Jazz at Lincoln Center is excited to offer a series of Jazz Fundamentals videos.
Join Wynton Marsalis as he lays out his vision for Jazz Education in the 21st century at the 2012 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. Learn more about celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month.
Part 1: Wynton Marsalis on the challenges of being a music educator: “This is not a job for the faint of heart.”
Part 2: Wynton Marsalis on all that is music: “It can reorder emotions, can awaken thoughts, can raise morale and open the mind’s eye with a single golden note.”
“Music teacher is a sacred profession. It’s as sacred as it gets. . . . You are now an important guidepost on the landscape of your students’ lives forever.”
Part 3: Wynton Marsalis on how music choice states our purpose: “For many of the tens of thousands of kids represented by teachers all over this country, you are the only arts contact that they may ever have.”
Part 4: Wynton Marsalis on the Blues, “a form that leaves more room for response, than call.” We need to know this form “the way an Austrian knows the waltz, or an Italian knows opera.” It is “far deeper than notes.”
“I would suggest a deeper focus on institutional insistence on listening skills. … Listening is not a visual skill set. It requires concentration and development of attention span.”
Part 5: Wynton Marsalis on what music reveals about our national identity: “Today we’re in a desperate need of a discerning body of listeners. Music instructors seem, to me, should be the arbiters of taste for the community.”
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