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Wynton Marsalis compares performing in the United States to performing in Europe. (1:42)
 

Tavis: I am pleased to welcome Wynton Marsalis back to this program. The acclaimed jazz artist is out on tour as we speak in support of his new CD, called "Congo Square." The disc is a collaboration with noted African percussionist Yacub Addy. You can catch this unique tour Friday night if you're in Detroit, Saturday in the Chicago area, and Monday in Denver.

Tonight, though, we find [unintelligible] in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Wynton, as always, nice to talk to you, man.

Wynton Marsalis: All right, always a pleasure, man.

Tavis: So after all these years of hitting the road, you ain't tired of getting out there yet?

Marsalis: No, man, I love it. I'm more comfortable on the road than when I'm at home.

Tavis: Explain that.

Marsalis: I just from the time I was 18 or 19, I've been on the road. So I was, like, 20-something years, I just straight worked and hardly ever took off 10, 11 months a year. Then I took off. I guess I just grew up being on the road. Going to different places, being in people's houses, and that's what I love to do.

Tavis: How would you - this might be a crazy question but since you've been on the road for so many years now, to your point a moment ago, if a person hadn't seen you on the road in, say, the last decade, how do you think your performance has changed? What would they see now out of your performance that they didn't see a decade ago, when you were on the road?

Marsalis: Well as you get older, you just become much more comfortable. I'm more at ease with the people. Of course we have the big band, so the band is more settled. And a lot of us, we've played with each other for many years, and our younger musicians we brought up 10 years or so ago. Some of the musicians were, like, 16 or 17 years old and they were coming to gigs, coming backstage.

And now we're playing together, and we have a much broader repertoire. And we do many more different things. We just - we're always adding things to what we do, and we've just kind of solidified our presentation. Like, what we're trying to do, what we are about.

Tavis: To your point of a moment ago, because there are so many young people, any young person in the field of jazz who wants to make something of him or herself is trying to find a way to meet you, trying to find a way to get to you. Moreover, get with you in terms of playing with you on the stage. So when these young people come your way through your program at Lincoln Center or anyplace else in the country, all the schools you go in and out of all the time.

When you meet a particular kid, male or female, how do you know that they deserve your energy, your effort, that there's something there that you think might allow them to be playing with you 10 years down the road, eight years down the road.

Marsalis: Well, they all deserve the effort and the energy, and I try to treat all of the kids like that. My own kid, I don't have the time to interface with everybody all the time. But just in the last two nights, I was playing with some kids the other night in Cleveland, one little kid that played bass that was 14 years old was unbelievable.

He played with a lot of intensity. In a club at 12:00, 1:00 at night, and he's up swinging. So I put him in touch with the great Rodney Whitaker, who runs the jazz program at Michigan State. So I just called Rodney right there in the club, all of us - kind of all the guys - matter of fact, I was on the road when Rodney was in high school, and now he runs the jazz program.

So a couple of days before that, a band director brought a 10-year-old kid to me that plays alto saxophone. And then we were - I can't remember where we were right now, but I put him into - we were in Philadelphia. I put him in touch with Wes Anderson, and Wes is playing in New York. And Wes talked to him. So I try to direct the kids to people who I know will mentor them and teach them.

But I spend time with every kid, and I talk to them. A lot of times I think in the last year, I've been teaching for so long I've had more instance of kids just crying when I talk to them, or just I try to come to them with such a real and basic emotion. And I think they understand and the parents understand that I'm in this for life, and I've been teaching kids and being a part of the community, and all kinds of kids since I was 18 or 19.

My father did that, my mother also was a community worker, a social worker. So, me and my brothers are like that, too. It's not just me. My brother Branford is like that. He teaches at North Carolina Central and my little brother Delfeayo is running a camp right now in New Orleans for theater kids. My brother Ellis has an art show going up in a museum, and he just wrote a book called "The Block" and it's about the community and the neighborhood. And all of my brothers, we just come from that type of tradition.

Tavis: How does it feel, then, years later, when you run into a kid? One of these kids you met the last few nights, you know somewhere down the road you're going to run into this kid somewhere, and he will have had an album out or gigging at your club, at Lincoln Center, at Dizzy's. What's it feel like later on when you run into these kids?

Marsalis: It's not just the kids, Tavis, it's the parents. And sometimes, I have a joke that I play with people. I see people all the time, all over the country, in different professions. Many are not musicians. They say, "Man, you came to my elementary school when I was in third grade," or "You came to my high school when I was in ninth grade."

And I always say, "Man, you know I'm not old enough to have been coming to no high school (laughter) when you were in the ninth grade. But a lot of people I taught in the early eighties are teachers now. People I taught in the nineties, they're teaching now. And even people who don't go into music - I had some guys, I was looking for a ride in New York once, and they were stockbrokers.

And they stopped and said, "Man, you came to the University of Kentucky when we were sophomores in college." And they gave me a ride. So I'm always running into people all the time. It's been so many years of seeing parents and their kids after gigs and in informal settings. And I always try to give them a little piece of the feeling of the music and love, and just basic - even if it has nothing to do with music. Just about that human connection.

Tavis: See, it's that boyish face that you still have (laughter) that -

Marsalis: Man, my sons mess with me. I gotta lose some weight so I can compete with them on that court.

Tavis: (Laughs) Tell me about "Congo Square," this new CD.

Marsalis: Well, it's a piece that I wrote with the master drummer from Ghana, Yacub Addy. And it harks - it evokes the spirit of Congo Square in New Orleans. That was a place where the African slaves were allowed to play drums - the only place in America where they could do that. And it lasted from about 1730 to about 1857. And we've put this piece together, and man, it's so much fun working with Yacub.

He's such a profound master, and I learned so much from him. And I think this is one of the instances in jazz where we really brought the feeling of the American music and the Afro-American music to the sophistication of the African music, thanks to our bass player, Carlos Enriquez, who grew up in the Afro-Latin tradition.

We're really trying to address the bell patterns, and it's a very festive piece. Man, I tell people they can bring their family out. It's dancing and singing and chanting and groove, and it's really a spectacle. It's something that I don't think there's been many things like this, if anything.

Tavis: How's the tour going so far?

Marsalis: Man, it's going great for us, just playing with them and being around them. And their group is Odadaa, and we travel like one big family. And every night, the music just gets better and we're feeding off each other and we're improvising, and we're working with all this kind of sophisticated, complicated music.

But it's grooving and it's feeling good, and you get the feeling of the two worlds coming together. We're kind of rejoining with that spirit of the African music, where they're playing the two times at once. And we have people jumping up, dancing in the aisles. We got this one New Orleans second line we do near the end, and people always get happy.

I get out; I start second-lining for them a little bit. (Laughter) They say, "We didn't know you could do that kind of stuff, man. We always see you so serious." I said, "I'm from New Orleans. That's what we do."

Tavis: And speaking of New Orleans and second line, that name Congo Square rings a bell, yes?

Marsalis: Oh, yeah, man. You know that's it. New Orleans. That's where - and when we first put on "Congo Square" was actually in New Orleans.

Tavis: I mentioned earlier at the top of the show here that once you finish the domestic tour that you're on, which goes for another month or so, I guess, later this summer you're headed over to Europe. And I know you've been asked this before but not by me, so indulge me. How is it different playing here versus there, and what is the difference in the level of appreciation or lack thereof between here and there?

Marsalis: Well over there, the cultures are older and there's more appreciation for the arts. But for me, over here, I have a very established and steady audience. So I would say in general for jazz and for the arts, people of - the state supports the music more. So I think people are more appreciative of culture and things that take a little longer time to develop.

Over here, we tend to be more flashy-cash and fast, everything moving in sound bytes. But for me in this country, I've received tremendous, tremendous support. I think as always, Afro-American support for arts needs to be on a much higher level. There's just something that as we become older as a people, as we begin to integrate more into the whole kind of world culture, we'll begin to understand all the many great achievements of all the people.

Like Duke Ellington, Romare Bearden. We could go on and on - Alvin Ailey - and the need to really support those things and allow those things to nourish and teach you and your kids, and develop all of your financial and political structure and your power and your strength around your culture. We still haven't quite matured to the point of understanding the value of culture.

That it's not just something boring you gotta sit through. You might have to sit through it at first, but you get used to it and it's also just an important tool to bring your kids up through something of value and quality so that the generations can progress.

Tavis: We're not there yet, but do you see the trend, number one, moving in the right direction, and if you don't, how's it feel to have invested your whole life, your energy, your passion, your love, into something that you see your own people not embracing in the way that you'd like for them to?

Marsalis: Well, I don't see it going in the direction that I would like to see it going, and it's very painful. But for me, it's less painful than it was for someone like Dizzy Gillespie or - the older musicians would always tell me at a certain point they stopped seeing that many Black people. For me, I never really saw any Black people for art.

In terms of, I grew up, of course, playing in a funk band. I'm from non; so my initial experience into music - I grew up kind of mainly in segregation in places like Kenner, little farms, right as the civil rights movement was going on. So, I had a good understanding and feel for playing for a lot of Black people at one time. It's been rough over the years to realize that we have such a great contribution, and we could learn so much from our music, and we turn our backs on it, we turn our back on art, and this resulted even in us having forms of music in which the drum, which is our central instrument, has been replaced by a machine.

You can't go no more backwards than that, but I always believe that our people are resilient. And I'm always optimistic. If we came through slavery, we came through many things, and I always believe things will get greater. Not just for Black people, but for America as a whole. And I don't know how it's going to happen, but I know there are many people who feel like I feel and who want to see our culture mature and want to see our people do better. And they've dedicated their lives to making that happen, regardless of the situation or how depressing it might be sometimes.

Tavis: No drum machines on his tour. He is on the road with the great African percussionist, Yacub Addy. His name, of course, is Wynton Marsalis, you know that. The new CD is called "Congo Square." Catch him on the road somewhere in the next month or so before he heads to Europe. Go to our website at PBS.org, I'm sure we can hook you up and let you know where you can find (unintelligible) on the road. Wynton, I love you, always good to see you, man. Have a great rest of the summer.

Marsalis: Man, nothing but pure support and love for you, thank you.

Tavis: Appreciate you.