(lively jazz music) - [Jim] As a teenager in St. Louis, Joshua Williams was blessed with talent, good teachers, and a chance meeting with jazz legend Wynton Marsalis.

- I remember Joshua.

Yeah, he could play.

- If it wasn't for those guys, I probably wouldn't be where I am today just because of them having the willingness to share and pass the torch.

- [Jim] In Forest Park, there are efforts underway to increase the population of a specific bird species.

- Because purple martins are totally dependent on human-provided housing.

- [Jim] How one man is succeeding as an avian real estate developer.

And 30 years ago, the new Clark Bridge over the Mississippi River at Alton opened to traffic.

It was a big deal, but life-changing?

Well, it was for one little boy who lived far away.

But don't take my word for it.

- I can trace my entire professional and educational career to that bridge.

- [Jim] It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(bright groovy jazz music) (bright groovy jazz music continues) (bright groovy jazz music continues) - Hi, I am Anne-Marie Berger, and this is "Living St.

Louis."

Finding the perfect place to live can be a challenge unless you're a member of this group.

In our first story tonight, I take a look at a unique living community offering amazing views, free low-maintenance housing, and the best landlord you could possibly imagine.

(upbeat pop-rock music) (birds chirping) Forest Park, our city's crown jewel, boasts as one of the most beautiful urban parks in the world.

It's known for its cultural institutions and beautiful, natural, and recreational areas.

(birds chirping) (lively upbeat music) And during the summer months, a specific acrobatic songbird calls it home.

(birds chirping) - [John] I like to brag it's probably the largest urban colony in North America.

(light whimsical music) - [Anne-Marie] This is John Miller.

He's referring to the purple martin population he's helped grow in Forest Park.

- I'm kinda like one of those little kids who knows all about Tyrannosaurus rex or something, you know?

(laughing) Purple martins, being swallows, are among those birds that take their food, insects, as they fly through the air.

- I have had an interest in purple martins all my life, like many people.

I learned about it from my grandfather in Kentucky.

(birds chirping) - [Anne-Marie] Purple martins, who aren't actually purple, are long-distance migrant swallows who winter in South America and return north in the spring to nest and care for their young.

(birds chirping) But what makes the purple martin unique is their existence thrives in close proximity to humans.

is their existence thrives in close proximity to humans.

(birds chirping) - Purple martins, as a bird species, are totally dependent on human-provided housing.

are totally dependent on human-provided housing.

(birds chirping) They don't nest in natural cavities anymore.

- [Anne-Marie] How did that happen?

Did they evolve that way because of humans?

- Some historical accounts actually document that Native Americans may have been the first to host purple martins in natural gourds.

But I think some of it also just happened by accident.

Early colonialists in North America put up a lot of multi-compartment birdhouses because they were decorative, you know?

That's something that was done in Europe.

And purple martin said, "Well, this is better than a woodpecker hole," so.

(laughs) (birds chirping) (light whimsical music) This will help them out.

- [Anne-Marie] This is why what Miller is doing is so important.

He's been leading the effort to attract and multiply the songbird population in Forest Park by building, buying, and maintaining these structures on poles.

Purple martins are not an endangered species, but they have been in decline.

- I spend my time researching, but according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, the population is 8.6 million.

That sounds like a lot, but the most numerous bird in North America is the American robin, and there's 400 million robins.

I love robins, (laughs) but there's a lot of robins.

- [Anne-Marie] They don't need your time.

(laughs) - They don't need our help.

They don't need our help, right?

(light whimsical music) - [Anne-Marie] So, for the last 20 years, with support from Forest Park Forever, Miller and these human-made boxes are doing their part to keep the purple martin off the endangered list.

- So, here's babies that are progressing to sort of teenage years.

They look to be about 16, 18 days old.

And there's one, two, three, four, if I'm counting all the noses.

Over the last 20 years, we've learned about what is the best type of housing.

What size should the compartment be in order to give the babies the best chance of being successful in fledging.

And we've also, for instance, created special shaped entrances into the housing that blocks certain invasive species, house sparrows and European starlings for example.

One of the things we look for as we're going through is an infestation of bird mites, which can weaken the babies.

And if the mites get really bad, we can kind of change out all the nest material, which might sound a bit intrusive, but it does...

When you attract a colony of purple martins, you become somewhat of an amateur wildlife biologist.

You're not a professional, so you need to be careful and foremost do no harm, you know?

But those of us who are really into the hobby, lower the housing once a week during the breeding season, take notes on eggs, how many babies.

We try to correct any problems that we see, removing any dead birds.

Sometimes, you might get wet nests because of heavy rain, we can actually replace the nest material, that type of thing.

So we try to manage them as best we can to help them fledge the most young that they can.

- [Anne-Marie] So, are you saying that you actually provide them the material to make their nest?

They don't even have to go out and find it?

- (laughs) Well, a little bit.

We help them out.

Because, if they were nesting in a woodpecker natural cavity that was rough on the bottom, you know, they wouldn't need much nesting material.

So we do put a little bit of pre-nest in the housing just to help them out, and then they add to it and kind of top it off.

- [Anne-Marie] These are some pampered birds.

- Well, they are.

(light whimsical music) Purple martins also will, as grit, collect tiny mussel shells along the waterways, but a little more difficult to find those in the big old city, so I help them out with some eggshells.

(shells rattling) - [Anne-Marie] And if they are successful in fledging young, purple martins have what is called a strong site fidelity.

The adults will return to the same housing spring after spring as long as they're successful in raising babies and getting them out in the air and moved out of the house.

(birds chirping) Do you feel a personal responsibility for these birds?

- I absolutely do, and I worry about it.

I'm not getting any younger, and so I have recruited a couple of really good volunteers.

And the thing that we're trying to do is perpetuate the tradition of people erecting housing.

- [Anne-Marie] What Miller and the other volunteers are doing here is a thankless job.

Today, around 100 pairs of purple martins make Forest Park home each summer, each fledging an average of seven young.

(birds chirping) - I see that first purple martin return in March, you know, and I get sentimental.

I think, "Well, this is so cool.

That guy came all the way from South America, 3,000 miles.

How amazing."

And they start departing in July and start a new season.

They have some unique vocalizations.

I joke they speak Portuguese.

I'm not sure.

But they probably spend more time in Brazil than in North America.

- [Anne-Marie] It's all Portuguese to you.

- [John] Yeah, it is.

It is.

(birds chirping) - Purple martins return to Forest Park in April.

So, come spring, keep your eyes and ears open for our summer residents.

Our next story, by Ruth Ezell, is about great jazz and jazz greats.

St. Louis, of course, has a rich musical history.

But more than that, this story about how new chapters in that history continue to be written.

(upbeat pop-rock music) (groovy jazz music) - [Ruth] Now, here's a world-class horn section you don't see every day.

In the middle jazz, St. Louis President and CEO Victor Goines flanked by two members of the renowned Marsalis family.

On the left, Wynton Marsalis, on the right, brother Branford.

They were the headliners at Jazz St. Louis's 2024 Gala Swing for Tomorrow's Stars, and it marked the first time in many years that the Marsalis brothers performed together as headliners.

But memorable though it was, the gala itself was not our main reason for being here.

We reconnected with Wynton Marsalis the day before this performance to ask him about one of the many younger trumpeters he's mentored over the years.

- I remember Joshua.

Yeah, he can play.

(lively jazz music) - [Ruth] That trumpeter is Joshua Williams, who we met in April of 2008 at Jazz at the Bistro.

Williams was 18 and a senior at Metro High School.

Here, he was performing in an all-star ensemble of high school musicians from across the St. Louis area.

Williams first met Wynton Marsalis when his parents took the family to see a concert at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

Williams, originally a student of classical music, says he was about 14 at the time.

- We were checking out the concert, and I'm like, "Wow, this guy plays trumpet!

Oh, that's so cool!"

And our dad's like, "Hey, man, we should try to get backstage.

We're suited up, like, I don't see why we can't."

So we get back there and I brought my mouthpiece because me and my dad were reading in a book, like, when a young trumpet player or a student comes in, he always has enough time for a student to give some pointers or whatever.

So I brought my mouthpiece.

So he let me play on his Monette for about 45 minutes, and he kind of was giving me tips on how to play.

- [Interviewer] What was it like to blow his horn?

- It was very, very heavy.

When I first started, I played on a regular school horn, and it didn't have as much weight to it.

He has caps at the bottom, and it's custom-made for a dark sound.

It was kind of hard to play.

Every time he comes into town, we kind of get backstage.

He's been to the Sheldon a couple of times.

We've kept in contact with him.

We were surprised when he remembered us.

- He was great.

He was always really attentive and wanted to know a lot, a good soul, and nice sound.

- I was talking to Wynton.

I brought up your name.

He knew instantly who you were, who you went on to study with.

Are you surprised that he remembers you?

- I am, but I'm not.

Because I've had other colleagues my age talk about how quickly he can remember.

Even, like, if you sent him a recording, he'd know who it was, which is insane to me.

But Wynton doesn't ever fail to impress when it comes to him correlating personality with the way they sound.

And I think that's really, really cool.

And that's really great.

- [Ruth] Joshua Williams admits he's not performing as much as he'd like to these days because his career is centered on composing and content creation.

He gives credit for his success to Wynton Marsalis and to his former Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Bobby Watson.

- I view Wynton as an uncle and Bobby as a grandfather.

It's not just because of age, but also... (laughs) Because I think that the way they kind of took me under their wing and kind of showed me the ropes was extremely important, and we got a chance to meet their whole family.

And so when it came to when we were touring or I had certain questions about certain things I hadn't been familiar with, whether that be with, like, the trumpet competitions I used to do when I was in college or managing my first tour, both of them were really helpful.

Bobby, with a little bit more experience just because he had done a bit more.

With Wynton actually helping me with understanding how to score for an orchestra, even in passing, where certain things that both of them used to make sure that I was prepared with as far as with the education side.

That also was a huge influential factor.

If it wasn't for those guys, I probably wouldn't be where I am today, just because of them having the willingness to share and pass the torch.

- And his career path got a jumpstart in high school from a program offered by Jazz St. Louis.

You played with JazzU.

- Mm-hmm.

- Tell me about what that experience was like.

- At first, it was painful, I'm not gonna lie.

I was a classically trained trumpet player.

So, trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, to learn how to improvise and things of that nature, I thank them for their patience.

(laughs) That's the best I can kind of describe it at first.

- Jazz St. Louis offers a wide variety of educational and community outreach programs.

The organization even has a book club, but it's JazzU that focuses on high school musicians developing their craft.

- It's a simple blues form.

It's just 7 1/2 bars.

- [Ruth] That's the Director of Education and Community Engagement for Jazz St. Louis, Adaron Jackson, affectionately known as Pops.

In this exercise with the JazzU ensemble, we watched Pops teach the students a short tune by ear, no sheet music.

It took the group just minutes to get it down.

(lively jazz music) - The students that you'll see are from all over the metropolitan area, which is one beauty of the entire program, is that borders are broken down.

I love the JazzU program.

It is one thing that we do that allows students from various backgrounds to come together and create and explore their own individual voice, but also the collective community that music and jazz can provide.

(upbeat jazz music) - [Ruth] Jazz St. Louis's CEO, in addition to his stellar reputation as a clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer, also has an impressive resume as an educator and mentor.

Victor Goines is the former Director of Jazz Studies at the Juilliard School and at Northwestern University.

- If you wanna learn, you have to get out there and do it with people who are doing it while they are here to teach you.

Because they say time is undefeated.

So, we have to be in touch with our great mentors to get what we can out of them while they're still here.

- [Ruth] Goines counts among his mentors and teachers the late Ellis Marsalis Jr., father to Wynton, Branford, trombonist Delfeayo, and vibraphonist Jason.

The Marsalis siblings are taking what they've learned from their father and all their mentors and are paying it forward.

- And music teaches you how to be a part of something and still be yourself.

So you have everything covered.

You have your individuality and the way you wanna approach things in your creativity.

And then you have another part of the music that's about understanding other people are creative, too, and being able to manage yourself and to figure out how to co-create, which is an indispensable skill for modern life.

(groovy jazz music) (audience cheering) (audience applauding) - As a trumpet player myself, being mentored by Wynton Marsalis would be a dream.

But there are many other talented musicians around the St. Louis area, inspiring the next generation of performers and educators, including our guest joining us today, Matthew Henry, who is the Director of Percussion Studies at UMSL.

Welcome.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

Happy to be here.

- Now, I have to be transparent in that I am totally biased about the importance of music education.

My mom and my sister are music educators.

Tell us about the importance of music education.

- Well, I think the importance is that everybody's a consumer of music first and foremost, right?

I teach a course, and the first thing I do on the first day is "Raise your hands if you listen to music," and look around the room, and everybody raises their hands, right?

So we all listen to music.

Not only that we're all consumers, but we can all be advocates for it, right?

And so when you teach young people about music education, they become advocates, and it sustains quality music making in the community, at the schools, churches, you know, wherever that may be.

And not to mention the scientific, you know, brain function and emotional functions and societal, you know, relationship functions that are much better for students when they're involved in music programs.

- Yeah.

And as we saw in the story, you know, that mentorship, as well, you never know the connection you make, even from elementary school up to high school, that mentorship and connection can spark and shape a student's career for the rest of their life.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

Tell us about the importance of that mentorship.

- Well, I think the inspiration of seeing people that you wanna emulate, you know, is very important.

So understanding that we can look at our mentors and think, "Okay, I wanna be like that.

Maybe I'll make these adjustments and, you know, walk through society in a different way."

But also, if we don't have the what came before us, how are we supposed to know where to go, right?

And that's the thing.

So, I know that I was inspired by people of various cultures to create my path differently than my teacher did, and my students create their path differently than mine.

You know, they take what interests them and push us forward.

So you have to have a source for that information, yeah.

- It's so rewarding.

And there are a lot of, you know, positive sides to looking at music education.

But let's talk about the challenges because I'm thinking about an elementary school classroom and kids just wailing on recorders, (both laughing) and I mean making a lot of mistakes.

There's a challenge in that.

And then, you know, the high school directors who dedicate evenings, weekends.

I mean, it's their entire life, you know, teaching these kids music.

And not to mention, you know, balancing that behavior challenges that you sometimes see in those extracurricular activities.

Tell us about some of the challenges in being a music educator.

- Well, I think that you cited some of them, right?

Which are the funding for music programs is often a lot higher than it is for other programs because you have to have instruments, you have to have multiple instruments.

So if you have a music education classroom, you need 20 recorders maybe, right?

And you can't just use a digital textbook like you may be able to in a science or history course.

So you have to have physical instruments in the room, you have to maintain them.

What if one breaks?

You have to have extras.

I mean, it's always a hustle.

And there's so many moving parts to actual music education classroom management, which is also personalities of the kids, depending on the age.

And it takes special people to realize when they're going through music education programs, "I wanna be an elementary educator."

"Okay, High school is my thing."

College, that's where I went.

You know, I kind of always knew starting out that I wanted to be a collegiate instructor for various reasons.

So I think we have to be able to guide students to their passion place as far as that goes, and not tell them, "You must teach high school" or "You must..." You know, we have to kind of nurture that passion inside of them as musicians on a different path so they can meet those challenges.

'Cause they're real, yeah.

- Now, you touched on the funding aspect.

Now, I've heard rumors or seen actual credible threats to cutting music funding in schools.

Is that still the case?

- Yeah, I don't think they're rumors or threats, they actually happen.

You know, those are the first things that do get cut.

- Yeah.

- And I think that it's unfortunate for many reasons.

I go back to what I said: Everybody in our society is a consumer of music on one degree or another, right?

And I think the further we get away from understanding that that's our connector, the further people go through administration or politics, then they get away from that connection, and then they're like, "Oh."

They're only looking at numbers on a page.

They're not looking at using music to connect every student in that school to the community, and that's a way that we can do it.

I don't see music as a universal language, but I think it's a universal connector, right?

We use it at all kinds of events.

So I think the disparity is between actual funds on paper and then what the actual value of society of music education is and performance and consumership.

But there are advocates out there.

The Missouri Alliance for Arts Education does a Fine Arts Education Week every spring in Jefferson City in Missouri.

And they call on groups from around the state to come, play, sing, bring your art.

It's not just music, but, you know, art and all those things.

So, we are aware, as the educators, that there is an issue with funding because music's so expensive to keep in the courses.

And we want people to understand, the people that are making the decisions on paper to cut this budget item, budget item, don't just look at the numbers, look at the effect that music has and the connections we can make in the community.

Yeah.

- Right.

Absolutely.

Matthew Henry, Director of Percussion Studies at UMSL, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

- Our final story, Jim Kirchherr, brings us a story about a bridge, a birthday, and a boy.

(upbeat techno music) - [Jim] This summer marked the 30th anniversary of the opening of the new Clark Bridge over the Mississippi River at Alton, replacing the 1928 bridge that was just two lanes and 20 feet wide.

The new bridge, a much welcome change for motorists, truckers, and for the region's economy.

It was also a change, life-changing, really, for a little boy who lived far away in Georgia.

Sam McNeal was watching with his parents the NOVA documentary "Super Bridge" about the design and building of the structure, and at six years old, he was enthralled.

And the little boy told his story in a promotional spot about the impact that public TV can have.

- When I was watching it, I was just, like, so excited.

I kept asking my dad, "Dad, why are they using that?

What's that?"

It was just, like, so interesting.

- [Jim] That was then.

This is now.

- Good evening, everyone.

My name is Samuel McNeal.

It's great to be here.

- [Jim] Sam is all grown up, a US Army captain.

He was Nine PBS's guest at an event at the Audubon Center on the Missouri side of the bridge.

- I didn't know how emotional I'd be coming back here.

- [Jim] And it wasn't just the Bridge's anniversary, but NOVA's 50th anniversary and Nine PBS's 70th, a good time to retell Sam's story.

- Me and my mom discovered from NOVA that the construction company had a website.

I asked them how to get a job there and what do I need to do in school.

And about that time, I was having really challenging learning problems that were really impacting my education.

I was struggling greatly in school, particularly in reading.

They told me that if I wanted to come build bridges for them, that I need to work on reading and math.

And I was like, "Okay."

I went out to the garage and started digging around.

I ended up dragging a box back in the house.

My mom's like, "What are you doing?"

I'm like, "They said I gotta read, and these are all the books I gotta learn to read, so let's go."

(laughs) And then, by the end of that school year, I had gone from pretty much all F's in all my classes to straight A's.

And for summer vacation, we went to the bridge in St. Louis.

I met the engineers, and we had lunch there.

I remember that day we met with Mr. McCarthy, met with the mayor of Alton, Illinois.

Had a great time.

Went back to McCarthy Brothers headquarters.

They had lunch with us.

Mr. McCarthy gave me a job application.

I know what I wanna do with my life now.

- [Jim] Turns out he did not end up in the construction industry.

McNeal says two events, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, sent him on a different path of service.

He went to college on an ROTC scholarship and into the Army with a degree in logistics and supply chain management.

- I just started my master's program right now.

I'm working with LSU and getting a master's in nonprofit administration with a focus on disaster preparedness.

So that's something I would very much like to do post-military career.

I can trace my entire professional and educational career back to this moment in time and to that bridge.

Again, that's my story, and thank you for your time.

(audience cheering) (audience applauding) - [Jim] Still a good story and still a good bridge at 30 years old.

And this past summer, it got a bit of a makeover.

New decorative lighting with multiple color options was installed to, once again, show off the Clark AKA, the Super Bridge.

(upbeat techno music) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

We love hearing from you.

You've got an idea for us, reach out to us at any time at NinePBS.org/LSL.

I'm Anne-Marie Berger, thanks for joining us.

(bright groovy jazz music) (bright groovy jazz music continues) (bright groovy jazz music continues) (bright groovy jazz music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.