American Icons: Wynton Marsalis

good afternoon it's good to see you students and I think faculty yes sir you are I hope you're surviving the second week of scroll to all of our guests welcome to Shenandoah conservatory it's my pleasure as dean to a welcome you here yes he's here we'll get started in just a moment just a few words though American icons was established to bring conservatory students into closer contact with artists who are not only iconic but who like great teachers here revealed through their life and work a while the openness of half a way of being as an artist that is grounded in integrity embrace of collaboration generosity of spirit as one of the most heralded and celebrated musicians alive Wynton Marsalis is certainly iconic and for many of you he doesn't need an introduction but some of you students don't know him and so let me briefly explain why he's here and why you should listen first some facts and figures and this is a really partial list he's produced over 80 albums that have sold over seven million copies he was the first and ever only musician to win a classic Grammy Award and a jazz Grammy Award in the same year 83 he repeated that the following year and then he were won a Grammy Award every year for quite a few years the famed classical trumpeter Maurice Andre called him potentially the greatest trumpeter of all time in 97 he became the first jazz musician to win Pulitzer Prize for music helped numerous titles for many nations and he is an extraordinary passion for education and between that artistic excellence and education he received honorary doctorates from Harvard Princeton Yale Howard Columbia University of Pennsylvania and about 24 other you know these these awards are a big deal but they're only some of the things you should know he comes from an extraordinary musical family he was a phenomenal young virtuoso probably the fastest developing trumpet player of the century but it's even more important to know of his development into a master craftsman the central quality of artistic craftsmanship you'll remember is not just mastery it's the presence of a hunger to continually refine one's craft and oneself like great artists before him Wynton Marsalis is in ongoing development answerable first and foremost to himself not to those who wish our preferred he'd embrace or favor certain styles of it's the unexpected isn't them or performing certain genres in that ongoing work he demonstrates and teaches others that finding a truly personal voice is not only the hardest work it's the most important work that brings me to the real reason I'm excited that he's here and has been working with our conservatory students on the premiere of his completed blue symphony Wynton Marsalis reminds us that artistry and excellence is not a destination but a deeply personal journey he's on such a journey and observing him from afar I see in him not only a voracious thirst for learning but also those dual qualities we find in the best of artists self acceptance and self-criticism importantly that self-criticism combines an intolerance for the second-rate with an extraordinary regard for collaboration and the dignity of all in our society indeed through his educational work writings and performances he has revealed uniquely powerful messages about jazz that even above all else it may uniquely teach respect and Trust can reveal wounds in this society and pathways to healing can call us - honestly engage with each other as our true selves he speaks to put it simply from a place of profound passion concern and awareness and in bringing his all to the task of his life's work he has a clarity that enables him to look at young artists with a wise caring gaze like that which the great pianist John Lewis could give to fellow musicians it's a caring look and I've seen it during his residences here at Shenandoah it's a look that can make students admit that yes their effort and what they were doing was a bit that look elevates because it causes young artists to feel anew the urgency of being true to one's deepest potential and understand afresh that in the arts the work of improvement is never completed conservatory students you'll see and meet some very famous people during your lives but when all is said and done only a few of them really have something truly profound to teach you through their life's work it's my honor and pleasure to introduce to you one of those exceptions when Marsalis that's the best introduction uh I don't think I should say anything just but I'm done that's it that's it thank you all for coming thank you for being here and it's been a delight to them to see you working with our students this is a big work the blue symphony how's it going it's all it's a it's a pleasure Simon for me like we say when we first met I'm also trying to learn what I'm doing so I'm I mean I'm learning a lot you know I have just such a love and a feeling for the students first just as a musician and as a student the rehearsals are late at night you've been already through your day so they've been very patient with me and you know I love a lot of times I look at him on a Huggle because I mean I'm it's just a path that uh anybody played in in orchestras and large ensembles know you especially trumpet is because we sit for a lot of measures we just back there looking around so I'm very sensitive to it but it's been on for me as I knew it would be like yeah it is we've had lots of people who made a big impact on your life along the way you've met a lot of interesting people and maybe if you could just share if I bring up some names of the situation's you there's a this one moment that you write about with some fondness when you reach out to a sweet Edison and you were young and people are talking about authentic or not authentic and he asked you some questions and could you share with with with the students here what what happened at that moment and how your power grew from there well I know sweet says trumpet player playing with the great Count Basie Orchestra in the 1930s late 30s so he's a master blues trumpet player Frank Sinatra would not record an album on Columbia in the late 50s without sweets Edison so if you ever hear Frank Sinatra's records wit Nelson Riddle Orchestra a trumpet that sweets Edison playing you know I've met him when I was 14 in New Orleans so we were kind of friends like happy you could be friends when you're 14 with a much older course in jazz it's very different our age divided is not as great as in other fields but I knew him and I always talked to it and I didn't like so much his way of playing I liked him he was always flirting with everybody he never saw a woman he didn't flirt with and he would do funny things all the time and once he challenged me he took me into a every time I would went up when I became older my early 20s I was in New York I start to travel around I would see him in different places he would always come pick me up and in Los Angeles you know he always had a white beer it's Cadillac you can pick me up in the Cadillac and we would go to this place called maurices snack and Jeff so I would get breakfast and I would always insult the breakfast and say it's just not as good as new audience and he would always order grits and brains and I would be like brains how can you eat brains you know it's always kind of like a thing about eating these brains brain so so at a certain point I was when I first maybe I was 19 I was young and I was being critiqued a lot criticized about I couldn't play with blues I was playing with feeling I wasn't there some was about 10 so I asked him man what are they talking about what is all this about he said man he said where are you from what's hitting the wall this man he said what did you you grew up playing a music you run music I said yeah he said are you I said yeah I got a answer did affirmative to all the things he do about me because he because I had grown up knowing him and he said look man you got to be yourself and you can't imitate something that some other people are telling you that you should be he validated me in a sense because he told me you have the pedigree history of that and it's up to you to realize what you are and accept that and be what you are so stop whining about this and he would he would do many things like that like he didn't like my song so he'll always say you gotta get some more weight on yourself baby boy it doesn't sound like a trumpet it sounds more like a peashooter so he actually sent me a trumpet a selmak a modified so I was playing Bach trumpet so he sent me to Selma came out of five trumpet and I got the trumpet and then when I played the first two or three notes farm he looked at me I said well let's not to drop it so he would also get on me because he was famous for he would play just very short phrases and they would just be just drenched in the blues and soul so he never paid little all that's coming it was a dude dude look there's always been in the notes him so I was warming up myself man fast he looked at me I said now that's got to be more notes than I played in my entire career what was applied underneath it was is more notes but not one of them is of any value and and on and on you know I could go go on not about about the greatness as he says and how funny he was you mentioned finding your voice that sounds simple how hard has it be how hard is it I think maybe it's hard it's hard when you are when you when you're younger and I think is it's hard it's difficult to be confident it for me and my generation was a little different because there were so few people playing jazz just the fact that you tried to play it real the hardest thing was to for me was to work through the maze of misinformation to realize because there are many layers of misinformation if you're black America we have many layers of misinformation and not just stuff they come from from white people this just whatever it's just what it is just misinformation yeah and if you're an American you have mazes of information you have to work through slogans and things that are not accurate it's not gonna serve you well you have to work through those then your own personal misinformation you've you've miss educated yourself with just the lies that you've told yourself good friend of Mines that's a hell of a lot to unwrap there's a lot you gotta come round it so it's harder to be honest with yourself didn't you then you think yeah a good friend of mine I Lee Jackson's drummer his brothers name is Khalil they grew up in Detroit there like my almost like sons or little brothers to me Khalil their father died when I leave was 11 and Khalil I think was nine or ten and they kind of they survived they feed I got to work it out cuz their mother we had mother followed not together but Khalil when he was 32 or 33 he wanted to join the military so he wanted to become an officer so I called : Paul and I asked him hey Colton do you think because the : Paul and I used to sit on this D I said because I'm em he's P we said next each other we always talked and I just asked him do you think my man's brother can make it to be and he said man tell him to forget it he'll never make it so I told him this was wha Coleman said he and that's the sauce I mean I mean what else he actually made the highest score ever on the test he had to take and he became he's now in the military and he's now in in Iraq and he told me when the first time he came back I said what did you learn man he said man the deepest thing I learned is that I have to be truthful with myself I'll put myself in a position to get killed and I thought that was very revelatory because he said sometimes just your narrative of yourself takes you out of you get so far the reality living inside what you have to live in to be confident yeah so you have to be able to maintain your confidence but also while you're maintaining that confidence whatever your narrative is you have to also enrich that narrative with actuality and try to make sure that that balance always want more actuality then as you get older and you get more and more responsibilities and you victimize yourself by enough dumb things that you've done and learning from you learn from those constantly and you continue to do them yeah then your narrative the world forces you to change your narrative yeah so I think there are also just a matter of you wanting to to do that yeah do you want to do it and that thing's many times just come down to what you want to do in terms a lot of philosophy why would somebody shoot somebody why would they blow a plane up or why would it's not a talking but the bottom rows they want to do that yeah you know one of the things I spend a lot of time thinking about is the difference between good and great teaching learning and increasingly I'm suspecting there's a big difference between bad and good teaching but I'm increasingly suspecting that one of the most important differences between good and great teaching is actually the student the students hunker and and I'm curious because when when I hear your story whether it's through books that you've written interviews that you've done little asides that you've made during a performance whether here is someone who isn't so much that they have been taught by others but who has sought out lessons to be learned you know it's a two-way thing but but what what's your thought about the importance of that internal drive for this students ability to develop you know I think my father was a great teacher so he was broke but I learned watching him and I saw my father play concerts with no people the greatest lessons I'm gonna get around to you know I'm just well no great lessons I've had I was maybe 11 and I was in a club called Nolan Charlie's on rampart Street and Charlie lived above the club so he would leave many times and then my father would just lock the back door this particular night my father's gig ended at 2:00 so I would only just hang when I fought till 2:00 because we had to drive back to Kenan Louisiana which was like 35 or 40 minutes away and my mama didn't want him on the road by itself because he might fall asleep so I was sitting in the gig sometimes I would play throw dart so I would listen to the dogs talk nasty and sometimes I'll talk nasty with myself I'd grown up in clubs I mean that's what I like doing I didn't so much like hearing what they were playing yeah this particular night no one was there except one guy you know you grew up in clubs people always hide they always drunk I mean it's just life yeah it's not a big deal and it's not like it wasn't like the world end because somebody was high I'm trying to make you understand the naturalness in a situation is it possible to get the lights on yeah I'm sure yeah they're out there that's much better for me not CEO okay I thought open second interrogate policeman see I like that much better that's that's beautiful so so you know I went to my father and it was one guy with drunk he was sitting at the table and I've been going to gig since I was three yeah my whole life was bit it kind of gigs that were poorly attended it wasn't like somebody famous playing in front of big people it was just a guy struggling to play modern jazz and the cities it was not interested in hearing it yeah there's not like rose-colored glasses with people who were struggling people who did not have means many times it was a struggle they were struggling so I went to my father I said hey man let's go she's like 15 - so I was standing up next to the piano was against the wall it was like a kind of upright piano so when he let go with me pointed to the club but I say my man was laid out is he's not this minute what you playing nobody is any yeah yeah so you look give me and I'm giving you on a quote so this is his exact words he said man the gig in the two o'clock fifteen minutes to to Charlie's John is gone and we can let's go home cool situated on a listen to his music till two o'clock I went to set down an act that's the only 15 minutes of music I listen to there was the most joy because I thought and I'm listening play in the 15 minutes and I said now why would somebody play for no people this way yeah and he was playing and I thought I want to be like that yeah like that thing whatever makes a person who has struggled his entire life with something that no one wants to hear nobody really believes in it not making money doing it got a bunch of kids popping in to pay for them 145 in the morning in a random club then the walnuts on rampart Street did nobody cares about with is leaven your Sunday's looking at a empty club was kind of embarrassing and look at this and I'm joking with him I mean it's not a big deal to me yeah I'm clowning around I just mad because nobody is there to talk or act crazy with but so even even now I think all the time any place I play or any gigs or anything I always reflect on just that type of seriousness it wasn't just my father to talk about teaching my trumpet teacher in high school was guy named George Jansen he was so serious about teaching me when I would start playing America the Beautiful he was stand up and put his hand over his heart he wouldn't do this he would conduct me playing like a bride of the waves or some cornet solo like it was the New York Philharmonic up there and he was a guy who it he had a stroke some years early and it was hard to hear what he was saying and he had lost the use of his right hand conduct with his left hand and I think you the student has to be willing to learn but I also think that the students feel the passion of the teachers as I think kids follow adults never see all these kids these kids if kids have problems because the adults have a problem we we you can't when you let your kids get out of hand when you don't teach them to be respectful when they don't perceive respect in you when you don't allow your kids to teach you know education is a two-way street but the one who is possessing the power and the knowledge has the power and the knowledge and that's how power knowledge is you know sometimes in adult gatherings everybody's mad because somebody is the leader well the leader is gonna make that call yeah so if anybody plays sports your quarterback on a sports team you're going to huddle everybody says oh don't be the pop give me the power let me run I'm open up to quite a back had to say shut up and run the play the running back is not saying that and I think what teaching is that way and I think you know first us as teachers it's the integrity of our teaching you be prepared Victor Goins a good friend of mine plays clarinet want to get it going together e's most gesture his program at Northwestern and he was a math teacher and he my first year teaching math my students were so smart they were they said they kept me in there and what she said I'll bring my books home because I was afraid when I stood in front of them every time they ask me a question uh oh yeah and you know it's like a certain level of honesty you as a teacher have to have what do you think I don't I don't know the answer you know listen let's learn minutes and also the things that you will learn from your students but a student-teacher relationship is not like peers and it can't be like sweets Edison and I will not peers right sometimes I would learn from students and we would be pierced but when they were teaching me if I didn't hit was not able to be humble enough to be taught by them and now the age and now people that I taught teach me all the time you know you know you know I asked them to give me examples I showed me out of place or what would this be and it's some of the greatest thing for me is when a student of mine he teaches me something you know I like for my son to see my son was not 19 I once got a lesson on this blue Symphony was so sad I was so depressed after I first heard it I called a friend of mine Bob saying I said man is simply so say can you give me a lesson on it he gave me my the first lesson I got on it make sure my son came and watched it because I want him to see this is how you take a lesson yeah you know act like you want to learn instead of somebody's forcing you and I find what my own students at Juilliard I always tell them listen you don't have to be in here it's not this is we in a we in a room somewhere in the world look outside in the street think of all the good things you could be doing this not being in here I can feel it myself if we're gonna be in here let's try to be great yeah people one of the parts of that is ultimately and like a story about your father it wasn't about you wasn't about here it's about the music and the question is what does the music deserve as what as he was very real about that yeah he was a joke believe me you'd heard him play and he didn't joke in the way he dealt with people in students even people coming out he was yeah he wasn't like a touchy-feely type of he was like that generation kind of post-world War two he wasn't he was very you know but when he came to like the music in investment he was willing to in fear now I know we're gonna take some questions from students too and we've got a couple of faculty so if you could just stop looking around and maybe select some students and students if you have a question to put up your your hands but meanwhile let me ask you one one question for those of you who are visitors to the conservatory we don't fold napkins we do messy work here okay so it's not always clean language and prettiness I'm bringing that up because I want to talk about this easier less pee I'm gonna read it Dizz he was standing near the dressing-room doorway he handed me his horn and said play me something man the context is I'm just interested in your reflection about the importance of being direct just getting right through it unless you're a little quoted he had a real small mouthpiece I wasn't used to playing that he didn't know what to say with my daddy standing there so he said yeah really drawn out as if the length of it could help ease the awkwardness of the moment and then he leaned down close to me and said practice mother I won't then I was like I was a 14 but you gotta realize it's not like a 14 like now yeah you know I mean 14 and you what it's even if you went back 30 years 14 wasn't even 14 like each year we become like children 14 year was like a 9 year was then yeah so then 14 I mean was you know you could work jobs I mean I've been working really since I was 8 not playing music just working it's different style different type of people with jazz musicians that's dizzy so of course my daddy says hey there's myself a trumpeter check him out so he gave me his horn so I just it is more peaceful as much shallower myself I played something I was terrible so he just kind of looked at me like he was trying to figure out what am I gonna say to you try to feel is this guy serious and then he said yeah it was like a high yeah then when he finished he was still quiet he said practice and then he looked at my daddy is he that kind of stuff like he would just ask you what does that sound like you do we just leave a lot of silence like if you were playing some meat in like you see what are you doing we are well called improv it I'm playing bro what so you know that kind of school you know they loved you but everyone just tell you whatever be your feelings got hurt too bad and it's sometimes good to be told if you can handle it you know if you can't handle it you know it was like anything yeah it's not for everybody some people are really sense I tried I've learned over the years my younger students taught me how to be more one story I like to tell is I was teaching a classmate when I was 26 or 27 I was just you know critiquing everything was critiques all the time a player he was maybe 16 or 17 he had a lot of respect for me but me just critiquing him and critiquing what Deacon was too much so he's trying to figure out man I'm gonna get out of this lesson like just with lit up and I didn't feel like I was being overly but you never when you go out you never feel like you are so he said mr. Marcellus can I ask you can I respectfully request that you teach me out of the positive frame of reference and it hit me when he said that because I was from that school of yeah but but that actually was a was a great lesson for me yeah because it was not disrespectful he was nothing about it it was defensive it was just dishonest it was just for real so that one moment actually helped me a lot in my whole way of teaching I've changed I would always identify things that are good because the good things are as important as the bad more important because you can learn many times in compliments more than you can learn to be cut down but if there's only compliments you know so some balance but I would think that balance has to be weighted towards the positive frame of reference and I always think to of teens like when you're under a lot of pressure I always played ball played on teams you really ate crunch time and you're under a lot of pressure you don't want somebody hollering and screaming and cuss of the people and cutting them down cuz you're trying to win so it's like look shut up yeah and let's concentrate on win it unless you have the ball so you know you gotta up yeah and I'm not gonna throw it to you yeah because you're talking yeah well sometimes you gotta negotiate your big guys something wrong basketball team will crush you out yeah you gotta get them the ball but you gotta win so you gotta not give the ball a couple of times and then that next time okay I still got a win yeah question questions from from students here so don't be shy yeah Kirsten if you could thanks and just introduce yourself if you would please hi I'm do Mita do you think you're more passionate about it now that you know what you're doing in your you have all these achievements than you were when you didn't know like were you more passionate then more relaxed now yeah but I was always once I started wanting to do it I was always passionate I always going to be beaker that you'd always wanted to make friends just to make my father and other musicians respect me then just want all the people and being blessed to have the opportunity to play and work and be around people I played with such great musicians being around so many great people all these years you get older you slow down just so yeah I was off but I always had that feeling like I was going to I can't say it more now I mean I was hungry I'm still I tried to channel that hunger yeah no I'm not I weigh more but I'm still I hear you sometimes sleep now - yeah I have to sleep now when I was younger no but I will be sleeping two or three hours for years I thought man is pretty good I don't even have to sleep I got fifty a question from this side perhaps my name is Marshall Jazz Studies major where are you oh right how do you keep your ideas like fresh so how do you keep going doing what you're doing I feel like it gets a little mundane doing the same thing all the time and I listen to a lot of other people's music and I play a lot of their music so I'm not relying on just myself I play against a gardeners music th's well in the band we have we all write music so I also have always around different kind of students and people who like different types of music you know I try to always learn something to be around you know people who were doing things and studying things and also I mean I crazy most the time my son was saying my 19 year old son I have a six year old daughter but she's the first time I realize my sexual daughter would like sing songs about her farting and she'll I she literally get up at 5:30 in the morning and start talking and singing and running around and jumping and dancing and talking and singing and making up scenarios and coming up with and I'll be saying that she acts like me and cuz my son knows he was sad was so crazy that he was it meant people should see you do this crazy stuff that you actually do so I said you know what I know my daughter is playing around so she made me realize something I told them you see how y'all cuz my sons about my three sons always saying man we're gonna do a reality video on your people just how crazy you're and how much wow stuff you're capable of saying and doing I crazy act around it so I said you know what I realized that when I'm actually here this is what I'm actually normally myself like when I'm talking to y'all but when I'm in my house well you think a person is normal like my daughter I'm actually acting and acting crazy like her so I think your creativity is something you know you just have to creativity is not about music it's not about ideas it's just creativity and if you keep that kind of craziness in you and that thing do you don't feel bad about doing your thing and making up stuff and clowning it plan around cuz play is one of the best ways to uh express your creativity and I'm not gonna tell you I get down and play with action figures but playing around yeah I think it's a way to stay creative just following up on that so that playing around that staying creative that continuing to explore one of the things that you've faced and so many of these students will face - especially if they sort of take a very personal road is they'll have people saying no that's the wrong way or what you're doing doesn't really matter what what what keeps you going through you know for me it's hard to uh to temper for me to give you advice on that I would always tell my own kids because everybody's life is so different me I went up in the 60s 70s where Martin Luther King was killed I was always when I grew up I was only in a complete black segregated environment Thoreau southern like absolute segregation Louisiana towns like Opelousas appropriate no forms it's like a way of life that maybe you wouldn't even you think you see it on in a movie if people didn't live like that they did then when King was killed I was sent to my mother sent me and my brother to a school it was alway yeah I'm you just never because so many and monkeys and just that it's like the teachers cheating you out of grades it's just the level of it was just that system but I don't want also give you the impression that the impact on me was like it would be to somebody from this time it was very much at that time so it wasn't like you thought it's just from Mars that's what that was like dinner but I knew the feeling of from that time for me fourth to seventh grade the feeling of you just in you in a certain situation and you got to deal with that situation it's not gonna be people gonna critique you it now gonna like you it's not gonna be there it'll be little things but it was never complete yeah there's never every person so it'd be a lot of people mess with you but then it would be some other people who would be like I'm with you like when once when I was in like that I would just fight constantly I didn't care if you called me a you miss me I was gonna fight that was my cradle and sometimes it resulted in a lot of no booty weapons that I had to receive I handed out some but some were also handed to me it was not a movie it was real life so once the biggest guy in our class name is John he came to me once after one really good humdinger in the in the in the cafeteria say man you're serious about this I said yeah man I'm serious you see it man I'm with you the next time they mess with you and then after that the amount of booty whippers went down precipitously so you know it's not clearly in like you know is and then it becomes other other things like if from an electro stand for anything you do that goes against the status quo anything you do this trying to actually lift people you can be slapped down for that that's why our countries in the condition is in there's always someone who who thinks you're not in your place right there's always someone trying to judge man coming from where I'm coming from yeah yeah always yeah and it's worse when you get in the intellectual cycle circles when you're dealing with the ignorance that you know you do an exit I much prefer a deal with that gets right there in front of you and you want you want you deal with tell me bothers yeah man okay we speaking the same language where's there's another language that is spoken is very difficult to decipher laws or change rules are changed districts are rezone it becomes official and no one wants to change those things yeah there's no world to change that yeah I think we have time and I forgot to put on a watch so I could actually keep track of time yes we do have time for a couple more questions oh one right here to Kirsten up the front if you could hang on just a second so the microphone can to you so so everyone can hear your question two please hello my name is Jazmin I'm a dance major um I my question is we live in the reality is you need money to survive so I guess it's hard for me to decipher whether I should be focusing in my life on our specifically artistic growth but the reality is I have student loans that I'm gonna have to pay off so it's like was there ever a point for you where you had to focus on like did the financial growth that just naturally come or did you have to say okay like this is where I want to be financially so I have to make steps to that I never had we never had nobody we know had anything so nobody had the word financial growth never I never heard that I want you to come trying to give you a sense of what I'm telling you guys and my neighbor will come say hey what's up can we come to your house so we can see what it's like to have a dad we would I don't even know how to explain like the horizon of aspiration in that area when I graduate from high school I got every grant every morning you could make just one for them my father did your dad's making one a year so I never thought but I always worked a job so I always have money from the time I was eight years old my mommy started meeting again she said Charlie work harder than me I got kept a job I was cutting grass I was working the gas station I worked in a sweetshop hotel I worked in restaurants once I figured you could make money playing on a trumpet playing music you realize you could come home from a gig and you would have like $25 and you didn't have to you know I'm gonna take you to make $25 working in a gas station but bossy clay cousin you know he's working for two weeks three weeks so I always I also didn't spend a lot of money so I always worked so I never had any point that I did not work in my life I kept a job and I would always tell my mind my kids you know I don't I don't elected him to make them make it on their own I tell my had money I could give you to my but I'm not gonna do that because you got to make it and when you have to make it it makes you be inventive now a lot of times with the loans amount of the scam you know healthcare scams it's too bad you know I've had so many students just come to me crying the weight of their loans later did not talk they're not 18 or 19 year 27 they're 28 you know it's part of what we need to change about our country but we have to all be hungry about don't like to stick with stuff we don't like to do that we like for everything that just well they're gonna take care there's no day you're not gonna take care but my suggestion always is yeah if you decayed you can't survive but you got a hospital and many times if you've been hustling your whole life you're willing to do stuff that somebody ain't really hustling not sometimes you plan your dancer you know you'd be dancer to do something physical you think boy this is exhausting then somebody else will come out there and they'll be like you tired and they warming up people play ball always experience that you think you're hustling this um I was hustling comes out you know so that's I mean that's not that's not advice but it's just yeah you know figure out how to combine what you want to do with your life you know how to make someone and if not work on the side just keep chipping away and I'm by nature was fool I never had nothing I really wanted to buy even to this day I can't think what do I really want to buy I really want to buy another and I never wanted to present never had nothing I never thought about if I can get this kind of house if I can get this car I could have this pseudo I could have this I never really thought in those terms so but one lesson I believe you would I don't give you long lesson my dog my daddy I had a contentious in my house we didn't get along my senior year I really should have been out in my house I should have been at home when I was 17 I was ready to go you know when I had all my stuff in a box and I said jeans for sure you some tapes and stuff so before I was leaving that when I graduate from high school a week later I left so I left to try out for me like y'all's are not ever gonna see me again you don't have to worry I'm not ever coming back here y'all can kiss my I didn't say that that was before this error so you didn't know that could have resulted in some some injuries but my attitude was very much like I can't wait to get out of here and my daddy stopped me as I was walking out the door he said hey man is that just stuff it's very upbeat and positive he was his vibe was I'm glad you're leaving he said is that just stuff I said yeah that's my stuff he said you all right I said Mari he said what you got in the box I said jeans so he said you said you said you see he say open a box that the box was take that was the come on man he said so kid man open the box I had a bunch of tapes I'm like everything from my mouse Davis Rick's tomorrow symphonies everything I had Oded on cassette tapes me and it was CDs and all that and I had a boombox so he counted like kind of stuff in it boombox he said are you okay yeah I'm all right are you sure you already yeah I'm all right you said okay you said okay man just remember whatever happens to you in your life you can go back to the contents of that box and you all right there you go so always when I have to cut my losses because I did a lot of dumb stuff out and it cost me money cut your losses I'm not tied to anything and a lot of it I traced back to kind of his attitude but that was a profound lesson okay does that make sense you gotta believe in yourself to hustle yeah one last question Bob you said there was someone down here hi I'm Raquel music therapy major I was just kind of wondering I know for me I had problems finding out what's my passion what do I really want to do so when did you kind of figure out that you know music was your passion yeah I was I was in basketball I actually had a scholarship to go to high school to play basketball I was in basketball practice and I was thinking man cuz you know the band okay was and I didn't play that good really I played okay but I was thinking man I spend my whole life like in the gym shoot a basketball and I just I just decided I want to be a musician I started listening to John Coltrane before I put on this John Coltrane record it's called up giant steps me and my brother actually women Frank know where all my daddy's records were we had all our records we like made thirty forty records we had our records laid out on the ground with his there's a couple of records we liked because they had some fine ladies on the cover of it so we don't say pull that one out so we would look at that you know Miles Davis someday my prince will come back man that's a nice album cover so we some kind of way we start looking at his album covers in ours and I was like back in the day you know or how your players honey just parliament-funkadelic so like man okay you can do all our records look like something stupid is going on his records look like something intelligent has happened so it was just really like an association in the moment it was nothing philosophical so we started looking at it and he said to me man something about training something we said about because my father had a picture of John Coltrane in our house Coltrane had come to New Orleans in 1963 and it was like Coltrane was like it was like a shrine and my father would call training it's a couple of New Orleans musicians he said man has to do it's on this picture so we looked at the picture and this I ignore we were we knew John Coltrane we live with our dead mama put his record on I put the record on Giant Steps I was like that start don't wonder I wonder if I could learn how to play like that even I was on the trumpet and then I found out he played with Miles Davis and so forth so then I was kind of passionate about you know I wanted to I wanted to play but even if I had not made it playing I was always gonna be somebody who loved the music you know cuz I loved the musicians and I think that you know music therapy that's a--that's a noble profession I prefer probably this artistic severely autistic and you would always think that he would be a personal music therapy was great for what all the musicians we have but but it's not the case with him he mainly likes people leave him alone that's the best therapy for him if you leave he figured out if he reaches up and you kiss him you're gonna leave so whenever you get around him too much he's thought and then if you kiss him and you don't leave he doesn't maybe you don't understand what this means but you know it so many good professions that are they're all related and always think for people don't know exactly what they want to do I always always say do whatever is right next to you to do do something when something is in front of you do it and that will lead you to the next thing but don't do nothing because one axiom that is true is what you do is what you will do what you do is what you will do if you work you're gonna work if you complain you're gonna complain if you practice you don't practice and if you don't do those things does that make some type of sense but listen everyone we've come to the end of this feeding this gathering it's being such a delight to have you here thank you for taking your time and being with us and I know you're here for about a day and a half more for this residency and thank you so much for working with our students - oh there's my honor and I like your socks you

Channel: Shenandoah University

Views: 22,885

Rating: 4.9504132 out of 5

Keywords: Wynton Marsalis (Musical Artist), SU, OMC, FY15, Shenandoah University (College/University), Jazz, Band, Winchester, VA, Virginia, Question and Answer, chat, conservatory, Shenandoah Conservatory

Id: WQIVAkA92J4

Length: 48min 48sec (2928 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 28 2015