Latest news with #Marsalis
Glasgow Times
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Global jazz star receives honorary doctorate in Glasgow
Wynton Marsalis, an internationally acclaimed trumpeter, composer, bandleader, and educator, received the accolade from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) during its summer graduation ceremony on Thursday, July 3. Mr Marsalis is known for performing and composing music across the entire jazz spectrum, from its New Orleans roots through bebop to contemporary styles. (Image: Supplied) Read more: Ex-Scotland captain gets honorary doctorate in Glasgow He has created and performed an extensive body of new work for jazz and classical ensembles of all sizes, including big bands, chamber groups, and symphony orchestras. The beloved musician is also the managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Centre, an institution that strives to highlight jazz as an "essential" art form. Under his direction, the institute opened Frederick P. Rose Hall – the world's first performance, broadcast, and education venue dedicated to jazz. In addition to performing and composing, Mr Marsalis has dedicated his life to music education, mentoring young musicians, and promoting jazz to audiences worldwide. His achievements have been recognised with numerous awards, including the US National Medal of Arts, France's Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and Japan's Praemium Imperiale. Upon receiving his honorary doctorate from the RCS in Glasgow, which he termed a 'prestigious honour', Mr Marsalis spoke to the graduating class of 2025, detailing his affection for Scotland. (Image: Supplied) He said: "I have a deep love and appreciation for this country. "From her, I have received some priceless gifts. "My great mentor and long-term bandmate, baritone saxophonist Joe Temperley, was born in 1927 in Fife. "He was a walking advertisement for Scotland." The ceremony also saw the RCS award an honorary doctorate in production arts to Bunny Christie OBE. Ms Christie is a multi-award-winning set and costume designer who has won two Tony Awards and four Olivier Awards. She was the first woman to win the Olivier Award for Best Design. (Image: Supplied) Read more: Leading musician dismissed from senior role at prestigious Glasgow school Ms Christie is well known for her work on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which began at the National Theatre before moving to the West End and Broadway. An honorary doctorate in music was also awarded, in absentia, to pop icon Lulu. Lulu has spent more than 60 years in the entertainment industry, with achievements including a Eurovision win, performing the 1974 Bond theme The Man with the Golden Gun, and working with artists such as David Bowie, Tina Turner, and Elton John. She recently launched Lulu's Mental Health Trust and is set to release a memoir later this year.
The Herald Scotland
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Wynton Marsalis awarded doctorate at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
The internationally acclaimed trumpeter, composer, bandleader and educator is regarded as one of the most influential figures in jazz. His honorary degree comes for services to music and he credited Scotland as being a key part of his journey. Marsalis joined graduating students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow and is the first jazz artist to perform and compose across the full jazz spectrum from its New Orleans roots to bebop to modern jazz. He is also the managing and artistic director of jazz at Lincoln Center and has been recognised with numerous honours, including the US National Medal of Arts, France's Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and Japan's Praemium Imperiale. Read More In his speech, he said: 'I have a deep love and appreciation for this country. From her, I have received some priceless gifts. My great mentor and long-term bandmate, baritone saxophonist Joe Temperley, was born in 1927 in Fife… He was a walking advertisement for Scotland.' The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland will also confer an honorary doctorate in production arts to Bunny Christie OBE later this afternoon. With two Tony Awards and four Olivier Awards under her belt, Christie made history as the first woman to win the Olivier Award for Best Design and was also the first woman to receive the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Best Designer. Born and raised in St Andrews, she has a long relationship with the National Theatre, designing in all its theatre spaces and devising shows at the NT Studio. Her work at the NT covers production and costume design for many of the classics and new plays. An honorary doctorate in music was also bestowed on Lulu, who was unable to make it to the RCS.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘It's just an overwhelming wall of terror': Amanda Marsalis on directing ‘The Pitt's' mass casualty episode
Amanda Marsalis is the first to admit she wasn't sure if she was right for The Pitt when the project came the director's way. "I was told, 'Oh, it's a medical drama from John Wells.' I was like, 'Oh, really, OK.' I didn't think of it as my thing. And I say that with humility," Marsalis tells Gold Derby. "It's not that I'm a snob. I just thought of it as a some type of thing that maybe wasn't my type of thing. And I was wrong. I read it and was like, 'Oh, this is good.'" More from GoldDerby 'Karate Kid: Legends' knocked as 'uninspired' and 'unnecessary' by critics 'There's no skimming a Wes Anderson script': 'The Phoenician Scheme' cast on working with the director 'The worst has already happened, so now I have everything to gain': Meagan Good on love, loss, and empowering women in 'Forever' Part of that was the show's real-time format, with each episode depicting one hour of a 15-hour shift, dropping viewers deep into the thick of the ER as cases and stress escalate. Marsalis, who's helmed episodes of Ozark and most recently Ransom Canyon, directed four episodes of the first season of The Pitt, including "6:00 P.M.," the 12th episode featuring the mass casualty incident. The episode is Marsalis' Emmy submission. Marsalis spoke to Gold Derby about helming that harrowing hour, filming on a full hospital set, the "special sauce" of The Pitt, and more. Gold Derby: What were you told about the show before the script came to you? Amanda Marsalis: I was told, "Oh, it's a medical drama from John Wells." I was like, "Oh, really, OK." I didn't think of it as my thing. And I say that with humility. It's not that I'm a snob. I just thought of it as a some type of thing that maybe wasn't my type of thing. And I was wrong. I read it and was like, "Oh, this is good." Not that medical shows aren't good. It really captured me, and I immediately felt very lucky to be involved. I think I got [the scripts for Episodes] 1 and 2, or maybe just 1. I don't remember. I met with [Wells and creator R. Scott Gemmill] the next day or something like that. And I have a relationship with John because we had done some development. I'd do anything to work with John. I appreciate people who are good at their jobs. Were you looking for another series after ? Marsalis: I don't think I was looking. I had actually done Ransom Canyon already. I finished it a week before. I packed up my life in Albuquerque and came home. And one thing that about The Pitt that was amazing was it filmed in L.A. I got to sleep in my own bed and be with my boyfriend and be with my cats and my dog and have a life and go to dinner with my friends. The quality of our crew too in L.A. was just extraordinary, like every single person. So it was also just like, "It's a job in L.A., sweet." The show is emotional anyway, but all four of your episodes are very emotional. Did you get a choice of which episodes to direct or you just assigned? Marsalis: I really was told, and I originally was like, "Oh, can I do Episode 3 first?" Because I could use a little more breathing room. And John was like, "No." And I was like, "Got it." And then when I read them, I truly was like, "Oh, this is a gift. And I'm so lucky." [With Episode] 2, you're continuing to establish the visual language of the show and how we're going to work, which is something I really like being part of. It's really like this extension and support of your pilot director. And then the [other] episodes ... when I read Episode 8, where the little girl drowns, I was like, "Scott, like, really?" But I was so sad. It's my honor to direct it. But I truly, definitely got the gut-punch ones. [Episode 4] with Spencer (Madison Mason) dying. My father had passed away like a year earlier. My father had passed away in my life and we had multiple crew members who had recently lost lost fathers. And it was really, like, that was a lot. And Noah [Wyle] wrote that episode too, which was really special. Warrick Page/Max This set is an actual hospital set full stop. What was the prep like, especially with your first episode? Marsalis: It's sort of a two-part answer. One is they designed the space before they wrote the show. Nina [Ruscio, production designer] did an amazing job at creating sight lines and creating our space. So the script is written for the way the hospital is. So you're two steps ahead, sort of, in a way. And unlike other shows, you could get scripts and be like, "OK, great. Well, this fight sequence is written for an imaginary place, and now I need to totally change it so it fits to like the location we found," or whatever. But The Pitt is always on set, like they're never any other place, right? There's a sort of the waiting room, which is a separate stage. So you we would basically be standing at the doors at lunch, and the second they go to lunch, you're like, "OK, let's pick up where we left off. Scene 8. We're gonna walk here and go this way. We're gonna need this person over there. We're gonna need this person over there. This is gonna come here. I'm going to see them in the background. I want to have them cross there. OK, that way." And then we eventually built a model. Nina built a model of the set, which was really helpful. So that's when we went to go do [Episode] 12 and we're having this mass casualty event. There was no way I could fit it in at lunches. So we she made little beds, and we had, like, yellow zone beds, pink zone beds, red zone beds. We did everything basically via the model. SEE The Pitt star Supriya Ganesh on Mohan 'reworking' her trauma and when she'll realize Abbot is flirting with her Episode 12 is your big one and arguably the big one of the season too. It begins with you guys clearing out the hospital of patients and bringing in equipment to prep for the mass casualty, and you really get a sense of the preparation and procedure. Marsalis: Yeah, and most of our background were with us from Day 1. Because the story of an ER is people can wait for 12 hours to get care or whatever. So we had this lady, this who had a fake pregnancy [belly]. And she just was in this corner every day, and she would hide books in her, her little fake belly, and then be reading her books in between takes, and then put her book away. We had to say goodbye to all those people in Episode 12, which, in a certain way, was like saying goodbye to a bunch of your crew. And there's a lot of technical aspects of The Pitt, but you also you need to do all that very well, so then you can feel the feelings right. Because you want to understand how horrible this mass casualty is, how it is affecting our doctors, how it's affecting our patients, and feel the pain of it. But you do that by prepping incredibly well. I would do that at lunch, like, "This will go here. That'll go there." And our doctors are so helpful because the doctors sort of block the medical scenes because they know this person should be there, this person should be there. And then you can go in and go, "Oh, but I really want this eyeline. And they'll go, "Oh, OK, I can change that. I'll put that there." That episode is only 40 minutes. It's the shortest episode of the whole season, but so much happens. You really showed every single person and every single case, and the viewer still feels like, "Oh, I know what's going on here." The camera's moving so quickly and we see every element of what goes on during a mass casualty. The vibe is so different from your first three episodes, when the pace is so much slower. What was that shift like? Marsalis: Yeah, in a certain way, there's a lot more intimacy to those first three episodes, right? And I think something in doing this episode was me making sure that I retained as much of that as I could in that we just don't want it to become basically — I don't know how else to say it — but medical porn. You just didn't want it to be, like, about medically what was happening to everybody, because I think that's the real special sauce of The Pitt. It's very graphic in its medical knowledge and experiences. But what really matters is how we feel and how we care and how we're connected to everybody. And I do think there's something lovely, like we have these new doctors that show up in Episode 12 and I think people are like, "Well, I'm so invested in The Pitt at this point that if you work at The Pitt, I love you," right? Like those actors just showed up, and people were like, "Oh, cool with your Dunkin' Donuts." The night shift is instantly iconic. Marsalis: Yeah! And there's just something so wonderful about watching all these people who are just trying to do their best work. And I think I, as a director, made sure that I was getting performances that showed how we were feeling. It was hard in a certain way in that episode because it's just an overwhelming wall of terror basically. I do love when Shen (Ken Kirby) is sipping the Dunkin' and Robby's (Wyle) eyeing him after he had just grilled him about the protocol. Marsalis: And [Shen's] like, "I've got this." [Laughs] There's nice humor moments. We had a lot of talented actors who know how to play in all those spaces, luckily, and Noah sets a really amazing tone as somebody who doesn't take himself too seriously. But you can do that because you've prepped so well, and you're so prepared that you have the space to play. John Johnson/Max Noah gives a the big speech in the beginning when he goes through the protocol with the slap bands and everything. What went into that scene with many actors and him monologuing for so long? Marsalis: They don't have sides on set on John Wells shows. So that means you need to show up knowing your lines. That speech is, like, I don't know, four pages long or something. And so we're like, "OK, I like to read the words before we even rehearse." So we're like, "OK, here we go." And then Noah was like, "OK." And he did it. And then it's just being making sure — so many of these people, it's their first day on the job. We have to remember we've been with them for, like, 11 hours now, but this is just their first day at work, so you have to show how scary it is. Yeah, I love Mel (Taylor Dearden) being worried about manning the yellow zone, and then later on, she's like, "Let's donate blood." This episode also brings back Abbot (Shawn Hatosy). We see him donating blood via his leg just so he could keep seeing patients. I talked to Shawn and there was a discussion about that since we didn't know at that point that he is an amputee. Marsalis: It was more about saving that reveal, right? And because it would be very hard to tell then too in that moment. I needed to make one point right, then not two. And then also just where the camera is going to be. It was much nicer, I think, to see that [reveal] in the finale. SEE The Pitt star Tracy Ifeachor thinks about Collins and Robby's backstory 'all the time': 'It just didn't work out because it's not the right time' The show doesn't have a score. What was that like for you when you're putting together an edit when you normally might have score or temp music? Marsalis: It was John's idea from the beginning and, and all of us were like, "Cool, man. Hope it works." And then it did. I mean, there's a tiny bit of score here and there, like the littlest heartbeat, and it's just all it needs. Something about the show really clicked for me, though. I was a photographer before I was a director. So, visually, getting the camera to move and getting the crosses and getting, like, this scene's gonna end and it's gonna fold into that one, which is gonna fold into this one. It was just an exciting challenge every episode. I think it's the episode when the girl who OD'd is leaving, and we start with Dana (Katherine LaNasa) and Robby in the break room. We don't cut. They come all the way down. Then the girl who ODs comes behind them with her parents. She comes in, she spots the parents of the kid who OD'd, and then jumps out. You're on such an emotional roller coaster. Some people are having a good time, some people are having a bad time. It's really fun. Then there's the whole "Robby has to pee" for however many episodes. [Laughs] I hope he gets to pee more than once in Season 2. Are you returning for Season 2? Marsalis: I am towards the end because I am on another project that is overlapping in a major way. They're gonna come up with some other good sh--. [Laughs] I'm more excited to see what they do with character development because it's such a crazy and strange constriction to have just a day to tell us about these people. But you feel like you know all those characters, right? It's sort of this magical special sauce that all the writers really managed to do, like, get enough information in there about everybody and the quality of people that they are, and what their hopes and dreams are. I'm just excited to learn more about everybody really. Season 1 of The Pitt is streaming on Max. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Best of GoldDerby 'The worst has already happened, so now I have everything to gain': Meagan Good on love, loss, and empowering women in 'Forever' 'The Better Sister': Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks on their 'fun partnership' and the 'satisfying' killer reveal The Making of 'Beast Games': Behind the scenes of Prime Video's record-breaking competition series Click here to read the full article.
New York Times
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A High School Festival Keeps Duke Ellington Very Much Alive
In a dressing room behind the stage in the Metropolitan Opera House, Wynton Marsalis, the trumpeter and educator, intently watched a live feed of the big band representing the Osceola County School for the Arts, from Kissimmee, Fla. They were playing Dizzy Gillespie's 'Things to Come,' a piece that can expose any weaknesses in a big band. Being a good jazz musician isn't just about playing fast and loud and high, but this song requires musicians to do all of that. The school's lead trumpet player was in the middle of a solo. A dexterous player who could hit the high notes, he sounded like a professional. 'Watch, the director's going to wave off the backgrounds here,' Mr. Marsalis said, using some colorful language to say the soloist had not gotten to his good stuff yet. The director then made a small gesture to the rest of his band, telling them to wait to let the solo develop. It was a chart that Mr. Marsalis had surely heard live hundreds of times, but each time it is full of small decisions like these, making it a new experience. It has been nearly a century since Duke Ellington's orchestra became the house band at the Cotton Club on 142nd Street. Even there, where Ellington and his group of Black musicians played in front of all-white audiences, patrons were expected to be active listeners. Ellington is quoted in the book 'Duke Ellington's America' as saying the club 'demanded absolutely silence' during performances, and that anybody making noise would quickly be ushered out the door. Ellington knew his work had a signature. He wrote with particular members of his orchestra, like the saxophonist Johnny Hodges or the trumpeter Cootie Williams, in mind, and he believed that nobody else could sound like them, no matter how hard they tried. Still, at Essentially Ellington, an annual high school big-band festival organized by Jazz at Lincoln Center and held over the weekend, teenagers from all over the world tried their hardest to channel those musicians anyway. This year, in honor of the 30th anniversary of the festival, 30 big bands of the 127 that sent in application tapes came to New York to compete for top honors, up from the usual 15. The finalists included 27 American groups and bands from Australia, Japan and Spain. Each group selected three songs to perform from the Essentially Ellington library. The top 10 finishers advanced to a second and final, competitive round. The top three then played an exhibition concert — at the opera house instead of at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Room, since the additional capacity was needed — before a winner was announced. But the event's vibe, while exacting, does not feel like something out of the movie 'Whiplash' — at least not anymore. Years ago, organizers felt the competition was getting too cutthroat, and looked to soften its edges. Now, students perform, but also jam with kids from other schools, attend clinics with professionals, and have meals where they're seated not by school, but by the instrument they play. In the hallways, members of different schools spontaneously burst into song together. 'It's like the top arts festival,' said Julius Tolentino, the jazz director at Newark Academy in Livingston, N.J., whose band won the competition in 2024. 'There's nothing that compares to this. They roll out the red carpet for the students. It's changed the way band directors all over the world deal with jazz music.' The organization's work isn't limited to the contest. It runs an annual training program for band directors and sends out professional musicians, often members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, to help guide bands that qualify for the finals. The festival also doubles as a tool for the creation of a big band canon. For 30 years, the Jazz at Lincoln Center team has created sheet music for pieces by Ellington and some of his contemporaries, like Gillespie or Count Basie or Benny Carter, and has sent it out to schools interested in competing, for free. That process is not always simple, and often involves digging through the archives at the Smithsonian to look at existing, handwritten scores and transcribing from recordings. 'There's a philosophy that jazz is a methodology, not an art form that has a canon,' said Todd Stoll, the vice president of education at Jazz at Lincoln Center. 'The historical viewpoint of this music was, I won't say ignored, but it wasn't something that there was much focus on at the university level. I went all the way through a master's degree at a major conservatory. I never played a note of Duke Ellington's music.' That would be unfathomable now, in part because of the work that Jazz at Lincoln Center has done. Mr. Marsalis bristled at the idea that Ellington was not an international star before the festival existed, but Essentially Ellington, and the work that makes it possible, may do as much as anything to ensure that his work persists. For Mr. Marsalis, who has been at the center of debates about the jazz canon for decades, this could be a victory lap. But he insists on Essentially Ellington as an example of how playing old music does not need to be a backward-looking endeavor. 'We are not cynical,' he said. 'When you're establishing a new mythology, how much time do you have to attack the old mythology? Every band that auditions for a spot in New York is a part of that new mythology, an example of how the music is not a historical document, but something that is alive as long as it is being interpreted.' The experience, however, can be intimidating until you are a part of it. When Dr. Ollie Liddell, the band director at Memphis Central High School in Memphis, first saw videos on YouTube of groups that had reached the finals of the Essentially Ellington festival, over a decade ago, he thought to himself: 'We're never going to have a band that good.' Memphis Central is a public high school, and like most public school band directors, Dr. Liddell is responsible for not just the jazz band, but the marching band and concert ensembles, too. He has to handle fund-raising and convince clinicians to come in and work with his band. None of his jazz students receive private instruction, save one, who receives lessons from a Memphis Central alumnus over Zoom. Essentially Ellington can't always be top of mind. That's not the case for many of the groups that make it to New York, with arts magnet schools and private academies offering instrument-specific instructors, and a number of students taking private lessons as well. But even without those luxuries, a resourceful director and passionate kids can still compete. The proof? Memphis Central took first place at this year's competition. It is a cliché to say that jazz is an interactive music, a conversation. But those conversations aren't confined to the stage. On Saturday, during its final performance for the judges, Memphis Central took the stage and the sound of Ellington's 'Rockabye River' came all at once. The rumble of the drum set's low tom. The shout of the horns. The growling trumpet soloist punctuating each of the written phrases. The work was brought to life and made new. A crowd filled with competitors and rivals sat with wide eyes and open mouths, with some yelping their approval. None of them, clearly, were cynical.
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Branford Marsalis Quartet: Belonging review – a virtuosic take on Keith Jarrett's seminal 70s album
Saxophonist extraordinaire Branford Marsalis claims his garlanded quartet is 'a chamber group rather a jazz group', by which he presumably means they are not thirsting for innovation but happy to celebrate and interpret tradition. Hence Belonging, a reprise of Keith Jarrett's groundbreaking 1974 album that is also Marsalis's debut for the Blue Note label skilfully resurrected by Don Was. When Jarrett released Belonging, Branford was a high school R&B fan, later discovering the record via the pianist here, Joey Calderazzo. For Jarrett, Belonging proved a seminal work, rescuing him from electric-era Miles for the organic sound of Jarrett's European Quartet, where Norwegian sax player Jan Garbarek starred. These were happy times, clear from the 70s band's joyous playing, most strikingly on As Long As You Know You're Living Yours, a jaunty, funk-influenced number that Donald Fagen eventually admitted he'd pinched for Steely Dan's Gaucho. It remains a towering piece, with Marsalis faithfully following Garbarek's mid-solo acrobatics, though his tone is a tad less abrasive, Calderazzo's chords less pummelling. The group explore lyrical pieces such as Blossom with equal aplomb, with Marsalis playing burnished soprano on Solstice. Jarrett, who has been left unable to perform after a stroke in 2018, will doubtless enjoy every charmed minute.
