his genius and who he wasn't when 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:55.920 he played. But it still doesn't mean And when I 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.320 look at the movies he made, all the positions he went, 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.000 I still don't necessarily like that. I don't like a 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:02.640 lot of where black people or in any of the 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.080 American movies of the nineteen thirties and forties and in fifties, 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:07.440 and as a matter of fact, some of it now 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.280 a lot of it now uh that he has that 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.920 same type of destructive mythology if you consider the fact 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.680 it when I was a teenager, the heroic figure for 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.960 black youth in movies were pimps. I mean, what is 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:23.480 it for a pimp to be a hero and be 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.480 at the topic of mythology? So but to not get 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.480 sidetrack with that, yeah, I thought that, But later I 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.600 learned and understood who Louis Armstrong was as a musician, 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.800 that's a totally different story. That man was a genius 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.480 of such magnitude you can't even you could lie about 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.640 how great he was, and you still wouldn't be saying enough. 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.040 So you're a composer as well as a performer, educator, conductor, 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.120 and so forth. One of the great composers in the 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.800 jazz world was Duke Ellington. Uh did he have any 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.240 influence on you? Great? You know, I love Duke and 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:59.640 the Duke's intelligence, his dedication over two thousand pieces, and uh, 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.560 I of him. And because I grew up also listening 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.760 to classical music, I love Beethoven. What about Disney Gillespie? 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.440 Was he an influence on you? The thing about Disney, 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.440 because that's hit me first, was the depth of his intelligence. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.640 I met him when I was fourteen, and just when 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.400 he started talking with my daddy and other musicians listened 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.480 to him. Yeah, Dizney was a very intelligent He's part 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.720 of the reasoning we we developed jazz at Lincoln Center. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:25.680 Because I didn't want to play in a big band, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:27.800 because I had always gonna play in small band music, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.360 and Dinney told me. I called him and asked him, man, 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.480 what do you think I should do? He said, to 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:37.040 lose ones orchestral heritage should not be considered and achievement. 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.160 So he was telling me, because you need to figure 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.360 out how to keep our orchestral heritage. We we paid 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.440 a lot of dudes to builoup orchestral music in jazz 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.200 and for us to just give it away and say 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.359 the big band is old fashioned, that's that's not intelligent. 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.800 Let's talk a bit about jazz at Lincoln Center. So 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.000 you began playing jazz at Lincoln Center when in the 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:04.160 late nineteen eighties that evolved into Jazz at Lincoln Center, 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.720 which is you're now the director of artistic director and 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.959 music director of the Jazz Lincoln Center Orchestra. Is that right? 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.720 We wanted to fill fill fill a space in the 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.840 American arts and and provide enough education and music and advocacy, 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.800 enough concerts for us as a nation to have our 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.480 native art form when it came it came time for 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.360 us to address our mythology incorrected so that we can 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.320 move forward as a nation. So we've we've we've succeeded 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.399 behind beyond any of our wildness imagination with the volume 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:40.680 of concerts we've been able to do. We built three 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.400 concert halls in the middle of men Manhattan on fifty 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.760 nine Street, the House of Swing. We have put on 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.960 concert series over thirty years. We have twelve education programs 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.040 and even since this pandemic, I mean we've we've put 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.879 out over over five hundred, six hundred pieces virtually. You know, 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.840 we're we're we're deeply engaged. So when you started Lincoln Center, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:04.119 many people Lincoln Center open in the nineteen sixties, people thought, Okay, 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.119 this is opera, symphonic music, classical kind of music. You 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.159 came along and said maybe we could have jazz. What 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.040 do people say initially when you said we need to 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.399 do more jazz at Lincoln Center. We we had a 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.040 lot of support from the top of the organization. Everybody 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.959 was everybody was dedicated. And you know when when it 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.320 was found to baby Lincoln Center didn't think about the music, 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.000 or maybe the initial founders of Rockefell and they didn't 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.679 like the music. It doesn't matter. The Constitution was not 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.760 written with the rights of African Americans and Native Americans 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.439 in mind. But the Constitution can be amended, and it 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.040 has been amended. Let me ask you on a normal 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:42.400 time before COVID came, and hopefully when COVID's gone, you'll 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.119 return to the situation had before. Are you on the 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.200 road half the time and half the time in New 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:48.919 York or How do you divide your time and how 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:54.240 do you divide your time between playing, conducting, composing, and teaching. Well, 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.440 I do many things. I'm also the managing director of 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.880 our organization, so I deal with with everything in USA. 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:04.520 Executive Director Greg Show, and our management team, they're all fantastic, 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.119 uh colleagues. If if anything, I mean I work, I 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.920 work all the time, so I don't I don't separate anything. 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.159 My my work is also my hobby. And this pandemic 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.480 because as I always respected all of my colleagues. But 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.000 I'm gonna tell you that the pandemic has given me 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.760 such a greater appreciation of the quality of people. I've 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.480 been blessed to work with our orchestra. We still have 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.439 a vast majority of our staff on. We're open for 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.600 business with getting things done. The orchestra is so supportive 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:35.480 of the mission of the of the organization. We have 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.479 a level arrangers in our orchestra. That's something that has 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.640 never happened, composers, teachers, the phone calls I get. Then 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.439 when you get to our staff and our managers of 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.840 every division of our building, our financial, our CFO, I 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.080 can go position to position people's dedication will bring me 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.400 to tears. And that's why you know we're we're we're 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.080 struggling like all the arts organizations are, because we've lost 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:02.040 the ability to earn revenue. But we are so for 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:06.400 real about our our mission and achieving it even under 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.000 this type of darrest. I think it's really the greatest 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.040 blessing I've had in my life has been to work 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.520 with this high quality of people for this amount of time. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.760 So I'm I'm so grateful for that opportunity. I don't 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.359 even consider it to be worked when you go overseas. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.480 Is jazz popular outside the United States? Jazz has never 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.480 really been popular, So no, it's not. It's not popular 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.119 like like like phone was popular, like rock and roll 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.919 is popular. It's not popular. It is. It is a 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.600 jazz is meaningful and it's necessary. So those who are 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:43.160