Wynton Marsalis is a world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and a leading advocate of American culture. He presently serves as Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Director of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School, and President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.
Marsalis has been called the “Pied Piper” of jazz and the “Doctor of Swing.” Since his recording debut in 1982, he has released 127 jazz, classical and alternative recordings and won many awards, from a home cooked meal to honors that require a tuxedo. He regularly performs in the most prestigious concert halls and is known to play until all hours of the morning in the most inconspicuous local clubs. From the very beginning of his career, education has been vital to his mission. He has taught and mentored a voluminous number of musicians who have gone on to play, teach and advocate in their own brilliant ways. Through these relationships Marsalis has ensured that the legacy of jazz music will continue to propagate for generations to come.
Over the past four decades, Marsalis has rekindled and animated widespread international interest in jazz through performances, educational activities, books, curricula, and relentless advocacy on public platforms. Today, Marsalis continues the renaissance that he sparked in the early 1980s, attracting new generations of young talent to jazz and illuminating the mythic meanings of jazz fundamentals.