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Wynton Marsalis · The David Rubenstein Show

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  Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Best. Bloomberg Best is about the insight
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  Speaker 1: Denise Pelligrini on this weekend edition of Bloomberg Best. It
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  Speaker 1: objectifies a lot about basic prisons. Jazz is a national
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  Speaker 1: art form now, is Elvi is going to not be
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  Speaker 1: the King Man, Well, you're gonna put jazz i Felgus
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  Speaker 1: of the King Whitten Marcellus on why some insists jazz
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  Speaker 1: is dead. For somebody like me to complain is I'd
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  Speaker 1: have to be out of my mind. The Jazz great
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  Speaker 1: and managing director at Lincoln Center on music, race and
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  Speaker 1: the world. All this and more coming up in the
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  Speaker 1: next hour of Bloomberg Best. All right, we've been looking
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  Speaker 1: forward to this one for weeks, oh have we? That's right,
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  Speaker 1: The one and only went and Marcellus on all the
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  Speaker 1: big topics. We had a chance to hear from him
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  Speaker 1: on the David Rubens Toun Show Peer to Peer Conversations.
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  Speaker 1: Let's listen in. So, do you get tired of people
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  Speaker 1: calling you a jazz legend? You feel older when they
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  Speaker 1: say that to you. Yeah, I like the word jazz.
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  Speaker 1: I don't like the legend. Um. Let's talk about your
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  Speaker 1: family for a moment. Sadly, your father passed away in
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  Speaker 1: April at the age of eighty five because of COVID.
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  Speaker 1: So it must have been a very sad loss because
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  Speaker 1: you were very close to him, of course, Yeah, for
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  Speaker 1: all of us, for me and my brothers, of course,
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  Speaker 1: as he's our father. We loved him so much. He
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  Speaker 1: was such a such an example for us, and he was.
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  Speaker 1: He's such a kind man and a man with a
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  Speaker 1: with a large worldview and also a large person. He
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  Speaker 1: never he didn't do small things. He was very philosophical.
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  Speaker 1: He wasn't a touchy feely type of person. He's from
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  Speaker 1: that generation to It wasn't a lot of hugging and
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  Speaker 1: I love it, I love you was going on, but
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  Speaker 1: there was underneath a lot of of resolve and and seriousness.
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  Speaker 1: And just just kind of deep love not just for us,
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  Speaker 1: but also he had many students who who love him
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  Speaker 1: and and love to tell stories about him, and he
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  Speaker 1: supported a lot of a lot of us. So, for
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  Speaker 1: those who may not be familiar, your father was a very,
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  Speaker 1: very prominent jazz pianist. When you were growing up, did
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  Speaker 1: you you obviously looked up to your father. Um was
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  Speaker 1: he somebody who said I want you to be a
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  Speaker 1: trumpet player. I want you to be a jazz trumpet player.
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  Speaker 1: Did he not push you into that? No, he didn't
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  Speaker 1: push any of us into anything. You know, I went,
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  Speaker 1: I always hung out with him. My father really struggled
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  Speaker 1: when I was growing up. He was trying to play
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  Speaker 1: modern jazz uh in segrette in the era of segregation
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  Speaker 1: and in clubs and with a populist that didn't like
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  Speaker 1: that style of music. So much of my experience was
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  Speaker 1: going to sparsely populated clubs with him and UH in
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  Speaker 1: colorful areas. So I love to go because I was
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  Speaker 1: always the only kid in the room. And it started
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  Speaker 1: when I was three, four or five years old, and
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  Speaker 1: it continued until I got into high school and started
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  Speaker 1: to work myself. But I always went with him and
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  Speaker 1: identified with his struggle really because he continued to play
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  Speaker 1: even though he didn't get audience support. He was not
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  Speaker 1: well known, he wasn't famous, He struggled financially. He never complained,
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  Speaker 1: and he had he was very high minded in his
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  Speaker 1: belief in jazz and and and in his belief in
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  Speaker 1: the necessity of it as as a as a tool
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  Speaker 1: for healing people, in raising consciousness and things like that.
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  Speaker 1: So when you were growing up, you obviously experienced racial
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  Speaker 1: discrimination because there was a segregated area. That is that right,
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  Speaker 1: yah know, that defined the entire uh segregation, discrimination, racism.
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  Speaker 1: That was just a part of life. Like it's it's
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  Speaker 1: not something you could uh as, there's not philosophy, I'm
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  Speaker 1: talking now, it's just how was your neighborhood looked a
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  Speaker 1: certain way the white neighborhoods was a certain way. Black
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  Speaker 1: people generally lived in our area on one side of
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  Speaker 1: railroad tracks. We had still had ditches in our streets,
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  Speaker 1: and any type of systems always worked against you, and
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  Speaker 1: you you had to uh, it was just what it was,
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  Speaker 1: what the system was. You didn't have distance from it,
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  Speaker 1: so you didn't have It's easy to look back on
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  Speaker 1: a thing and experience it not the way you experienced
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  Speaker 1: it when you grew in it. When you grew in it,
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  Speaker 1: it was very much a fact of life. So I
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  Speaker 1: happened to be someone who never liked it. So I
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  Speaker 1: fought with it a lot and had a lot of
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  Speaker 1: problems in that system. But most people adapted to it
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  Speaker 1: and we're okay with it. They didn't like it, but
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  Speaker 1: they would sometimes. Sometimes you're not in a bad situation
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in this case, we talked about racism. It could be anything,
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  Speaker 1: could be a health situation. The degree to what you're
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  Speaker 1: willing to fight against it really is is based on
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  Speaker 1: your your your ability to accept the pain of fighting
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  Speaker 1: against it. So are you surprised about the Black Lives
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  Speaker 1: Matter situation? Here we are in the year, well advanced
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  Speaker 1: past the time that you grew up, and we still
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  Speaker 1: have racial problems of that type. Yeah, we're not anywhere
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  Speaker 1: near advanced past what I grew up with, So no,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not surprised by it. I had the honor to
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  Speaker 1: go into so many American schools throughout the eighties and
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  Speaker 1: nineties and early two thousand's it probably will over a
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  Speaker 1: thousand schools. So we have a segregation in our systems
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  Speaker 1: in general. So no, no, it doesn't none of None
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  Speaker 1: of it is surprising to me. So today, as a
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  Speaker 1: famous jazz musician, you're recognized all over the country, in
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  Speaker 1: many places around the world. Do you feel you are
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  Speaker 1: still suffering from racial discrimination? Do you still feel, even
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  Speaker 1: despite your exalted status in the music world, you are
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  Speaker 1: really not treated the same as you would be if
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  Speaker 1: you were white. Yes, I feel that. I feel that
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  Speaker 1: in terms of the kind of intellectual patronization that I received,
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  Speaker 1: the low level of criticism of our music. Um, I'm
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  Speaker 1: subject to things, of course, nothing like what I grew
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  Speaker 1: up with. Nor do I make a habit of complaining
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  Speaker 1: about it constantly because I'm also treated in a way
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  Speaker 1: with so much respect by so many people. Did for
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  Speaker 1: me to complain would be it would be past gratuitous.
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  Speaker 1: So you asked me the question directly, Yes, I will say,
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  Speaker 1: have been treated unfairly by by newspapers something like the
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  Speaker 1: New York Times. The way our institution jazz and then
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  Speaker 1: concerning it has been covered is abominable. Even though we
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  Speaker 1: get articles, the quality of those articles are always very poor,
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  Speaker 1: poorly research the writers oftentimes down to the history and
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  Speaker 1: lack the intelligence and depth of engagement with the form
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  Speaker 1: to be qualified to speak on it in a paper
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  Speaker 1: of record. But because it's jazz, it doesn't matter. So
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  Speaker 1: that's only in direct response to your question because I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want to confuse it with
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  Speaker 1: when I was growing up. Are the situations that I
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  Speaker 1: found myself and on my father's situational grandfathers, or let's
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  Speaker 1: go back in the generations. So I'm not doing that,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm very, very grateful for how I've been treated
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  Speaker 1: by people all over this country of all kinds. So
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  Speaker 1: there's a story that when you were time, your father
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  Speaker 1: had you sit down with I think Al Hurt and
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  Speaker 1: maybe it's Miles Davis, and they said, how would you
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  Speaker 1: like to play the trumpet? And they gave you a
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  Speaker 1: trumpet to play. Is there anything true to that? You know,
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  Speaker 1: when I was six, my father was playing without her
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  Speaker 1: and al Hert gave me a trumpet for my sixth birthday,
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  Speaker 1: So that's true. And my father Lady was talking to
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  Speaker 1: Miles Davis. He said, I'm getting my son a trumpet.
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  Speaker 1: Before before al got me a trumpet, my father was
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  Speaker 1: talking to Miles. You're standing without your mole, said don't
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  Speaker 1: get that boy a trumpets too hard. So that is
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  Speaker 1: a true story. Okay, So as you grew up, you
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  Speaker 1: were actually, as I understand that, a classical musician more
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  Speaker 1: than a jazz musician. And when you went to Juilliard
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  Speaker 1: where you went to college, Um, you were interested in
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  Speaker 1: classical music. Is that true? No. I grew up always
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  Speaker 1: wanting to play jazz, but jazz was It's always much
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  Speaker 1: more difficult to learn in that time, especially than classical music.
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  Speaker 1: Because my father's a jazz musician. I was always around
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  Speaker 1: the music. I was raised in the culture. I love
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  Speaker 1: the musicians. My father was a modern jazz musician. He
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  Speaker 1: wasn't playing New Orleans jazz, but at a certain time,
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  Speaker 1: when I was maybe ten or eleven, he started to
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  Speaker 1: play New Orleans music. And I also played and Danny
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  Speaker 1: Parker's fairew Baptist Church Band, which was a New Orleans
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  Speaker 1: traditional band jazz. It was difficult at that time for
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  Speaker 1: a person of my age, in my generation to figure
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  Speaker 1: out what it was because it was not a part
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  Speaker 1: of the American mythology, whereas the classical music. He had
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  Speaker 1: competitions and and and classes you could go to so
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  Speaker 1: you could get a track record on your on your
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  Speaker 1: on your resume, Like if you see what did I do?
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  Speaker 1: It will say when I was fourteen, I want a
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  Speaker 1: competition to play the Hiding Trumpet Concerto with the New
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  Speaker 1: Orleans Philharmonic. But I was playing jazz the whole time.
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  Speaker 1: But what could I say that I did? I played
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  Speaker 1: in the club called Tyler's Beer Gardens on on on
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  Speaker 1: a Wednesday. But one year you want to Grammy. The
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  Speaker 1: only person I ever went a Grammy and jazz and
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  Speaker 1: the classical music in the same year. It's funny story
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  Speaker 1: about my father. He went to the Grammys. He even
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  Speaker 1: was not into those kind of things, and he sat
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  Speaker 1: through the whole show and he was like, wow, you know,
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  Speaker 1: just the Grammys. So at the end of the show
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  Speaker 1: I won. I was in the back in the hotel
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  Speaker 1: with him and my mother. I was like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: getting ready to go out to the party or something,
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  Speaker 1: and I was I was like, yeah, man. My daddy
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  Speaker 1: looked at me and he was wondering. He said, man,
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  Speaker 1: he said, I'm glad that was the Grammys. He said, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad you want. I mean, don't don't get me wrong,
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  Speaker 1: it's great to do it, but you don't think this
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  Speaker 1: means you can play, do you? So? I still at
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  Speaker 1: laughed because I was like twenty two and I knew
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  Speaker 1: what he was saying, because I still, of course had
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  Speaker 1: a long way to go to learn how to play.
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  Speaker 1: You could argue classical music came from Europe, and you
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  Speaker 1: can argue that other parts of music came from other
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  Speaker 1: parts of the world. But jazz was invented in the
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  Speaker 1: United States, and it's a classic American kind of invention.
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  Speaker 1: I would say, um, but why is it so hard
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  Speaker 1: for some people to understand that You've written a book
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  Speaker 1: about it, and you make it in your book sound
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  Speaker 1: like it's almost a religious experience to play jazz and
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  Speaker 1: understand jazz. It's important to be an individual and who
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  Speaker 1: can play well, but also to play with the team.
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  Speaker 1: Can you explain why jazz is almost like a religion
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  Speaker 1: to people who care about jass? Well, jazz is our
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  Speaker 1: national art form and as such, it objectifies a lot
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  Speaker 1: of our basic principles. And if a group of people
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  Speaker 1: are are blessed to have an art form which you
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  Speaker 1: can have a civilization and a society, you may never
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  Speaker 1: create an art form that has that does that. It's
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  Speaker 1: a blessing. So America was blessed with a group of
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  Speaker 1: musicians and a social condition that produced this music. That
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  Speaker 1: the music has three fundamental elements. The first is improvisation,
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  Speaker 1: which is our kind of individuality and what we what
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  Speaker 1: we believe in. We have rights and freedoms and things
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  Speaker 1: that are about the individual. Then swing, which is about
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  Speaker 1: nurturing common ground, finding balance with other people, working out
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  Speaker 1: an agenda as you go along under the pressure of time.
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  Speaker 1: And then the blues. And the blues is an optimism,
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  Speaker 1: it's not naive. So the blues also implies an acuity.
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  Speaker 1: That's that's a democratic thing. Now, suffice to say that
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  Speaker 1: everything in the music ties into things that we do,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: down to the three branches of government, like the rivem
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: section are what to a man, the Constitution is like
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: adding to an arrangement. I could go on and on,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and after a while of giving you these examples, you'll
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  Speaker 1: realize these are not superficial things that are contrived, that
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  Speaker 1: they actually come out of the American way of life.
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  Speaker 1: Now to kind of give you it's gonna be a
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  Speaker 1: little longer answer, but it's important because the central question
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  Speaker 1: of jazz's position in our country concerns the relationship of
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  Speaker 1: slavery to the American identity and our mythology as a country.
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  Speaker 1: Black Americans buying large in our country have little or
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: no knowledge of jazz, and uh, jazz is the greatest
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  Speaker 1: achievement of the Afro American culture in the context of
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  Speaker 1: the American culture, meaning it's Afro American, but it applies
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  Speaker 1: to all Americas, as many things in American culture apply
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to all Americas. Our poor public education system make sure
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that a certain group remains ignorant. And the average white
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: jazz writer is actually a rock fan who's for a
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: long time, which the jazz will actually be something else
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: without black folks at the core of it. But it
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: maybe jazz will just die away. That's why if you
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: study jazz, there's a longstanding tradition of article after article,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the decade after decade saying it's jazz dead. That's probably
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: one of the most questions that's been asked since the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. Now, all of this investment and the destruction
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: of jazz is to further obscure a big lie that
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: jazz uncovers. And it's important to look at this because
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: it's it's a serious it's a serious thing to consider
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: if we are to transform our nation. If we say
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: our nation is based on human freedom, and we're the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: first on earth founded on the glorious celebration of human freedom, dignity,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and rights, how do we then reconcile and correct the
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: systemic the humanizing ownership, brutalizing a large underclass of people
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: for free labor because of their skin color. It's too
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: much in justice to correct, so we're forced to say
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: that those people are responsible for the problem. They're less
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: than human and it's just their condition. But if they aren't,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: if it's not their condition, it means that omnithology and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: belief about ourselves is not true. Now, if Elvis gonna
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: not be the king, man, well you're gonna put jazz
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: if Elvis of the king. So let me ask you,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: if I were to go to and listen to a
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Tchaikovsky concert or a Beethoven concert, it's gonna be mostly
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: sounding the same and where never, no matter where I'm
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: gonna listen to it, no matter what the orchestra, they
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: basically might play slightly better, slightly different, but basically you
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: know what you're gonna get when you sit down with jazz,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Am I wrong in that a jazz musician can kind
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: of expand on what has been composed and kind of
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: play it differently every different time. Is that part of
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: what jazz is? Uh? All about? The improvisation part? That
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: one part allows you to You have a lot of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: latitude to do things. It's like the way Americans conduct business,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: all the innovations. We have the freedom we have to speak,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the fact that we think we can step into space
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and use our personality to transform a tradition. Yes, we
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: have that freedom. But balancing that freedom is we have
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the responsibility to extend a courtesy and an understanding to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: other people who have those freedoms and nurture that common space.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: That's the part of jazz we struggle with. So in
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: your book on Jazz, you talk about some of the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: grades who either played with or who influenced you, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I just like to ask your brief comments on some
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: of them. Uh. Versus Louis Armstrong, you originally thought he
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was as you say and Uncle Tom, but you obviously
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: changed your view. I guess yeah, because it's it was
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It's hard for for later generations to understand, uh, the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: challenges of earlier generation, and and and and norms and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and things of show business and what Louis Armstrong did,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that necessarily, even with my now I
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: understand more of his genius and who he wasn't when
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: he played. But it still doesn't mean And when I
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: look at the movies he made, all the positions he went,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I still don't necessarily like that. I don't like a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: lot of where black people or in any of the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: American movies of the nineteen thirties and forties and in fifties,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and as a matter of fact, some of it now
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of it now uh that he has that
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: same type of destructive mythology if you consider the fact
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: it when I was a teenager, the heroic figure for
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: black youth in movies were pimps. I mean, what is
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: it for a pimp to be a hero and be
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: at the topic of mythology? So but to not get
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: sidetrack with that, yeah, I thought that, But later I
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: learned and understood who Louis Armstrong was as a musician,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that's a totally different story. That man was a genius
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of such magnitude you can't even you could lie about
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: how great he was, and you still wouldn't be saying enough.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: So you're a composer as well as a performer, educator, conductor,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and so forth. One of the great composers in the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: jazz world was Duke Ellington. Uh did he have any
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: influence on you? Great? You know, I love Duke and
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the Duke's intelligence, his dedication over two thousand pieces, and uh,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I of him. And because I grew up also listening
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to classical music, I love Beethoven. What about Disney Gillespie?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Was he an influence on you? The thing about Disney,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: because that's hit me first, was the depth of his intelligence.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I met him when I was fourteen, and just when
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: he started talking with my daddy and other musicians listened
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, Dizney was a very intelligent He's part
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of the reasoning we we developed jazz at Lincoln Center.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Because I didn't want to play in a big band,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: because I had always gonna play in small band music,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and Dinney told me. I called him and asked him, man,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: what do you think I should do? He said, to
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: lose ones orchestral heritage should not be considered and achievement.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: So he was telling me, because you need to figure
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: out how to keep our orchestral heritage. We we paid
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of dudes to builoup orchestral music in jazz
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and for us to just give it away and say
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the big band is old fashioned, that's that's not intelligent.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a bit about jazz at Lincoln Center. So
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you began playing jazz at Lincoln Center when in the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: late nineteen eighties that evolved into Jazz at Lincoln Center,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: which is you're now the director of artistic director and
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: music director of the Jazz Lincoln Center Orchestra. Is that right?
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: We wanted to fill fill fill a space in the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: American arts and and provide enough education and music and advocacy,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: enough concerts for us as a nation to have our
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: native art form when it came it came time for
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: us to address our mythology incorrected so that we can
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: move forward as a nation. So we've we've we've succeeded
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: behind beyond any of our wildness imagination with the volume
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of concerts we've been able to do. We built three
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: concert halls in the middle of men Manhattan on fifty
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: nine Street, the House of Swing. We have put on
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: concert series over thirty years. We have twelve education programs
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and even since this pandemic, I mean we've we've put
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: out over over five hundred, six hundred pieces virtually. You know,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: we're we're we're deeply engaged. So when you started Lincoln Center,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: many people Lincoln Center open in the nineteen sixties, people thought, Okay,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: this is opera, symphonic music, classical kind of music. You
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: came along and said maybe we could have jazz. What
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: do people say initially when you said we need to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: do more jazz at Lincoln Center. We we had a
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: lot of support from the top of the organization. Everybody
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: was everybody was dedicated. And you know when when it
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: was found to baby Lincoln Center didn't think about the music,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: or maybe the initial founders of Rockefell and they didn't
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: like the music. It doesn't matter. The Constitution was not
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: written with the rights of African Americans and Native Americans
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: in mind. But the Constitution can be amended, and it
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: has been amended. Let me ask you on a normal
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: time before COVID came, and hopefully when COVID's gone, you'll
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: return to the situation had before. Are you on the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: road half the time and half the time in New
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: York or How do you divide your time and how
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: do you divide your time between playing, conducting, composing, and teaching. Well,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I do many things. I'm also the managing director of
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: our organization, so I deal with with everything in USA.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Executive Director Greg Show, and our management team, they're all fantastic,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: uh colleagues. If if anything, I mean I work, I
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: work all the time, so I don't I don't separate anything.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: My my work is also my hobby. And this pandemic
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: because as I always respected all of my colleagues. But
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you that the pandemic has given me
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: such a greater appreciation of the quality of people. I've
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: been blessed to work with our orchestra. We still have
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a vast majority of our staff on. We're open for
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: business with getting things done. The orchestra is so supportive
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: of the mission of the of the organization. We have
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a level arrangers in our orchestra. That's something that has
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: never happened, composers, teachers, the phone calls I get. Then
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: when you get to our staff and our managers of
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: every division of our building, our financial, our CFO, I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: can go position to position people's dedication will bring me
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: to tears. And that's why you know we're we're we're
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: struggling like all the arts organizations are, because we've lost
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the ability to earn revenue. But we are so for
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: real about our our mission and achieving it even under
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: this type of darrest. I think it's really the greatest
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: blessing I've had in my life has been to work
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: with this high quality of people for this amount of time.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: So I'm I'm so grateful for that opportunity. I don't
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: even consider it to be worked when you go overseas.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Is jazz popular outside the United States? Jazz has never
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: really been popular, So no, it's not. It's not popular
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: like like like phone was popular, like rock and roll
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: is popular. It's not popular. It is. It is a
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: jazz is meaningful and it's necessary. So those who are
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: interested in that like jazz. Those who are not, they don't.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: They don't like that. There's a lot of other things
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to life. We need to teach our kids about the music.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: It is a national art form. And I always make
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: make the point people say, what's gonna be new and jazz?
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I said, people are gonna listen to it. That's what's
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the new thing. Let's suppose somebody says, I've never been
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: exposed to jazz very much. I guess uh us into
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: went and Marsalis. I'm persuaded he knows what he's talking about.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Uh So I'm gonna listen to jazz. What is it
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that that you would tell people about why the jazz
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: experience as a listener is so uh compelling compared to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: other forms of music. Well, because it has a development section,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: so you have to follow what musician has played from
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: one point. It's like what I loved about that beats
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: open symphony. It wasn't just one thing repeated over and
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: over and again. It was a thing and then another thing,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: another thing. Jazz is the music is most in the world.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Like conversation, jazz is a music that the prizes individuality.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of great individuals you can interface with,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: from Lester Young, the Billy Holiday to Check Korea, Herbie
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: hank I got you can name just name musicians. You
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: have great groups that you can love. They're play in
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: different forms, and you have the whole appro Latin form
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: of jazz that that takes you everywhere from Brazil to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Cuba to Puerto rico. It. It integrates your citizenship and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: your understanding of the world, and mostly and most important,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: it gives you tremendous pride and being America because we
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: didn't have to denigratee or cut anybody down or do
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: anything negative to anybody to create this. It's a non
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: predatory form. It's a symbiotic form. And you can be
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: as rich as you want to be in jazz and
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: nobody else has to be poor. You're a teenager by
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: my standard, so you're very, very young. But you'll continue
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to do this for another couple of decades because this
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: is what your love of doing. Is that right, man?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I still smell simulac on you. I don't know what
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: you're talking about. Yeah, I'm gonna do this till I
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: die if I can, if if the good law willing,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and people will have me. I've been I've been blessed
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to do something kind of this, attract and get unbelievable
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: support from people. That's why earlier when I answered the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: question of racism, for somebody like me to complain's I'd
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: have to be out of my mind. And that's it
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Best. I'm at Baxter and I'm den This
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: is Bloomberg footsc regated gaut Gications lot to Cows and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: World