{"product_id":"to-a-young-jazz-musician-isbn-9780812974201","title":"To a Young Jazz Musician","description":"In \u003ci\u003eTo a Young Jazz Musician,\u003c\/i\u003e the renowned jazz musician and Pulitzer Prize—winning composer Wynton Marsalis gives us an invaluable guide to making good music–and to leading a good life.\u003cbr\u003eWriting from the road “between the bus ride, the sound check, and the gig,” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMarsalis passes on wisdom gained from experience, addressed to a young musician coming up–and to any of us at any stage of life. He writes that having humility is a way to continue to grow, to listen, and to learn; that patience is necessary for developing both technical proficiency and your own art rather than an imitation of someone else’s; and that rules are indispensable because “freedom lives in structure.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe offers lessons learned from his years as a performer and from his great forebears Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and others; he explores the art of swing; he discusses why it is important to run toward your issues, not away; and he talks about what to do when your integrity runs up against the lack thereof in others and in our culture. He poetically expresses our need for healers: “All of it tracks back to how you heal your culture, one patient at a time, beginning with yourself.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a unique book, in which a great artist offers his personal thoughts, both on jazz and on how to live a better, more original, productive, and meaningful life. To a Young Jazz Musician is sure to be treasured by readers young and old, musicians, lovers of music, and anyone interested in being mentored by one of America’s most influential, generous, and talented artists.\u003cb\u003eWYNTON MARSALIS\u003c\/b\u003e was born in New Orleans, and went on to study at the Juilliard School of Music. He is now the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has won nine Grammy awards in both jazz and classical categories. In 1987, Marsalis’s oratorio on slavery and freedom, Blood on the Fields, became the first and, to date, only jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize in music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSELWYN SEYFU HINDS\u003c\/b\u003e is the former editor in chief of The Source magazine and is currently the executive editor of Savoy magazine. He is the author of the memoir \u003ci\u003eGunshots in My Cook-Up: Bits and Bites from a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life\u003c\/i\u003e, and his articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, Spin, Vibe, and other publications.Chapter 1.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Humble Self\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJune 4, 2003\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDear Anthony,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday would have been a good day for you to hang with us. We just  pulled into Maine for a performance. Did the usual bit: check in at the  hotel, head to the venue for sound check, back to the hotel to change  for the show. Oh, and look for lobster. I also had a chance to talk to  some kids about playing. They were high school age, a bit younger than  you. People filled the school auditorium—dads, moms, brothers, and  sisters, cousins. All watched the kids in the school’s jazz band. Those  kids did okay. It touched me to hear them play so earnestly, to watch  them listen so intently in their effort to get better. And I love the  feeling of pride and expectation that pours out from the families as  they enjoy the results of hard work on display. You should have seen  the drummer; fifteen years old. Trying to be so cool we called him Ice.  He looked great, but damn sure wasn’t swinging. Afterward, I ended up  telling ’em the usual: stay encouraged, play with each other, and keep  practicing. I wonder sometimes if saying “practice” is enough. Practice  what? Talking with those kids brought to mind something someone once  asked John Coltrane, “Trane, when do you practice?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I only practice when I’m working on something,” he replied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYeah, man, you can play tunes forever. Play enough, play every night,  and you’ll get to blow on a lot of songs. Experienced players get to  know the changes and play a lot of standards. But you, and those kids  in Maine, don’t have Coltrane’s experience. Y’all need to practice—and  practice the “something” Trane talked about. It could be your sound, a  deeper swing, solo construction, or just hearing bass lines. The bottom  line is practice”something” every moment you can. Don’t just sit around  and wait for something to happen, that same something is waiting on  you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo, I spent some time thinking about what we should talk about in this  first letter, and I came to the notion of humility. You consider  yourself humble? Ever really think about it? Let me tell you, humility  is the doorway to truth and clarity of objectives for a jazz musician,  it’s the doorway to learning. Check it out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen you start playing, you’ve got to have objectives: What are you  playing? Why are you playing it? How do you want to sound, and how will  you achieve that sound? When you have those things clear in your mind,  it’s much easier to teach yourself, and ultimately, that’s what you  have to do. No one’s really going to teach you how to play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ve been lucky: Early on in my career I spent a good deal of time  around great musicians, for instance Art Blakey. You might ask me,  “What did Art Blakey teach you?” And I’d tell you “nothing,” at least  in the way your probably meant the question. Art didn’t say “play your  scales” or “play a G on this.” You’d start playing, and he would tell  you something like, “You need to be more physical.” Or he would come in  and say, “You’re bullshitting.” That was your lesson. What did that  mean? Stop bullshitting. That’s Art. That’s what he taught you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday you have all these universities putting out loads of jazz  musicians. But these institutions breed misconceptions, particularly  the one that says you need great technique. How many times have you  heard of an older cat grumbling that these young kids can’t play  nothing but fast nothing? But what they really mean is that everyone’s  being educated into believing that fulfilling a few technical  objectives is actually playing. Style over substance. Like a lot of  academic writing, piles of big words that add up to one response:  “Huh?” If you wanted to become an engineer, certain basic, fundamental  levels of technical expertise would just be assumed when you showed up  for the job.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn jazz, scales and chords are belabored ad infinitum as is playing  fast, meaningless lines. Thinking that practicing rudimentary  techniques is advanced study will not take you where you need to go to  develop musicianship and your personal direction, to develop your  conception, and to unleash your own personal power.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, it’s a question relevant to just about any situation in which  you find yourself: How do I unleash my personal power? It could be in  your family. It could be when you relate to your kids. Most  relationships will require you to address the issue of how you  participate as yourself without being selfish. And in jazz, the power  in this sense is your unique creativity. Unleashing your personal power  is the result of codifying, articulating, and projecting your own  hard-earned objectives in playing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou learn a piece in class. And you do it again and again—eight  thousand times. You’ll be so tired of doing it that every time you  gotta do it again, you’ll say to yourself, “Man, not this!” And if it’s  part of a course of study in school, maybe you’ve done it for five or  six years now. What if it had been for twenty-five years? You can  repeat something forever or you can look for things. “Things” are  possibilities in jazz, and possibilities in jazz never run out. That’s  why the music lives on. Consider just the rhythm section alone. They  can slow down. They can speed up. They can be solo-specific and change  grooves. And you, playing with them, you realize the different things  you could do on your own. You can interact with your drummer. You could  modulate to another key. You could do a million things with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I guarantee you, twenty-five years from now, you will go all over  the world and you will play with people, and they’ll play the same  basic vocabulary held by the people who play jazz now. Melody, a string  of too long solos, then you’ll play a long one (even though you know  better), then a bass solo. Everyone will play his or her own version of  the common vocabulary. So start now, don’t accept this for yourself.  Unleash the unlimited freedom in the music for your unique  articulation. Don’t just stand up and play clichés all the time, all  night, the same patterns. Use your ingenuity and your creativity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd to do this, you must develop some objectives. When you have  objectives, when you understand what you’re trying to do, then you try  things as you’re playing. They might sound sad at first, but you have  an objective—you’re working those things out. It’s important to  understand that in order to be different, you have to do something  different. The first inkling of difference comes with thinking in a  different way. Then, make sure that that thinking reflects how you  truly feel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet’s rap about your favorite musician for a second, Charlie Parker.  Whenever Charlie Parker used to play Jazz at the Philharmonic with  other all-star musicians, they would always play these loud, obnoxious  riffs behind him. He didn’t like it, but they did it anyway. Why is  that? Maybe, unconsciously, the others didn’t want to hear Parker’s  playing because it stoked a kind of anxious competitiveness in them.  They didn’t want to deal with the weight and power of what he was  playing, and they most likely didn’t know what they were doing. They  were’nt purposefully thinking, “He’s playing great. Let’s play loud.”  It’s just the psychological impact of being on a bandstand with a  musician of real genius.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eParker had specific themes to his art—for example, his root music, the  Kansas City blues—and a fleet-footed conception of melodic virtuosity,  absolute technical clarity—a way of playing the shuffle rhythm in a  manner distinct from Lester Young. Bird was a great musician and he had  a different mind for music, but the bottom line on the vocabulary and  the objectives were clear. That’s why so much of Charlie Parker’s early  material is the blues, the American popular song, and originals that  have song form.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut at a certain point, all of that became unimportant to his acolytes.  How can I explain? Well, when somebody puts on a two-thousand-dollar  suit, you look at the suit and not the person. Charlie Parker’s surface  style was fast, and it had a certain type of flash to it. Underneath,  it possessed soulful melodies and the blues—Midwestern swing and other  earthy elements that are comprised the foundation of his required to  successfully carry that level of sophistication. But you could not see  that. The flash blinded you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s where education is needed, to open your eyes. When root  objectives are lost, it becomes impossible to contribute. The best that  you can hope for is to create some new form with an entirely different  meaning. The proof sits before us. For all the talk of innovation, we  don’t hear as much as we should, given the mountains of talents out  here. People are not being moved the way Parker or Armstrong or Erroll  Garner moved them. The late, great composer John Lewis once told me he  would go to hear Charlie Parker and there would be all types of people  listening: longshoremen, policemen, people who simply heard his sound  and were touched by it. Lewis would be hurrying home and just happen to  stop in a club for a second. But Charlie Parker’s playing was so  gripping it made him stay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen we teach Charlie Parker, that’s what we should focus on. What gave  him this relationship to his environment? What gave his playing such  power? You need to evoke that or some portion of it to get a good  grade. The style comes after. With Parker there came a point where  style was elevated over substance, conventions over objectives. Don’t  confuse conventions with objectives. Don’t confuse conventions with the  actuality of the form. For example, after Charlie Parker, everybody  started trying to play his melodies on their instruments. Trombone  players started playing like Charlie Parker; bass players wanted to  play Charlie Parker; piano players wanted to play Charlie Parker.  Granted, a lot of piano players sounded great in that style, but one of  the strongest aspects of the piano is its capacity to voice separate  melodies simultaneously when played with two hands. Now, because  Charlie Parker played with a single-voice instrument, no pianists are  gonna stride with two hands? Or take the three-horn New Orleans  counterpoint. ’Cause Bird didn’t do it, was it no longer worth doing?  Or not modern? You see, that’s the problem with following something as  if it’s the whole thing. Who are you: a part of a fad, or a jazz  musician?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs you grow older, self-knowledge becomes one of the hardest things to  acquire. In our context, as jazz musicians, it’s more difficult than  you think—to know what you will play; how your playing will evolve;  whether you might say, “Yeah, I’m standing up here, trying to be hip.”  Much like those cats playing with Bird, riffing all loud. They probably  didn’t articulate that thought. But something said, “Get in Bird’s  way.” Thus, “Mess the music up.” The first level of mastery must occur  over self. And the first test of mastery over one’s self is humility.  True humility. You look at yourself and say, “Man, I don’t want to be  sad anymore. I want to learn how to play.” True humility has nothing to  do with me, your friends, your lady; and it’s in such short supply out  here, man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDo you know how you can tell when someone is truly humble? I believe  there’s one simple test: The humble exhibit greater growth and  development over time. Because they consistently observe and listen,  the humble improve. They don’t assume, “I know the way.” Of the  hundreds, perhaps thousands, of musicians that I’ve worked with, I’ve  seen true, continuous development in eight or nine. That’s in twenty,  twenty-five years, man. In most of my experiences with musicians, I  hear them when they’re fifteen or so and I think, “Damn, this guy’s  unbelievable.” Then all the obstacles of life appear, and by the time  they’re twenty-five or twenty-six, I think, “How did that happen? How  did you start with this much ability, this much genius, and this much  creativity, and end up here ten years later?” Man, it’s hard out here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnderstand something, Anthony: You will hear the same thing over and  over again, but you have to develop the requisite humility to learn, to  love to learn. Humility engenders learning because it beats back the  arrogance puts blinders on. It leaves you open for truths to reveal  themselves, so you don’t stand in your own way. You realize this: It’s  all about you. Your learning won’t live or die with your school or me.  You have to become the center of your education. Once you realize that,  you’ll understand that learning means figuring out what you need to do  to get where you want to be. I hope I’m not beating the point to death,  but I have to make you understand the importance of your personal  involvement in your own growth and development.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome people don’t show up for class. In truth, they don’t want to go to  school. But that has nothing to do with any teacher. It’s your own time  and opportunity lost. What if the commitment was a job? You might have  been told to show up at 9:00 a.m., or hand in paperwork by Friday. And  you don’t. So they fire you. Your employer is not going to have much  interest in asking, “Why didn’t you show up on time?” That’s for your  parents, or people who love you with such intensity that they feel a  sense of personal loss when you give bullshit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReal life won’t work that way. A jazz musician’s life won’t work that  way. People don’t know, or care about your issues. They spend  hard-earned money to go out and enjoy some music that they want to  hear. They don’t have a personal involvement with you, or me. So it’s  incumbent upon you to figure out: “What do I want to do? Will I kill  myself to learn how to play this difficult music and develop my voice  so that I can play something provocative enough for people to want to  hear it enough to hear me play? What do I have that I can present to  people that will make them feel better about being alive?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a tough thing we do, a tough road we travel. It demands your  respect and commitment; it lives through your humility. Man, listen:  Whether you’re a grizzled veteran like me, or a nineteen-year-old like  you, or in high school like those kids back in Maine, as jazz musicians  we’re engaged in the same thing—grown folks’ business. So treat it  seriously, man. ’Cause it damn sure will treat you seriously.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the spirit of swing.","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303851151589,"sku":"NP9780812974201","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812974201.jpg?v=1767742692","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/to-a-young-jazz-musician-isbn-9780812974201","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}