Wynton Marsalis

About

Also known as: Marsalis, Wynton, Skain, W. Marsalis, Wynton Marsallis

Wynton Marsalis is the only musician ever to win a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical categories in the same year, and he has done it nine times over. His 1997 oratorio Blood on the Fields went even further, becoming the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Based out of New York, he has served as artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center since helping launch the Classical Jazz concert series there in 1987, leading the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Rose Hall and taking them into schools, onto radio, and around the world on tour. As a trumpeter, Marsalis draws on a wide range of influences, from Duke Ellington and Miles Davis to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, and his style moves comfortably across post bop, hard bop, blues, and swing. He has collaborated with artists as varied as Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock, and Eric Clapton, whose joint Lincoln Center concert became the album Play the Blues. Beyond performing, Marsalis has built a reputation as a passionate educator, hosting TV and radio series, directing the Juilliard Jazz Studies program, and earning comparisons to Leonard Bernstein as a musical ambassador.