Martin Gayford meets the jazz legend Wynton Marsalis

In this week’s magazine, Martin Gayford interviews the trumpeter and jazz legend Wynton Marsalis, who founded ‘Jazz’ at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Here are some quotes from his piece.

‘One of the things we talked about was the difficulty of playing jazz — especially in front of an audience. ‘The pressure of playing in public makes it all for real, I love the pressure of it. That’s what makes it fun.’ ‘Marsalis has dedicated his career to keeping the jazz tradition alive: not just part of it but all of it. That is what Jazz at Lincoln Center is about. The most difficult aspect of his mission, he believes, is not teaching the musicians, it’s training the audience.’ ‘It was from Ralph Ellison that Marsalis got the inspiration to found Jazz at Lincoln Center. In a way, it is also the culmination of the long march of jazz from its origins in the dance halls and bordellos of New Orleans.