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Marsalis, Wynton (1961- )

American trumpet player of both jazz and classical music, who in 1984 became the first musician to win Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical music categories in the same year. His performances and recordings have encouraged both the popularity of jazz music and its acceptance as a serious art form.

Marsalis was born in New Orleans and during his youth he was surrounded by New Orleans jazz. His father, Ellis Marsalis, was a gifted professional jazz musician and teacher and had a profound influence on his son’s musical development (Wynton’s brothers, Branford and Delfeayo, also became professional musicians). Beginning with trumpet lessons at the age of 12, Wynton went on to attend the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in Massachusetts and the Julliard School of Music in New York. At the age of 20 he toured with jazz drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers band and jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock’s V.S.O.P. quartet. In 1981 he released Wynton Marsalis, his debut album as a jazz bandleader, and in 1983 he released Trumpet Concertos, his classical-music recording debut. He decided to focus on jazz in the mid-1980s and has continued to tour and make records.

Regarded as a master technician of the trumpet early in his career, Marsalis reached new heights of creative expression with his recordings Majesty of the Blues (1989) and the subsequent trilogy Soul Gestures in Southern Blue (1991). These works represent a return to his New Orleans jazz and blues roots, although the music is distinctively contemporary. In 1993 Marsalis released Citi Movement, a score for a modern ballet and perhaps his most ambitious project up to that time. Like jazz composer Duke Ellington, Marsalis’s composition combined elements of classical music with original jazz improvisations. Also in 1993 Marsalis resumed his classical music career, performing with operatic soprano Kathleen Battle.

Marsalis has influenced a generation of young musicians and listeners, and is credited with promoting both the resurgence of traditional jazz music and its popular following. Since 1990 he has been the artistic director of the “Jazz at Lincoln Center” programme in New York, and in 1994 made an acclaimed series of jazz masterclasses for television.