As a younger grownup making an attempt to hone his talent as a jazz trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis was no stranger to Massachusetts. He was a fellow at Tanglewood, and carried out at Boston’s Symphony Corridor.
Subsequent week, the jazz trumpeter shall be again within the Bay State with a lot much less to show. He is gained seven Grammys and was the primary jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize. Marsalis shall be featured with the Jazz at Lincoln Heart Orchestra on Wednesday night time at Boston Symphony Corridor.
Forward of this efficiency, Marsalis instructed WBUR about when he got here to Boston within the spring of 1984 as a precocious 22-year-old to carry out with John Williams and the Boston Pops. Legendary jazz singer Sarah Vaughan was there, too.
He recalled making an attempt to impress Vaughan by enjoying an obscure Duke Ellington composition on the piano backstage.
“One part of the track I did not actually know, so I used to be type of working my method by,” he mentioned.
Marsalis mentioned Vaughan, by then a 40-year veteran of the jazz circuit, might hear the uncertainty in his enjoying.
“ ‘You must be taught these songs off data and of their entirety,’ ” Marsalis remembered her saying to him. Then, “she sat down and performed the hell out of the piano. I bear in mind pondering, ‘rattling, she will be able to play the piano like this and is a singer?’ ”
Wynton Marsalis and Sarah Vaughan carry out with the Boston Pops in 1984:
It wasn’t the primary time the younger Marsalis was each awed and humbled throughout a go to to Massachusetts. Marsalis got here to the state for the primary time on the age of 17 as a fellow at Tanglewood, the music corridor within the Berkshires the place the Boston Symphony Orchestra retreats for the summer season.
“I used to be the youngest one within the fellowship,” Marsalis mentioned. “I used to be honored to be there. I realized quite a bit that summer season.”
Regardless of his years of expertise, his pleasure about jazz remains to be recent.
“We will take one thing that’s normal and make or not it’s one thing you by no means had earlier than,” he mentioned. “It is like an individual who actually can cook dinner — take a recipe or some dish that you’ve got had one million instances and you will be consuming it saying, ‘rattling, what’s on this?’ ”
The Jazz at Lincoln Heart Orchestra performs “Work Music” from Wynton Marsalis’ Pulitzer-winning oratorio “Blood on the Fields”:
This phase aired on January 17, 2025. Audio shall be out there quickly.
