Music — especially blues and jazz — has little bits of all of us in it according to celebrated jazz musician Wynton Marsalis.
Last Thursday, Marsalis’ lecture and performance “Music as Metaphor” at Sanders Theatre was the kick-off for a two year initiative “Hidden in Plain View: Meanings in American Music” with Harvard University. The series is the latest example of Harvard’s commitment to integrating arts and education.
The nine-time Grammy award-winning trumpeter, documentarian and author is also a gifted griot that expertly stitched together quotes from Bessie Smith, Louie Armstrong and Nietzsche that attempted to capture in words the essence of music.
With more than 70 albums to his credit, Marsalis delivered a poetic soliloquy peppered with musical vignettes for more than three hours to make audiences feel its significance. He taught concertgoers that the rhythm section is the foundation of music and the epitome of sacrifice.
The rhythm section sets the tone and the pace but is always relegated to the back of the stage, never getting the glory. Coupled with the delicacy of strings and the charisma of soloists, each section comes together in a melody or riff to say something.
He talked about the evolution of certain genres of music such as Negro spirituals and the blues borne out of the hearts of slaves bearing heavy burdens. Injustices like slavery, internment camps, wars and other cruelties have spawned beautifully painful melodic contributions from all over the world. But it’s up to music lovers to be in tune with where the artists are coming from and receive their messages.
Throughout the ages, artists have been truth tellers for civilization; they speak about the essence of their society in ways that others cannot or will not. “You need to listen to what’s being said,” he explained.
The New Orleans native is the artistic director at the Lincoln Center, and holds an honorary doctorate from Harvard. Marsalis’ motifs for his lecture were love, listening and the connectedness of the human spirit.
Learning the “math of music” or music theory is not enough to move people. All the notes can be in the right place and the music can be technically sound, but if the person’s soul is not in it, then nothing is being said.
Humbly, he urged audience members to listen ever so carefully to what a song is saying.
In 1995, Marsalis worked on a documentary called “Marsalis on Music” where he asked numerous musicians what music means to them, and every musician talked about some form of love. Whether it’s blues, jazz, techno or rock, Marsalis claims that all music is essentially the same because it comes from the same place — the spirit. He said he believes it can help us live our nation’s creed and transcend our differences.
“This music cost us a lot,” Marsalis said. “But not knowing what it means, costs us a lot more.”
Grammy-winning jazz musician Herbie Hancock has been named the 2008 Artist of the Year by the Harvard Foundation of Harvard University, the foundation announced Tuesday.
Hancock, the unanimous choice of the selection committee, will be awarded the foundation's most prestigious medal, which bears the signature of the university's president, at Harvard's annual Cultural Rhythms ceremony on Saturday, March 1.
"The students and faculty of Harvard are delighted to present the 2008 Artist of the Year award to the legendary jazz pianist and Grammy award winner Herbie Hancock," said Dr. S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation, in a statement announcing the award. "He is a masterful artist, a brilliant composer of modern jazz who has shared his musical gift with humanity in ways that inspire and unify."
Tour mate and fellow NEA Jazz Masters Award recipient Paquito D'Rivera has achieved great acclaim in his own right as both a performer and composer of jazz, Latin and classical music. The Cuban-born D'Rivera has earned numerous Grammy and Latin Grammy awards, and was honored with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Living Jazz Legend Award in 2007.
With four members - keyboardist James, bassist Nathan East, drummer Harvey Mason and guitarist Larry Carlton - who have each achieved critical acclaim individually, Fourplay is something of a contemporary jazz all-star team. The group's sound, a unique mixture of jazz, R&B and pop sensibilities, has been synonymous with smooth jazz for over 17 years.
About 60 members of the toddler and preschool set were treated last week to a lesson in the sounds of jazz at the Boston Public Library.
"Riffs & Raps - Jazz for the Very Young" was part of Jazz Week, a series of concerts and programs presented by JazzBoston, a nonprofit group with a mission to expose audiences of all ages to jazz and to promote Boston as a great jazz city.
A group of 3- to 5-year-olds from South End Head Start, along with a handful of other children accompanied by their parents or caregivers, perched on auditorium seats or sat right up onstage as local jazz musicians Arni Cheatham and Bill Lowe gave an interactive presentation.