Wynton Marsalis, Managing and Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center
In conversation with: Andrew Nusca, Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media
In conversation with: Andrew Nusca, Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media
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00:00Winton, thank you for having us in your house today.
00:03Okay, it's a pleasure being here.
00:04We need some better walk-on music.
00:06So, look, we're going to play a one-round game, all right?
00:13It's complete the sentence.
00:16It don't mean a thing if...
00:18It ain't got that swing.
00:21Is democracy swinging right now?
00:23Yeah, I think so.
00:25Why? And it actually might help the room
00:27if you tell the room what swing means to you,
00:30because that is a jazz term.
00:31Swing means the constant reconciliation of opposites.
00:36So, across time, maybe you have eight-year swings,
00:38ten-year swings.
00:39It's a constant attempt to find a balance of opposing forces.
00:43So, you have to have opposition.
00:45In the swing rhythm, the drums are in sixth.
00:48The cymbal is the highest pitch, and it has force to play
00:51on every beat with the bass that is in four.
00:54And the drum's the loudest instrument,
00:56and the bass is the softest.
00:58So, all night, they're looking at each other and negotiating.
01:00Man, you're playing too loud.
01:02You're not in time.
01:03You're not swinging.
01:05You're not playing good.
01:06And that's the central kind of idea of our music.
01:10How do we share space with people
01:12that we don't necessarily agree with?
01:15So, you think things are going well in that regard?
01:19Democracy is, in fact, swinging?
01:21I think what I'm describing is a momentum.
01:24And a momentum goes well or not well based on your perspective.
01:28For some people, it's going well.
01:30For others, it's not.
01:31A very loud drummer thinks things are going great.
01:34A bass player with an amp would turn that amp up to ten
01:38and think, man, this sounds great.
01:39All I hear is bass.
01:41But we have to realize, when we're talking about momentum,
01:45you're inside of the ocean.
01:46You ask me, how is a wave doing?
01:48It's a wave.
01:50So, you draw a lot of...
01:52And that's a great parallel.
01:54I have played in live music settings, as have you,
01:56and nobody wants the loudness wars.
02:00Certainly not the audience.
02:02Tell me a little bit about...
02:04Draw some more connections for me.
02:06Jazz has a very clear set of elements, of fundamentals.
02:10So does democracy.
02:12Draw some parallels for me between those,
02:14because clearly we're all playing in the same band.
02:17Well, the fundamental of democracy is no king.
02:21Right.
02:22Because you don't have a king,
02:24then you have to figure out how to negotiate space.
02:26So in jazz, you could be the leader of a band,
02:29but if you solo all night...
02:33One thing I mentioned, democracy has the element of choice.
02:36You can choose to expend as much of your energy
02:39as you can expend on the rights of others,
02:41or you can expend it all on yourself and what you think.
02:44Jazz is the same way.
02:45One person could solo for 15 or 20 minutes,
02:48and there could be nine other people
02:49lined up waiting to play.
02:51And the rhythm section, which is piano, bass, and drums,
02:54they tend to, when you solo too long,
02:56they do a thing that we call breathe.
02:58At the top of a cycle,
03:00we play on forms that are like a clock.
03:02It has a certain number of bars.
03:03When you play too long, the rhythm section goes...
03:08And you can choose then to play through that.
03:10Sure.
03:11So the element of choice,
03:12the fact that we do not have a king,
03:14and the fact that the more global your understanding is,
03:18the more you can perceive what other people are doing,
03:19the more successful you can be as a player in a group,
03:23but you may not be more successful
03:24as an individual soloist.
03:26Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:27I love that term breathe, by the way.
03:29That's one of my favorites.
03:31So look, you gave a lecture in September,
03:34Thurgood Marshall Lecture,
03:36and you talked about jazz
03:38and how it helped you see things differently in your life.
03:43And there's a line toward the end of that
03:45that I'd like to repeat for the audience here,
03:46because I think it's right on
03:47as to what we're talking about.
03:49If the democracy is to be accountable to itself
03:52and be what it says it is,
03:54we must be whatever it takes to make it be its truest self.
03:59You were distilling a lot of knowledge there.
04:02Right.
04:03Talk to me about that,
04:04what that means for our moment right now in this democracy.
04:07Well, it's a matter of each person's personal integrity.
04:10Mm-hmm.
04:11Because when you lose your integrity,
04:13you have to remember that the loss of integrity
04:16is what is celebrated.
04:18Your leadership becomes corrupted.
04:20It's a cycle that's repeated over and over again.
04:22Your elites are intellectually corrupt, morally bankrupt,
04:26and they're no longer accountable to any larger group,
04:29only to themselves.
04:30It's akin to companies who are only accountable
04:32to their board or their stockholders.
04:35Was a time when you had a baseball team,
04:37you could go to a company,
04:38put your name on the little league form.
04:41Even coming from Kenton, Louisiana,
04:43we had a company that let us play in segregated Louisiana.
04:47We put their name on our uniforms,
04:49that they also gave us the uniforms, and we played.
04:52At the point at which you are no longer accountable
04:53to any community of people,
04:55except those who you are fiscally responsible to,
04:59then you lose a sense of responsibility and morality.
05:01You can no longer define who is the us, who is we.
05:06And integrity is difficult.
05:08It has been difficult in jazz.
05:09Most of our festivals have the name jazz,
05:12but the music has nothing to do with jazz.
05:14The top three selling headliners
05:16of any jazz festival in the world
05:18is people who've never played the music at all.
05:20And it seems quite natural and normal,
05:22because that's how corruption sets into things.
05:26I had a piece I wrote, and I said,
05:27you see an eagle sitting on a crow's nest.
05:31His mind is in the east, but his head is in the west.
05:34He's lost his understanding,
05:36and you get tired of being preached to,
05:38because corruption has its own momentum.
05:42And the leadership lacks discipline, it lacks courage,
05:45and mostly it lacks imagination.
05:48Then to have something that you're trying
05:50to lead people into,
05:51this is what we are gonna do as a community.
05:53This is the direction we're going in.
05:55You then sink down into attacking other people,
05:57because there's always a momentum to negativity
06:00and to violence and stupidity.
06:02And to have the acuity to understand those things,
06:10it's very difficult.
06:11We think it's easy, but it's not.
06:13And then if you do have the acuity to have the courage
06:15to stand against your own people who will be against you.
06:18It took Genghis Khan 20 years to defeat his own people.
06:23So it's very fundamental and simple.
06:26It's been repeated over and over again in the world,
06:27but there's always the masters of the universe
06:30know everything.
06:31They went to schools and got degrees.
06:33They should have stayed home and been in the community
06:36and deal with stuff very fundamentally,
06:37because we all live very fundamental lives,
06:40no matter who we are.
06:41Now you said the word repeat a few minutes earlier.
06:45You were telling me backstage about something called
06:47the importance of repetitive form, symbolic repetition.
06:51We're talking about it as a music term,
06:54but clearly beyond that.
06:55Can you tell us what that means?
06:57Let's all think about,
06:58because we seem like we're old enough to remember this.
07:00Let's all look back to our civics classes
07:03where we learned about the city government.
07:05You would go down to city hall
07:07and you would look at the council chambers
07:08and you would, maybe you knew what was going on,
07:10but you was just happy to be out of school for a day.
07:14There was a form to that.
07:16We have these two houses.
07:18This is the such and such board.
07:20This is the this.
07:21This is the mayor.
07:22This is what the mayor does.
07:23Then you were lucky enough to travel to another city
07:25in Louisiana, it's Baton Rouge,
07:27and we would go to the state capitol.
07:30This is where Huey P. Long was shot,
07:33but this is what we do here.
07:35Then you say, wow, this is a lot like the city government.
07:38Then when you get to federal government,
07:39you say, this is like the city government,
07:41it's like the state government,
07:42it's like the federal government.
07:44That repetition of form allows you to understand
07:46how to function in the largest environment.
07:50If you really think about it,
07:52the United States federal constitution
07:55is much shorter than any state constitution.
08:00When you repeat those forms as you're a kid,
08:02you start to understand what your power is.
08:06Einstein said in 1949 that what happens in democracy
08:10is that the people who have the most resources
08:13invest in communication,
08:15and then they just flood people with propaganda,
08:17and the people are no longer able
08:18to make intelligent choices that actually affect them.
08:22So he was talking about them,
08:24but we see that today because we use terms
08:26that are far too imprecise to communicate,
08:29we say global.
08:31Well, you said I've been in 60 countries.
08:33You know what I realized in those 60 countries?
08:36Global is a big word.
08:39But the one thing I do know
08:40is that people are doing the same thing
08:42in all of those countries.
08:43They have their families, they have their kids,
08:45they experience loss, grief.
08:47They want the best for their people.
08:49Some are doing corrupt things.
08:51People will treat you to a good meal,
08:53and if you have good manners
08:54and you know how to be polite
08:55and keep your mouth closed at the right time,
08:58you will be treated relatively well.
09:01And if you sense hostility
09:02and you act out of a sense of very common and normal fear,
09:06you'll avoid trouble.
09:08But ultimately, across the world,
09:09people want to love each other.
09:12It's not the fear that we have of everybody.
09:14When you get down on the ground floor,
09:16people want to love you.
09:19They want to do that.
09:21Yeah.
09:21You touch on this in a piece that you wrote.
09:25I don't know if you wrote it in 2018,
09:26but that's when it was first staged, yeah?
09:28Yeah, I wrote it in 2017.
09:30The Ever Funky Lowdown, it's called.
09:32And is it an opera?
09:33What do we call it?
09:35There's no name for it, yes.
09:36A piece of art.
09:38In it, you have a principal character named Mr. Game.
09:40That's his name.
09:42Explains how capitalism feasts on the unfortunate.
09:44You talk about political malaise.
09:45You talk about cultural decay in America
09:48and how to rise above.
09:50You talked about global,
09:51you talked about a lot of different countries,
09:52but you have been one of the sharpest voices
09:54about this country.
09:57This is the only country I can comment on.
09:58That's right, for sure.
10:00I don't know other countries enough
10:01to say anything except thank you.
10:03What should this room take away from that piece?
10:07Your integrity is personal.
10:10Back to integrity.
10:10And you have to fight for,
10:12when you, we have to step out
10:15on that windy precipice every day.
10:17We have thousands of decisions we have to make
10:20concerning others.
10:22One of the biggest mistakes we make
10:24in our country over and over again
10:25is we lack the fortitude to defend victories.
10:32North had a great victory over the South in the Civil War.
10:3510 years, they've given that victory back.
10:3712, if you say, at the end of Reconstruction.
10:40That's all right, we lost 800,000 people.
10:42Don't worry about that.
10:43Let's go back to what we were.
10:45Civil rights movement,
10:46a lot of great victories and possibilities.
10:49By 1980, we're saying,
10:50how can we pull this back and go away from this?
10:52Now, we go around, hey,
10:54you wanna know what these parties are fighting over?
10:56I don't know what they're fighting over.
10:57I travel up and down America.
10:58You want it to be segregated?
10:59It is.
11:00You want the education to be unfair?
11:02It is.
11:03You want the job place to not be integrated?
11:05Don't worry, it's not.
11:07What are we fighting over?
11:09We're just fighting over how we wanna feel about it?
11:11We had a bunch of administrations.
11:12They all came to the same conclusion.
11:14We want this to be like this.
11:17And we all have personal decisions that we can make,
11:22and we never lose that ability to stand.
11:25I would always notice when I was growing up
11:27if I would be in a tight situation.
11:28I grew up really in clubs.
11:30Sometimes late at night,
11:32ignorant things would happen.
11:34There was almost always a person who would say,
11:36man, let's not do this,
11:37or this is not the right thing to do.
11:41I remember one time growing up,
11:43some younger kids started to attack a man
11:46who was looking at water meters.
11:48There was a guy in our neighborhood
11:49who had mental challenges.
11:53And we were all kids,
11:54so we were just standing there looking at it,
11:55and we knew something wrong was going on.
11:58And the person with mental challenges said out loud,
12:01this is wrong, man.
12:04And he said it was so much feeling
12:06that it allowed us to kind of create a little clamor
12:08to let the man get away.
12:11We have to be willing to stand up to our own failures,
12:15our own lacks of integrity,
12:17not looking at other people.
12:18And we have to always strive to do better.
12:23And it's important for us every day
12:25to make those decisions and those choices.
12:28I have another question for you,
12:30but I would like to open it to the audience
12:32if there's any questions for me.
12:34Don't be shy.
12:35For Wynton.
12:36I'm being serious.
12:37I'm more serious up here
12:38because we're talking.
12:39We don't have a lot of time.
12:40But if you ask me a question,
12:40I would be nice.
12:42I'm looking.
12:43Here we go, right up here in the front.
12:45Hey, Nathan, nice to see you.
12:48Nathan Rosenberg from Insignia.
12:50First of all, your music,
12:53what a gift to the world.
12:54So thank you for that
12:55and what you've done here at Lincoln Center.
12:58Thank you so much.
13:02When you think about the platform
13:04that you have being an artist
13:08and not a politician.
13:10Right.
13:11Talking about integrity,
13:12how do you maintain the integrity of your word
13:15and the integrity of your art
13:17talking about things that are
13:19outside your everyday world?
13:22If it's not my expertise,
13:23I always say,
13:24I don't really know,
13:25but I think.
13:27I'm not an expert in this,
13:28but if you ask my opinion,
13:29I will give it.
13:30I think this.
13:31When I'm in other people's countries
13:32and I do interviews
13:34and I always tell them,
13:36I'm not here to try to talk about your country.
13:38I don't understand,
13:39but if you put me in a position
13:41where I have to talk about mine,
13:43I will talk about yours.
13:45It's just good manners.
13:47And I go to many countries
13:49that the United States
13:51are not allies with
13:53and by and large,
13:54people have
13:56respect that.
13:58And because I'm an artist,
14:00I don't have a military.
14:02I'm not trying to take stuff from people.
14:04So,
14:05and I also am not accountable to people
14:07in any way,
14:08but to play good enough music
14:09for them to want to continue to come
14:11and hear it.
14:12And if they don't want to hear it,
14:13they just don't check it out
14:15or they don't come.
14:17So,
14:18but I'm a public servant
14:19in that I have a responsibility
14:21to my craft
14:22and the seriousness
14:23and the,
14:24you know,
14:25I'm a person who,
14:26I like people.
14:27So, I will stand every night
14:29and sign every person's autograph.
14:32And for 45 years,
14:33I've done that
14:33and I've learned more doing that
14:36almost than I learned playing.
14:38And I learned that people
14:40just really want to know
14:41that it's okay to be themselves
14:43and they want to feel something
14:45that has a warmth to it.
14:47And when you're not naive
14:48and you're not,
14:49we are the world in it,
14:50and you can just talk to people
14:51and say,
14:52hey, there are realities out here.
14:54People,
14:55people,
14:56even the toughest people
14:57will embrace you.
14:59Sometimes.
15:00Sometimes you have the other kind.
15:02You got to deal with that too.
15:03But our music is a tough music.
15:05You know,
15:05jazz is not a,
15:06a naive,
15:08naive music.
15:09We've had many greats.
15:11Thelonious Monk,
15:12Duke Ellington,
15:12the list goes,
15:13Louis Armstrong.
15:14These are people who were very,
15:15very wise
15:16and tough people.
15:20I have one more question for you.
15:21And,
15:22excuse me,
15:23it's related to that.
15:25You know,
15:25we're in a tribal moment.
15:26We are.
15:27But we've been in that moment.
15:28We have.
15:29We have.
15:30It's not no different from,
15:31we've been in that moment for a long time.
15:32We have.
15:33But you have a very clear view
15:34about the word community.
15:36Finding it.
15:37Who is it?
15:39Talk to me about that.
15:40Well.
15:41Because after all this division,
15:43we need to pull together, right?
15:45That depends on how expansive
15:46your view of the world is.
15:48Sure.
15:49When a kid comes to me for a trumpet lesson,
15:51if it's in China,
15:53or if it's in the suburbs of America,
15:56or if it's in the hood,
15:58am I teaching them different things
15:59based on who they are?
16:02Is the feeling I'm going to give them different?
16:03Well, it depends on my concept of the world.
16:06If I love them,
16:07if I hug them,
16:08if I teach them trumpet,
16:10like my trumpet teachers taught me,
16:11if I touch the universality in our instrument
16:14and I give them a feeling like,
16:16hey,
16:17now I,
16:18because I'm over 60 now,
16:19I tell my young people,
16:20y'all going to have to change this.
16:21We messed it up.
16:23But that love that I'm giving them
16:25is not changing.
16:28I remember my father saw me once.
16:29I was,
16:30I was in the hood,
16:31in the school,
16:31and I didn't,
16:32I dressed down.
16:34My father called me.
16:35He's a great musician and teacher.
16:36He said,
16:37man,
16:38I noticed you didn't have your suit on.
16:39I said,
16:40man,
16:41I'm in the hood,
16:42man.
16:42He told me,
16:43don't put this and that on.
16:44He said,
16:45when you get in the hood,
16:46not up twice.
16:47And he's not a guy who dressed up like that,
16:48but he was a community worker.
16:50So I saw him growing up,
16:51struggling in the community with very few people,
16:54setting out chairs at community centers,
16:56teaching everybody's kids something about the music,
16:59being hopeful when you would look at him and think,
17:01man,
17:02this is such a waste of time.
17:04But I still,
17:05now he's passed away,
17:06but I reflect on that call.
17:07When you're in the hood,
17:08not up twice.
17:10Come for real.
17:11Come correct.
17:12All the time.
17:13And I think,
17:16you know,
17:16it's a,
17:17your sense of personal integrity is,
17:22that's,
17:24when you deal with people,
17:27we're just in China.
17:29Kids will come to me and say,
17:30this is a picture of me and you in 1998.
17:32You gave me a trumpet lesson.
17:34We played with the Shanghai Symphony,
17:36and the first trumpeter,
17:37I had given him a lesson.
17:39And musicians,
17:40we listen to each other's albums.
17:41So no matter where I go in the world,
17:42I see people saying,
17:43here's your record I checked out.
17:45Two cats from Uganda.
17:48I saw them on the street,
17:49maybe 20 years ago.
17:50We have a program for high school students
17:51called Essentially Ellington.
17:54And I saw them right out here on 66th Street,
17:56and they had pieces of music from Essentially Ellington.
17:59And he said,
18:00brother,
18:01you know,
18:01this music,
18:02this music.
18:03I looked at it,
18:04I said,
18:05man,
18:06where did you get this music?
18:06Oh,
18:07a man brought it to us in Uganda.
18:08I said,
18:09man,
18:10you want to come to my house and get something to drink?
18:11I poured some coffee for them,
18:11sat down,
18:12and talked with them.
18:13They were telling me how they encountered the music.
18:14Music and ideas travel.
18:16So I feel like,
18:19one of my heroes in the world is Mohammed Yunus.
18:22I love the fact that he understood that wealth
18:24means everybody is doing good.
18:27When we all are doing good,
18:29we're doing good.
18:30I'm not going to sound good with a bass player that's mad
18:32because they never play.
18:35Even when I played basketball growing up,
18:37you got to give your big man,
18:38even though they can't shoot,
18:40you got to know how to give them a couple of shots
18:42in the game.
18:43Say,
18:44yeah,
18:45man,
18:45okay,
18:46here's some junk time shots for you to feel good about
18:47what these two misses you're going to have.
18:49You know what I mean?
18:52But your point is good.
18:53The ideas flow,
18:55the music flows,
18:56and hopefully the good feeling flows
18:59and helps pull society back together.
19:01Well, you got to be aggressive about it.
19:02Right.
19:03Ladies and gentlemen,
19:03please give Wynton Marsalis a round of applause.
19:08That was such a pleasure.
19:09Thank you so much.
19:10Great job.
19:12We're proud of you.
19:13Together,
19:14we stand.
19:14Of course.