Essentially Ellington 2017: Q&A with WYNTON MARSALIS

please welcome to stage Wynton Marcellus thank you all very very much thank you and welcome can y'all hear those all Jazz at Lincoln Center we're so proud of you all in your programs and your band directors we want you to have a great time we want you to participate I want you to meet several students that are serious did hip doing the same things you're doing you're going to establish some bond say that you'll have for a lifetime I can tell you I still unfortunately see people that's why when I was 14 or 15 sometimes we like each other and sometimes we do when you get past a certain age everybody you see that you knew then you love now it's just what happens so please I encourage you to participate and be a part of everything that's going on now we have a program we'll play music with mainly here to answer questions that you all might have and to assist you in any way I'm not the only one to answer the questions that you have questions of any of us up here we got the hem up here too so if you way is the first time he's playing with us we actually rehearse it down but if you have questions for us stop us ask us questions when you see us just around the festival answers questions acquire about things we're here to help you and assist you and it's our honor to to do what we can to improve your musicianship and your citizenship do you all have any questions for consideration or anything please go to the microphones don't be shy no question is too intelligent or to the other guy yes we have the mics on both sides so we don't want to just see only this side yes I my first question is on how do you stay relevant in the New York seems like all this like young talent that's coming up okay what does relevant mean like like having your name and people like people talking about here like all this chat you know if you go to school next week and you get naked and get into a fight on the same where you're gonna be relevant [Applause] first thing is be relevant to yourself that's number one the first step on the road to being relevant is be relevant to yourself establish what you're interested in doing and what means what the meaning of things is very important to whether you're relevant or not so I'll just ask you a question I'll go back in history Bach at one point was reduced from a music teacher to a math teacher he he was I mean okay Vic was a math teacher so in his system he taught music and then he wrote this st. st. Matthew's passion and because the music was so great he was reduced we don't want you teaching music anymore so at the end of his life he's the greatest musician in Western music he receives a demotion was it was irrelevant what you think when you go home go online and when you go online I want you to look for a list of his music the pieces that he composed that's what I want you to have and I want you to pull any sheet of it you would like anything you would like in his entire Canon and I want you to look at it and play it and read it and ash yourself is this relevant you see the point I'm making having your name in people's mouths of not always a sign of being relevant yeah so I'm not against that but I just want you to understand meaning is something this is fungible but human history has taught us that a lot of those stupid things can carry great meaning at different times so be relevant to yourself I like you thank you okay yes yeah my question is more directed to mr. Marsalis but is of course applicable to everyone in the orchestra mr. Marsalis I know you've had obvious major successes as a jazz decision but also as a classical musician what would you be your biggest piece of advice for someone who might be like a classical major but they want to be like involved in jazz the more music you know a better time you have it's always good to just learn things always define yourself by more than less we have a tendency well I'm not going to be a scientist when my son was 14 or 15 vicars of math teachers so I would be looking at his homework who you think I called oh yeah see see man help me with this man two hours later we still we're not I'm still my father used to always tell me learn how to play the piano I failed him I didn't learn how to play it okay okay so I think that the more music you know with any kind of music it could be the type of music I hate the more music you know the more you know so I applaud you learning different types of music and telling some forms that are hobbies and being serious about one to learn as much as you can and participate in it jo-ann ensembles and play different forms that you would never play you're going to learn something that's like my father is here when I was 13 I had the opportunity to play in a funk band I didn't want to do it cuz I don't want wear those stupid costumes and dance around and he said man you need to join the band and I did I have a great time I was great advice he gave me so that's what I what I think yes this is a question directed more towards mr. Hamilton and mr. Higgins um how do you guys keep such a good marriage when you guys play and what what would you say is a good method to work on that with you know a bass player because I'm a drummer take him out to dinner well first of all I think it's important to realize that not everyone is your best friend so not every bass player is going to be your best friend but you have to get along and you have to figure out how it's going to work so my my concept is to know my beat feel strongly about it and offer it to everyone in the band not just the bassist everyone in the band and as Mel Lewis said whose birthday was yesterday as Mel Lewis said he liked to feel like a big oversized stuff sofa that the band could sit on when when they played he wanted them that comfortable not lay on but sit on he wanted to feel that comfortable and I'd liked it I'd like to have the bass player feel as comfortable also with the beat and and you know they're there I don't like to discuss on top of the beat behind the beat I think the beat is this wide if you have a big beach and it's that big to crawl into it's room for everybody to crawl into that beat and not everybody has to hit it exactly pinpointed when the stick hits a symbol the finger doesn't have to come off the string as long as you can play together and and if you're flamming I had an experience once with with Monty Budwig a great bassist and he was this far ahead of me and and I was ready to talk to him at the end of the break I was 24 years old so I walked up to a nice and I'm ready to say something turn around he says Youngblood you sure sound good tonight man I said you too so so the point of that is who are we to determine who's on top of the beat behind the beat dragging whatever because by the time you start analyzing that the fan has passed you by so that's my answer and by the way I gave him 10 bucks to play with me tonight so haha yeah I'm just going to everything he said is completely what I would say I've known mr. Hamilton since I was a young musician and her play many times so I knew coming into the situation that it would feel comfortable but as a bass player you know like he said there's no forward and back motion you know you once you feel the beat you know it should be wide enough for you to extend yourself in there so you know the eagerness on stage has to always be controlled especially between drums and bass if you don't control that it won't sound good so you just got to find a happy medium thank you for mr. Marsalis it's a bit of a more general question but I wanted to ask you at what point was it where you realize that your artistic vision and what you had to offer as an artist was number one unique and number two something that other people would enjoy listening to and derive inspiration from I'm just going to ask if we could turn the monitor down a little bit thank you I think that uh accounting you never know because people will be complimentary to you even though you say it so always I think once I got into high school people started to comment on my playing that I could play but my father was always he always only listened to music so I will hold sometimes and play with him I was circular breathing play but a little bit a lot of people cheer for me and he was just so when I would finish he was say hey man the circus is down the street and I think I was very fortunate because of course we trusted it meaning so much more than we knew and we also knew he was just about music and at a certain point I start to get recognized actors I really couldn't click so I understood it somebody's get publicity I got publicity the question for me and my twenties was just how can I learn how to play alright I was winning awards and stuff and could I play as good as real musicians who could play but he saw Clark Terry our company's really good Plano and it was about being dedicated to learning and so far as the people rallying around me I think the one advantage I had over people in my age group was that I was philosophical and I believed in jazz and I never wavered so no matter bad reviews no matter what was said I would be very clear philosophically nothing as I would discuss racial issues and be very serious about it I was not afraid to state an opinion and to stand by it and I also had to take what came with it and I took it and it was a good 20 years of it so Dizzy Gillespie once told me when he read an interview he pointing he at the interview in his trumpet case he pulled it out he went perfectly he did I said oh yeah man I just did you know no no no no a lot of this stuff is true but be ready for the return it might not ever stop then I was like 19 or 20 I didn't understand understand what he meant at 42 I understood it so I think that because people could could identify with my perspectives and I was always very clear about my perspective and always about the music and did not waver about it it allowed all the people who believed in it to kind of say hey we might not agree with everything as this guy's saying but he is about the music and in that way I think I was fortunate ended just being around my father gave me an example of what we talked about earlier is something relevant if it's not in people's mouths but I saw him play gig after gig after gig but not that many people for many years and it was relevant to him so when I came out here I was shocked that I got publicity and people knew who I was I really was trying to be like him and everything has been gravy since then you know like okay and now I think it's a matter of just a that and maintaining a seriousness and a belief because when you play your philosophy is what you are expressing I hope that helped I think you so much thank you maybe put nothing yes my my questions really need more for like the whole band but more directed at Paul me being a baritone saxophonist Joe temple is one of my biggest inspirations so I'm curious to know as a band or as you and as an individual what would you say is the most important lesson any of you or you personally have taken away from knowing him yeah that's there's a lot of lesson to be taken away from that the biggest thing for me was just being next to him and hearing the sound firsthand there's a big difference between recordings of cats and but we were just talking about the difference between like the depth of sound when you have somebody who really gets into the core of the sound of an instrument and you can think that you even have it on here like practicing oh this sounds good but then you hear the real thing and what it's supposed to sound like and you know immediately that you are not even close to it and that's what it was like with Joe if you were next to Joe you heard it immediately that was it that was the biggest lesson that take from him but he was also just true to himself he played how he believed the music should go and that's that's the biggest lesson you know the other big lesson to take away from it is just really being true to yourself and what you think it should sound like well we learned so much about music from Joe he kept us honest up here because he never be asked you know we might find something like we was talking earlier about the circus thing you know we have little levels of that sometimes and he never had that level he was always pure and very honest but also as a person he never he never represented himself to be anything other than exactly who he was and that was something that was very inspiring to me as a person but also in his music he did the exact same thing so we constantly thinking and talking about Joe he's with us all the time and you know he's constantly inspiring us so yeah thanks for asking about Joe yeah one time we were in rehearsal this is back in more colorful days I used to be very colorful in rehearsal be very expressive I was being very expressive with joe yeah joe the whole loves like such a it so Viktor came to me afterward he said man you know Joe is like 68 years old I said oh man I didn't know Jules so I told you I apologize to Joy front abandon say I will never address you in any way except your 68 years old and he told me two words I'm not gonna repeat them for you even though I used to love we used to love to get joke we used love to get Joe telling limericks we would take Jill's limericks and send them around so I don't want you all I have a maudlin feeling of yeah Joe Joe Joe was full of life and Joe was deeply soulful and and Joe also just loved him believed in the music and yeah we miss him catch wrong pizzas for Joe Scherman wrote a piece big solo for Joe Chris wrote a piece big solo for Joe Marcus turn over a piece for Joe like when we start to write original compositions everybody reach for joke when I would write pieces I would always write Joe last so the last word on what we will be playing Joe would play and uh that that speaks it was what we felt about him yes that's really great I have a question also regarding the saxophone section I was just wondering if you guys could talk about the bed the members have been in the whole time the shift from having Wes Anderson play lead Alto to Sherman er be and the decisions that were made to have Sherman every take the spot and the difference that it's been like from the section how it's changed you know from one lead player to the other blue player well you have two different personalities but the fortunate thing about it again two great players and two great leaders so for me it has just been a matter of having the confidence to follow when you have someone in charge like those two players who understand the history of their chair in the history of the music then they give you something to hold on to us Jefferson he they give you a big pad or a big beat to be able to follow so while it has been different the thing about it is most more of it has been the same than it has been different that's about a lot of things in life and even when we have pieces where Ted is actually playing the lead as opposed to Sherman it's the same concept sometimes we lead from the bottom where Paul has to lead and then sometimes do co-write so that Walter Blandon is reading and um such we've done I think it's a strong star-crossed lovers lieutenant leaning down there so it's been an educational opportunity and a great experience to be able to follow everybody at different times and it keeps you honest because you have to be listening to the music at all times and also remember we choose to follow which usually I'm fourth trumpet so I'm always following lead Ryan left Gregg is playing well I knew Greg when he was in high school when when when Wes left the band I talked with Ted because in the jazz band the second Alto is not a less position clarinet flute all kind of things in that part Russell folks part into galentine's business but many great point Ted told me listen man if you can get Sherman I'll play second but if not I should play lead so there you go I said okay I'll he said I can understand Sherman I'll follow him but I'm not I don't want to follow somebody who can't play because you like they'll find a person who can these Disney shortlist of people I want to see if we can get him in the chair it wasn't by two particular when we talked to one another it's just a reality of the music and also I call Sherman he agreed to do it so you know when West lemon came in but Sherman West Ted we all know each other they've known each other for a very long time and love each other and we know each other's musicianship so when we make decisions make sounds a very adult kind of decision we're talking about stuff and not very secretive or you know you know Sherman came right into the section yeah he was clean and you brought that pin with him too we didn't know about that pin they also sure but this pin Sherman's raise was played down you play as we struggle to raise and Sherman's Regional Command boom music playing for the top to the bottom the perfect one thing that while shirtless playing lead now he actually played the second chair under West for a period of time so he understood that as well that's right yes I'm curious as to how you guys deal with nerves like going on stage with performance management alone you have no idea of man I see I see this man maybe once a year he makes me laugh the whole time he's crazy bad I don't know what to somebody want to talk about I didn't deal with nerves I mean yeah yeah you know I've there have been times in my life when I've really had to deal with nerves to the point where I would cancel gigs because I would get so nervous or I would be actually physically get sick and I started actually studying meditation and yoga and different Eastern philosophies and breathing techniques and for me I've said this to the kids earlier today I was working with a man it's all about breathing and if I start to feel I still get nervous every time before I perform but I take two or three deep breaths in through my nose out through my mouth and you know there's all kinds of breathing techniques you can study through yoga or whatever but that really helps me to calm my nerves and then just realizing everybody in the audience wants to hear you sound good so if you realize that you know that'll kind of cool off some nerves too but you know everybody deals with that to a certain degree I think but breathing taking like two or three really deep breaths just kind of calms my nerves down and really helps helps me to deal with that just add just to add to that also you can derive confidence from the amount of time that you put into something you know if you think I mean everybody here has put in countless hours rehearsing before school without the school all kind of time putting personal time with the instrument getting themselves together so you know he's thinking about anything else that you've done for that amount of time you don't think about you don't think about walking and you put one leg in front another you've been doing that a lot so same thing with your instrument you put a lot of time it's your instrument and you get to that point where you start to feel and see progression and see yourself develop as a musician you know you can get confidence from that also and other starts that kind of day it also can help to take away whatever you might be feeling one short thing to go with that is don't look at nerves as being bad the nerves can make you play better sometimes because they make you focus a whole lot more one time we were playing with the New York Philharmonic it was live from Lincoln Center I think we're playing p against suite and it was a situation where Kirk Lazar and once we're gonna have a long conversation and I had a high D to play by myself on television life and I'm just sitting I'm trying to keep the reed wet when I'm wetting it the whole time then I came into play to D and then after button came up to me said were you nervous are you kidding he said what were you thinking about it don't squeak and the last thing well I'll say this I'm a very nervous person most of the time but what I've come to realize is that if you mess up if things don't come out the way that you intended it's okay it's B you it's like cool that's ready and a lot of it a lot of it - is the culture that you foster and how you deal with things it's like ah if you mess up in a fighter jet you made a mistake if I mess up on a piece of music you gonna practice it tomorrow so put yourself in time in space we just plan the concert we play music we try to make people feel good by playing I find it whenever you're in a tight situation put yourself in time and space if you put yourself in time and space and you are in a tight situation be nervous they're facing us with guns be nervous I'm sitting on a Bandstand with instrument in my hand okay and for us as a group we've been in so many situations kind of have pressure we know each other we play with each other we have a kind of love and feeling feature that we can feel with each other is nervous and we we work with each other and that's how you want it to be what you're bad sometimes we play it good sometimes we mess up things but we're not we're not we're not if you try to be perfect you're going to mess up just be and if you serious when you practice and you for real about it when you come to play instead of thinking I'ma be perfect think I'm gonna be for real Jerry Mulligan once I was interviewing a bunch of musicians I asked them how do you play a great solo that was the radio show I don't know you play rhythm but I can tell you how to not play a great walk up to the microphone saying I'm gonna play a great one so I would like you all to foster that feeling sometimes stuff happens but if you stay for real no matter whether you may always love to listen to records where Louis Armstrong will miss a note but listen to the next five or six notes each want to never have like some Tabasco sauce on it like I might have missed you before I'm hitting you were you and you and you so that's what I want to hear out of y'all even this weekend you will mess up stuff you will be nervous do not feel like you let your band down we're not judging people based on whether somebody squeaks on a clarinet our trombone player misses a part on whether you came out perfect but that's not what we're listening to we're listening to the intention and the feeling and you're playing and that's what an audience this is - people pay money for a ticket they really want you to sound good and if you sound bad they won't say for the $80 less been for these stickers they found it good anyway we had a good time so that you know I want to always try to use this opportunity to recalibrate our our attitude and first we all we play together whether you nervous or not we're going to play this and we do and we've been doing for a long time and before us other people did and I'll doing it right now so I want you to think like that you know and one thing i'ma tell you another thing is to say I'm not nervous I'll fake don't be a fake except that nerves accept it I'm nervous okay I can accept that that means I'm ready and be ready you don't that make sense when you sit up and say I'm not nervous boys gonna make you even more nervous what you have to do it all accept it okay yeah you're a yes um so my question is a lot more general than a lot of questions have enough asked up here what is the best piece of advice that you guys have to balance a busy schedule okay okay let's see first of all write it down I I come from a generation or two before smartphones and cell phones and so I actually I write my stuff I enter it my phone but I write it down on a piece of paper or a notebook and that sucks for a general monthly schedule but I also think it's important to like set aside like you say like a busy schedule and if you're talking for example hypothetically I want to learn to play the trumpet and blow in reality I want to learn to play the trumpet so I have try to organize my time if I have a 10:30 a.m. rehearsal I get up at 7:30 and I start fluttering my my chops and buzzing my mouthpiece and I show up at nine o'clock and try to find a corner to not disturb anybody and start warming up the best-case-scenario sometimes life happens and you come in at 10:29 and well they're you jolly well are but so but like writing it down helps like to take it out of your head and onto paper and if the iPads cell phone calendar works for you that's great it doesn't work for me I have to write it down and then after you write it down read it the day before so you know what's happening the following day otherwise you you can certainly tend to forget whatever so you got to read it too another thing is that if you figure it out call me tell me what I should be doing you have to follow your young leadership one thing I'm going to tell you all is good to do with your schedules scheduled in to do nothing man up you know don't don't think I'm gonna run ten miles tomorrow and lose 15 pounds you're not walk around your block so put the amount of time you're gonna be on your phone or whatever did you do play video games everybody said different things they do to waste time nothing wrong with wasting time waste your time in a controlled environment the problem wasting time is it supposed to feel so good you become a professional at wasting time organize your waste of time hey I'm gonna waste three or four hours a day you can still survive you still have 20 good hours waste for hours now if you get above 4 5 you start wasting 6 or 7 hours even schedule a lap then you're gonna identify yourself when you look at it waste a lot of time does that make sense yeah so schedule you're wasting time and you need time to waste you cannot schedule every hour of a day or you'll be in bad shape when you're 55 okay when you do that you get the results let me know what happened and let me ask you a question how old are you I'm 14 14 baby I'm in eighth grade eighth grade okay so that tells me that you probably have a lot of classes and a lot of homework and a lot of extracurricular activities that you had to get together is that right yeah yeah okay let me tell you something at 14 years old 18 years old at 22 years old you have more time than you think you have more time than you think I mean I know sometimes you get bombarded with a lot of things I went through the same thing when I was your age you know I had this and that and this net in the third I didn't know how I was gonna get everything done you just got to realize that you have more time than you think like the guy said plan ahead you know if you have if you know you have some project that you had to get done try to get things done in increments and in days I take a few take a few hours or a few minutes to get that done if you have homework that you got to do the next day you know do it when you get home try to get things done earth you know try to put things aside so you can do what you want to do do what you have to do even if it means getting up at 6:30 in the morning do what you have to do to do what you want to do all right thank you okay so I guess this question could pertain to anybody in the band but especially for the trumpet players in the back I play lead trumpet in my band and something that I think I feel like I've been struggling this year is relaxing when I play and you just could you give me something that could help with that help relax that's a question very very close to my heart because one of the things about you if you play when you're playing lead trumpet you're it's it's more than just playing the note accurately and that's something that I sort of knew years ago but I've really been learning a lot about having this experience playing with these great musicians is that first of all is the musical intention is the most important thing and remember that we play we're playing because it's fun to play is one of the reasons we play it's I think your question has a lot of layers to it I want when I mentioned to the other young gentleman about writing stuff down I mentioned that try to like give myself three to four hours before the first note of the rehearsal because they put their trust in me they put their trust in you their musical trust and so if you can go into that that environment feeling calm prepared like passion is great passion you have a passion to play but preparation as well as the glue that keeps it together so that's that's my short answer to that right yeah think I can help with that I know I'm a trombone player but you know the one thing that you can but one thing that you can you can actually do I mean this is a true for all brass cleanses knowing how knowing how each of your partials feel especially when you're getting up into those higher registers you know you know how most you know how most like your second is second and your third you know how those feels those feel pretty you know pretty solid because once you get up to around four or five and six seven eight sometimes they start running in together but I think it's the wealth of the better that you know each partial on your mouthpiece the better office you'll probably end up being as a lead trumpet player and one thing that I tend to do when I feel like I'm getting tenses I take the mouthpiece off and I do what's called a pivot exercise on the mouthpiece it's like I take it I buzz and I peel it off just a little bit as I'm buzzing and then when I put it back on when I put it back on I realized where my seal is most comfortable and that partial so then you start to know okay where is my point that I'm pushing in too much on my lips you know so I'm gonna get ring around it ring around the lip so I do this sport partial and I'm alright now and as I peel it back on I try not to push it in so much on my lips so I rely more on my air than my lips and I think you can do that with each parcel and see how how good that feels until you get to feel that's most comfortable on you then you know you'll start progressing you be able to play for longer longer periods of time and then your endurance will go up that much more can you explain your experiences working with the top dancer and any advice you'd have for one good medium song explain your experience working with a top dancer jab dancer yeah yeah you know wait him yeah I was on I was on Lionel Hamptons band in 1975 and the great tap dancer bunny Briggs was travelling with us and he was pretty up in years at that time I was 21 but he took me under his wing and we talked about trust before there's a whole lot of trust throughout a band in every band if it's going to sound good so he trusted the 21 year old kid to do what he needed because I was all ears I asked him what you know to tell me if I was doing something wrong but he was such an entertainer and embraced the whole audience embraced the band while he was dancing that he made it feel so comfortable for everyone and I think your tap dancer okay so I think it's up to you to embrace the whole audience and be sure of what you do be confident of what you do and that sofa idea I mentioned before just make everybody feel as comfortable as they can to welcome them into what you're doing be musical with the tap a lot of times I feel tap dancers are like rudimental snare drummers that are trying to blow the windows out and I think if you tap musically it's a lot more exciting and of course more musical especially an event like this with the great bands that are here so yeah bunny bunny was a pretty incredible guy very laid-back and he had one bitna so that he would he would shimmy across the stage and the audience would go crazy just couldn't stand it they would start applauding and he stopped he took no no I'll tell you when and then he shimmy some more and they'd start clapping again no no no no I'll tell you when and it would be like four and five times during the one dance so it was pretty I learned a lot as far as entertainment value from him as well but yeah I own the room with you if you're going to tapped and own the room with what you do thank you one other thing about tap dancers when I first came to New York I used to play at this club called smalls down in the West Village and we used to have a whole bunch of tap dancers come to the jam sessions and those old tap dancers name was Gilmore I think David my first name but we caught him Gilmore and he tapped and he did sand dance also and one of the things he always stressed for the younger tap dancers when you come in and tap you tap your courses know the chorus know the songs you know be a musician where you act acceptance just don't do your thing and just get in and out what you want to know the forms of the tunes and here would have a lot to come out and play drums to so it means it's important it's been around the music for a long time you know it's part of it one last thing I say about tap dances is figure out what are some hip rhythms like figure out what makes a rhythm swinging listen to people like monk if you could tap dance like monk plays rhythm excuse you'll be doing something it's mathematically perfect and swinging so we normally work with Gerry Grimes so we love their meet like a genius you know just a form to which Sherman was in about form is guy agree we try to figure out how to do as many things difficult to mess him up as we can and he's always formed just looking everything also get your upper body together too you don't just be a lower body dancer goes where Jeff was saying bunny Briggs know kind of a tradition in the history it's a great book written by Stan Lee dance about dance I think you check that book out just the history of it is fascinating have all the great dancers from all master juba in the 19th century to the dances up to the time the book was written learn that history check it out it's a great lineage answer so kind of a two-part question for you misery ourselves uh sorry um I want to laugh - every time I hear that but uh when did you realize that you wanted to spend your life playing music well and like make that your like your career and then also when did you realize you wanted to like make this like this whole thing well I think seeing my dad is struggle in the middle of it I wanted to do it I thought man this guy's playing the stuff not that many people it's got to be something about it you know he loved doing it none of us loved it we didn't know what it was it was only four or five of them in New Orleans madness everybody handkerchief head and just trying to be something the tourists want them to be and in the middle of that is like four or five people really serious about playing I put six people or twelve people is oh I think watching them the integrity they had I want to be then I start to listen to the music John Coltrane one night my brother and I were looking at all of our records and all of our father's records some kind of way we had them all on the floor now we never would live his record but we we looked at ours and it was like you know man what could I tell you Ohio plays honey you know go to the list of it and we looked at his record like people with suits on and stuff we said man why daddy's record people look like they're doing something intelligent and all our records look like that so it was a Miles Davis record and the woman was beautiful on the record I said man let's put this record on I was like twelve or thirteen someday my prince will come but yeah that's okay put the John Coltrane record on a Giant Steps I said man this dude is plan on this record and my father had a picture in our home of him standing with John Coltrane man has to do with it and understanding with just put this cold trade when I knew who he was but because I didn't know his music I didn't know who he was and I got into that and I wanted to be dedicated I wanted to learn how to play I want to help kind of musicians I knew so at that point because I had been around these musicians and they were all struggling him it's like the seventies you know I would I would meet the other musicians cuz they know my father Sonny Stitt had impact on me Clark Terry it doesn't matter you could canaan Melissa positions he played with so that's that's what got me into it now we all come into the music in different ways you know some of us have fathers and mothers that are musicians Ted Nash and I have a similar familiar experience of Walter's father then while the Elliot's father and mother play so on and so forth Paul's father plays play bass well we all have different ways but Victor came into the music in a different way and we find a seriousness so I decided to something at different times I found it not because I thought you might get publicity doing it as a matter of fact I was sure you could not get publicity doing that and uh that's what I was into dealing with the one thing is because I had so had the example of my father in practice was serious he wasn't so much telling you to practice he was gonna practice so if you didn't practice he's okay he's gone said you don't practice don't be mad one thing you would always say your sadness is based on the amount of practicing you're doing why are you sad because you don't practice you will remain Trask until you practice then you will become better and maybe you go from sad to okay and it was never a big deal you still have you still my son I love you not a bad person because you said you just said so your sadness was a matter of fact it wasn't like something we go negotiator talk about what you said you can't play once I was talking about he always wanted me to study with it the longest trumpet player named Teddy Riley they called the buck you called buck I never called buck call buck and learned how to play traditional music now that I won't bleed traditional music all that skinning and grinning they do a man called buck up I never called but one day we sitting out at a preset did you call buck no man I'm not going what but can't even read he said man people can play or they can't play you can read so you know because I had that type of example always around me I was fortunate I understood what it meant to be serious or not to be serious and uh I hope that's close to what she was that yeah okay you got your blue on all right yeah you would did I answer what you say well yeah than the other the other thing was uh when did you decide you wanted to make this fence well I didn't make it you know we all make it it's a lot of what's involved in it it's like the music we make if you were the only one making something that's not going to be that good John Lewis is a great piano player I used to go to his house manna for lunch I'm missing so much he told me what time he said for you I have some time for the music I have all the time in the world we all worked on yes it's many of us who are round now worked on this I came in legis and I didn't even know I didn't even know Judah was a part of Lincoln Center when I went my knowledge of it grew and there many of us who you will see around our board members who contributed time money expertise they killed themselves to put this up I had crew stations architects we when we want to open this hall we couldn't we didn't have enough money to pay the electricians one an electrician said man come live down the street from John Coltrane's house in Long Island we're gonna finish this this happens all the time you know you you what we work on as a band if the band is about me the band became great when everybody started writing music when everybody started to participate when everyone's voice is heard when you understand the difference sometimes we have a tendency in America because we celebrate individuals with coded a personality for me because I received so much publicity so young and because my father never really respected that not the fact that I received it it in general he didn't care about that my mother was not a person who it celebrates you because you got some publicity and you made the money that wasn't their value system I understood did that we are under illusion that we are fighting for very few resources the truth is there are unlimited resources and every time we create opportunities for other people there's even more resources my older brothers always have a joke with me when I want to eat more food man I want some more I want some more he would take some food off his plate and put him up there and say now we have more it was a joke like between kids but when you when you can get out of the cycle of of exploitation and you can weaken you allow yourself to think wow there is a lot out here for all of us like does it take away from this presentation because I'm not talking the whole two hours man Jeff Hamilton is gonna talk Sharman is going to talk this man is gonna come in we were a gig not too long when Jeff came him him and John Clayton came and they came and sat in with us and play and taught for us we had run out of we couldn't teach this particular day we just called them a few days before they came up and taught was the gig less because they came the gig was so much more and thinking that about all y'all I see students that were here Tatum green black I remember him he sitting in the back I could remember him being 16 or 17 when he came in 1999 for essentially Ellington playing the trumpet I thought man this guy can play Brandon Lee was from Houston's yet trumpet playing from you someone from Seattle is fantastic our field is greater because of him and if we can make space for him and recognize him we are greater so when you look at this we all built this I was somewhat of a catalyst because I believe in all of us working together like I'm happy to play Sharon's music in the hearing play like I'm not gonna sit up here the cult of the personality sometimes demand that some one person is but it's never one first if it is it's not worth that trust me always beware of that one person too much for a person to carry but once you start to realize it we all know that we all have a special let's find mutual with objectives and let's achieve our mutual object this for each other we don't have to all agree because we have mutual objectives I'm give you a long answer only because it's a serious subject and it's involved with a band your band becomes greater when you understand I'm one of four trumpet players Marquez kind of once said in a rehearsal he said man any one of us might not be able to play it but if you put us all together do you have one hell of a trumpet player you know I think we're talking about a part that I said hey print up would be much better playing this part of me so he did but if you put all of us together and that's a lot just he's reading he just coming and playing with us we all smiling like yeah you know he's coming up why we have a mutual objective swing it he comes in we still have to end of every year to come and judge he comes with another set of knowledge another body of the information if we create the opportunity for him to share that information with us and we make him comfortable sharing it then all of a sudden the me is a week he says well I don't agree with that this is this okay and that's how this was so if you know the dysfunction around us put this up and how much we fought with each other when we finished building if we want to kill each other it took us about five years just to recuperate seeing each other you again we are raising money and doing so much great stuff our Chairman at the time then we finish leaves a shift we still look at each other and go you and that was over ten years ago but if you know why a woman gets up at seven o'clock in the morning for a meeting about something and pays money to help create a hall if I hadn't been a part of that I wouldn't believe people do it I remember when I first realized a board of directors and people going to give us money to do jazz and dedicate their time and their expertise to doing this it was so far and being the son of a jazz musician I thought what all we get to is play concerts is I'm gonna credit but then she was two of us 7:30 in the morning somewhere to meet that we both of us didn't know where we were going so we mentioned it do you know where this meeting is I said no do you she said no we're standing in the building but she was there for all of the 250 calls we went on and we all built it so I'm glad y'all are in it I'm glad we were able to do it I'm so proud of what we all did and it truly was something that everyone did when you come into the houses link it's about everybody everybody was in here we want to welcome y'all into it I was just telling Tatum before we went on figure out how you want to use what we're doing to make what we're doing better concerting for we're not going to be here doing that we started this band with surviving members of Ellington's Orchestra members of sad Jones Mel Lewis Orchestra and remember my septet we're in our 20s staff members is when their forties Ellington musicians were in their 60s and early 70s the ellen tony is all gone we still here and at a certain point we are going to be gone so we want the meaning of what we're doing to continue it's a challenge for our country right now and by right now I don't need this administration we've been struggling with it for the last 30 to 40 years who are we going to be and this music tells you we have to be up we can't be one group can't beat the trumpet section we're an urgent other day and I was saying something me and Victor start teasing each other back and forth and I said something about messing up a part they were out of tune located pullo's flew south / and stop playing out of tune okay and they said well y'all outta tune - so we start going back and forth about who was out of - and I said man I'm just trying to tell you with the saxophone section I'm just trying to tell you all he said hey man who is y'all we're part of the same section it's called the horn section so you know it's a that larger vision is a point I'm gonna stop talking I'm sorry I went on okay on thank you thank you all right little brother listen to the bone so um well what uh what are some fundamentals that I can develop for relaxation you know like uh especially playing in extreme ranges but more so a physical relaxation well one thing one thing is that it helps is from you have to know every part of your process every part of your air producing process every part of your you're playing process so in the beginning of it we have our inhale a good quiet warm air inhale open your throat which which puts your body in the correct position to breathe all of that is something that you should should learn how to refine and so you know automatically is that inhale you know that inhale automatically if you if you work on the sound of just that the way that that sounds you can get a lot of different sounds from your throat you know you can do all kinds of things but each one of those last two things that I did had tension in them and that's the only way I got that kind of history kind of sound but if you get a nice open warm quiet sound sound like kind of like Darth Vader you know if you get that kind of sound when you when you when you look quieter than that but if you get that kind of sound over your throat that automatically puts your body in a certain amount of relaxation you should keep continues that amount of relaxation to your process just let that guide you desk I think the first step - at least I know it was for me because I didn't used to breathe that way and when I learned how to breathe that way it changed my entire outlook because I realized that this is a piece of metal and you can't fight it and you're gonna lose that battle so better just give it what it wants which is air and so the more that you start your process with a nice relaxed warm air inhale that that not let that amount of relaxation shoulders back all of that guiding light for your process of blowing air that's I think the beginning of this and also when you when you practice every night again always look at yourself in the mirror when you're practicing if it's just just just your face or just your whole body you know just look at yourself while while you're playing and notice look at things look for look for your embouchure the way that's moving that is moving too much this might got a lot of smile or anything when you're going up and down partially like that the exercise that I talked about earlier will help with that that type of them you know the attention on your face here just making sure that you know all your crosses are relaxed and going through each one of them slowly lifts lards will help with that going to each lip slur slow like a roller coaster no sneaking like going up and down the roller coaster we're doing lip slurs not necessarily focusing on the notebooks you're focusing on the motion okay and then as you look at yourself playing do I look tense am i using too much arm using too much for me before arm feels a little tension either relax that a little bit and make sure your wrist is doing more of the work instead of them instead of them the whole whole arm because you know when you start playing fast passages like that you got to think about okay how am I gonna get from one position to the next you know without you know so much tension so you think about three things every time that you play you always think about the same direction you think about the same partial and you think about your closest note you know I always want to try and think like you playing like a cello you know the challenge to go from one side all the way to the next one side all the way to the next and there's all one clip most one one smooth motion so when you're playing and thinking about you know playing scales or playing passages just think about different ways that you can go about playing that same passage and then that'll also help with your relaxation as well thank you now let's talk about the trumpet how can we invest in his music to promote cultural unity between different groups especially in probably one of the most tense periods in recent history be four-wheel alright I've been asked to translate this question in Spanish can you repeat the question again huh okay I've been given orders to speak in Spanish in English so can you repeat that question for me how can we best use music to promote cultural unity between gift different groups especially and sent in specially in one of the most tense times in recent history okay Etta pregunta a parrot a POC a POC hijo de la pregunta como podemos a la musica que tenemos otro Duran kono problema que tenemos otro hora en a systemic a tenemos que hemos estado zone in doe como podemos a la musica para mejorar el futuro I just said police in Spanish yeah okay we have I mean I'm saying in Spanish because we have a group here from Cuba from horns to Havana Enrique Genesis in tangu no dr. Dante Kiran concept al essa pregunta en español por la pregunta la musica como podemos a la musica para mayoral loss programa que tenemos nosotros necesita Mamoon da la musica Benny siendo yeah musica latina como podemos Durazo Horan Horan who know me Spanish whoo oh yeah he just asked the same question you asked you couldn't you could say it again it's the same thing I told them and saying okay gonna answer it now in Spanish did I'm answering the who's answer the question I asked him I asked her I just asked them in Spanish the same question that the gentleman asks in English and that gentleman right there is gonna answer the his answer that question in Spanish okay um I'm gonna answer the question are you it you know what you answer the question first and I'm going to answer no he's not asking the question he's gonna answer the question okay okay to the question when oh very Marilyn concetto de la mano bien todo lo mo cos Tom o'hagi tenemos de la musica que la mancha graphine 11 sentimientos Rivera Obama Messiah let's say that the music is more about feeling if anything it goes much more beyond that but it's more about feeling in sentiment a la muchacha que la magia de política de vere cultura de problema so si Alli music is much more than politics and anything beyond that he pienso que lo problema Lowenthal Uwharrie he feels that this problem is everywhere a solar oven also the role of months ago it takes us as musicians Helu Chando y que ellos on dramedy endo to continue fighting and pushing the the music forward crow de la musica de que debemos Crivello MA - Alamosa Gallo granny tram me didn't the UN language a power persona and I'm not gonna say model of Monsieur the hardest thing in music is to transmit the musical language to everyone else he ends up a lower diversity less effective elevate a multi Guanajuato de nosotros Co I say ah Consuelo he was effective elevate Emiliano nosotros ay cono McGann Blanco Chris about the Lovano demo do you wanna say ah a pienso que ricotta no sir oh la la la tradición a gear la musica de todos que no tiene la tradición no seagull mucho sanatoria gay Mucha influency aquella a mundo okay he's saying that the historical fact was musical the music historical facts that that the history has not only in America but in other parts of the world mean when Cuba has a lot to give us as musicians the interweb or esta semana que no sólo lo Cubano he said that's why he feels that as Cubans are here now don't celebrate this Honourable Duda with their culture he being so voted on today happy Kwanzaa would too and he feels that this is why we're here with our culture in your culture you wanna know that it's like thank you now I want to break down something very basic that is important for the younger you are for you to understand and it's all understand that the problems we have have cost people their lives the problems we have people have sacrificed their lives over these issues tribalism is something that is a part of the heritage of the world it's almost like a test can you overcome it it's very hard overcome something like that our music has a key to it it was the most integrated thing in American culture our music was like that and our music has been very imperfect when things become a product in our culture they are sold to people demographically people are dealt with in terms of I'm of this I'm a dad I'm a dad it's very difficult to overcome and a way that you our culture eyes it's much more difficult than a slogan but I'm going to say something that will be as clear as I can make it that it entails sharing resources that you don't want to share share resources you do not feel like sharing anybody who was lived in a room with a brother or sister understands that me and my brother stayed in Rome I hated the music he put on I hated his posters I wanted to stay up all night he want to go to sleep listen to this music but he's my brother we had to share resources I told you my brother would take food off his plate and say nah we have more he didn't want to give me the food we're great on slogans we great on the picture of people with their hands around each other we're great on the product but on the meaning why hey we have resources how we gonna protect what we have I'm all for that I'll take 2000 and I'm gonna give you three and go pick up an award we have to share resources that we do not want to share that's the key to us coming together those resources could be intellectual they could be economic and itay some people don't have economic resources have a lot to share with us it may be cultural everything is not you given be willing to accept resources from do those who you may have been conditioned to think are inferior to you question things look underneath these covers and look at it when you see it and come to your own conclusions don't fall into the cliche young people young people as young people that you're a market the things are being marketed to rise above that but understand at the end of the day to create change is going to require something different and something that will be painful to you it's not going to be any easy thing we've all hold hands and sing we are the world trust me in that and I'm not saying it to be dark I'm saying it to give meaning to what we are doing it's like practice and gives meaning to what you're doing losing gives me into a competition I love when you can't lost the game that they won not 100 and something games impossible do they ask the culture what are you telling you your young lady is not a day long did you know what I told them I want y'all to think about how many times y'all sent people to that locker room feeling what you feel right now that's what I'm telling them and hold your head up what you've been doing everybody everyone all of these games but this is a part of real life so the thing about our music is it puts you in time and space if you deal with it it's not a music of illusion it's a music of reality and that embrace will cost you it will not be free if you don't agree with me take my word for it till you find out because it will visit you I promise you yes it's uncomfortable now because we're going from deep philosophy to something else very comfortable it's not wrong with it that's the best way to deal with deep philosophy with a joke Hey No so let me give you a scenario you're in you're playing a tune you're really into it you with the big band you're really getting into it physically like you're dancing around you're having a great time you stop you look around you notice that everyone is just completely still focused serious and then you look at yourself like is my dancing causing a disconnection from the rest of the band is it causing a tear in the mentality of how we are working together and is that going to affect this is a jazz band everybody's expressive dip and I can you dance that's the question the dancer could be so bad they could be like I mean it may be looking down a cup so I suggest dance better but I don't you know I'm going to add to that there's a lot of there's a lot of evidence on YouTube about how jazz bands used to look and the lobbyists old film shorts and things and they did a lot of movement there was a lot of things Lionel Hamptons man even do countless band check out check and double check you know the Trump is back there with things like this but the great equalizer was that they always could play and that they did all that stuff but they were always playing and playing their parts a lot of precision and integrity like they were really into it so it's important that you know you can nothing wrong with expressing yourself that's what jazz was about you know but make sure that whatever you're giving musically make sure the dance in place nettled always balance that out yes hello mr. Marcel my name is Karen hitman I go to Dillard Center for the Arts I played minor saxophone great to see you great to see you too um I wanted to ask what did you learn when playing with Joe Henderson so Joe and that first time I met Joe we were playing on the on the on the show with Herbie Hancock Tony Williams Joe V Ron Carlos playing bass so at the end of every each one of these gigs I was like 19 or 20 at the end of each gig they would play on Broadway George Burns was playing guitar so they played on Broadway I would walk off the stage because I just finished playing a funk band I want to play jazz so I would leave wasn't a big deal they I'm not like I could play so they were probably happy to see me walk off so Joe on this whole tour he never said a word to me she was very quiet but but George Benson would always introduce Joe and say they're very quiet but powerful Joe Henderson when he when he introduced you so we played maybe 10 gigs Joe livers it word the last night we wanna gig chose it why does he keep introducing me like that so it shocked the outlet so he knew when it was time for the last song that I was getting ready to leave so he looked at me and said are you going space on this tune I said I always base on he said I'll space if you space and we both spaced that's what I learned from I mean in terms of plan Joel the thing is Joe didn't play that loud but he played with a tremendous amount of intensity so I was recording with a bit you know he's Joe Henderson he can all the harmony and everything he plays is so clear but uh I think that's the first time I actually understood about the intensity translates on the tape is not volume it in the intensity is tied to your intention and your knowledge and I will notice when he warmed up he will play all those kind of figures that he played when he kind of extensions or cords and some cozy couch is here in that in those molds and of course when it came to playing he was what he was no look everybody on that on that level is serious so one thing I learned from everybody be at him on Sonny Rollins or McCoy Tyner you could name the musicians who were really really serious it doesn't matter what what era our generation you get to they're serious so you can keep running it if you want but because that's what you learn I'll space if you speak yes thank you by the way dealers going to swing this here let's see but I like that you say that but let's see if y'all are going to win look the only thing that's the only thing I love more than you saying it is seeing it you know it's like when I would be playing ball we will go to warm-up and somebody would tell you something like man y'all wait for us well we don't have to wait for y'all we here and I love that I love that attitude I love to see it but don't hate on other people who are swinging I'm gonna come find you with your glasses I'm gonna remember your glasses okay you didn't know so and so is gonna be squeaking - okay yes um I was wondering on a pieces like Ellington music that he wrote for like the sound of specific members of his band how do you maintain the kind of like integrity that he had to his music somebody wanted to put on a piece that Ellington wrote for a specific person how do you maintain the integrity that he a I saw when to do it I do the same with you well you know um we come from that all of us here we're here playing do calendars music right now but so the language of the music is something that we learn from listening and learning and copying but we've got to the point now after decades of playing and and of being able to interpret things our own way and we also have a story to say that's the beauty of jazz in this case that we're playing a part well for example on let it go okay so Paul Gonsalves is the soloist on that room and I studied his solo I've studied many of your solos I listen to the music and that's important for a person to do to be able to understand where the composition originates and what the composer may have had in mind and the original recording will give you a reference however when it comes time for you to say something of your own while keeping the integrity of the music there's a few things that's really important learning the history of the music learning the recording listen to the recording of what you are of what you're playing or what you're referencing to and also being able to have enough understanding of studying that person in this case if it's ready go so study the solo to understand the language of what Paul Gonsalves kid and then being able to to be able to make the bridge between being original and still keeping the tradition is something that requires a little bit of time and study to put a few separate things together one is understanding technically how to play all your 12 major scales exercises to learn how to improvise listening to other great people who created the music as a reference to give you an understanding of how the language is put together and also spending quite a bit of an amount of time working on trying to develop your own creativity and nothing phrasing and logical ideas which is always based on a melody not necessarily a code just as notes and so when you put all those kind of things together then of course you've got the tradition of the music in your soul so no matter what you do it's going to come from there it's just like a family you know we come from our parents and our grandparents and we grew up with them you grew up in the house of your parents you spend years of the tradition of the things that your family does no matter how far away you go from your family as you grow and get older you're still rooted in those first 10 15 20 years that you spend at home eating the same types of food or doing the same casual traditions and things like that so I think that helped answer your question yeah thank you also thank you Thank You Walter like the Duke Ellington wrote for arc tags so one person to be a country bumpkin one thing would be sweet one person be hot Johnny Hodges is urbane Paul guns Elvis's the way he isn't go to the musicians themselves cootie Williams say when he first got into Duke Ellington's band he was just trying to play like like Bubba Miley and Duke was like hey moreover while you got it he did his thing let's see what you're doing but yy-you got it Duke said be a number one yourself not a number to somebody else he said that when Paul goes out there's audition for Dukes band he played everything Ben watch the play and when he finished playing Duke said man that was great for Ben now what we got for Paul but the thing is he played everything Paul played they said Charlie Parker could play every Lester Young solo on record just who knows that so I find that the scholarship and the knowledge of the music almost always comes hand in hand with that type of originality because the people feel so great about the music they have such a depth of feeling for it that it will manifest itself with a lot of knowledge but the intent of this music to go Walter saying is to when Jimmy Hampton played in the band he said Duke Ellington would always tell them don't say it personalize your part so Duke man that's what's written but I don't need you if you just go read it place up so the two are not opposites they don't fight they work hand in hand okay good luck thank you thank you I'm sorry I skipped over you you got yelling can't eat on time okay um so jazz is a way of life and against the philosophy of life what is the most important thing it has taught you does everyone anyone is a whole like even for ourselves what does it taught you I think he teaches all of us to get what you do but don't take yourself too seriously you can't get no better than that we're gonna we're gonna conclude now thank you always are we don't get your questions we'll see you sorry I have this burning question I've been wanting to ask you for a while what do you think about self discipline while practicing let me explain this about self discipline get with me we say it's time to stop let me tell you what self discipline is stopping you with me you got a question you've been dying to ask you know it self discipline is what I really want to ask this question but I'm not going to ask it that's what I think about self discipline you know a self discipline is I want to eat another one of these ice cream cones but I'm not going to eat it I want to play video games for another half-hour but you know what I'm gonna stop right now you know what self discipline is so this is I'm really good playing these faster but I'm terrible on slow let me practice slow thank you all so much and congratulations we obviously had that make a federal officer thank you

Channel: Jazz at Lincoln Center's JAZZ ACADEMY

Views: 28,653

Rating: 4.8617282 out of 5

Keywords: jazz, jazz education, essentially ellington

Id: GLIshl6EU-o

Length: 81min 12sec (4872 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2017