New Orleans-born jazz legend Wynton Marsalis remembers the first time he ever traveled to North Carolina. It was the late 1970s, Marsalis was 15 years old, and he’d come for his first year of study at Eastern Music Festival, the classical music event and summer music camp held annually in Greensboro.

“It changed my life,” Marsalis said recently via Zoom from Chautauqua, New York, where he performed his sweeping 12-movement orchestral work All Rise, which fuses folk music styles from across the Americas — jazz, gospel, Latin dance, even some Appalachian fiddling — with nods to great classical composers like Igor Stravinsky and Charles Ives. Marsalis will bring a much smaller jazz septet to Greensboro’s Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts on September 5 for a 7:30 p.m. concert. There, he’ll perform selections from two of his more recent pieces, The Democracy! Suite and The Integrity Suite.

The trumpeter and composer’s equally famous brother, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, has lived in Durham for the past two decades, and Wynton now comes to North Carolina on a more regular basis. Our State talked with him about, well, our state, our food, our folkways, and much more.

OS: In what ways did attending Eastern Music Festival change your life?

WM: I was around a lot of other students my age, and we played orchestral repertoire that I had never played before, like Mahler’s [Symphony No. 2], the Hummel Trumpet Concerto, Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. The head of the camp was a guy named Joe Thayer, and he was such a great educator and had such love for the students. And at the end of camp one year, Robert Helmacy, who was one of the conductors, gave me probably the greatest trumpet lesson I ever had in my life — a four-hour lesson. We went through the entire Arban book, which is the bible for trumpet players. He’s passed now, but that’s a memory that stays with me. It will stay with me forever.

OS: As you know, some of the greatest jazz musicians who ever lived were born and raised right here in North Carolina: John Coltrane, Max Roach, Thelonious Monk, Nina Simone, to name just a few. Have you ever had occasion to visit any of their childhood homes while you were here?

WM: I’ve never been to their homes, but I’m aware of Max in [Great] Dismal [Swamp] and Monk in Rocky Mount. I think I should do that. I’m not a big “place” person — I’ve never been to Beethoven’s house, I’ve never been to Duke Ellington’s house — but you’ve put it in my mind now, so I think I’m gonna do that.

Wynton Marsalis photograph by Piper Ferguson

OS: Your upcoming gig here is sponsored by the Greensboro Symphony, but you won’t be collaborating with the symphony this time. What should folks expect from your performance in Greensboro?

WM: Well, first, I always love to collaborate with symphonic orchestras and play bigger pieces. I feel like the more people we can get on a stage together, particularly in this time, the better. It’s important from a symbolic standpoint — and to see musicians doing something that’s relatively difficult to do. So I would love to do that. But for this performance, I have a young septet that I like to play with — some of the finest musicians. One of them, Philip Norris, is from North Carolina, and he’s a great bassist, the greatest young bassist in the world, I’m sure of that. I learn a lot from these musicians because, you know, we have a lot of disagreements and things, but they open my eyes to a lot, and I love how seriously they take themselves and their points of view, and [you can hear it] in their playing.

OS: Education has long been important to you. Do you think enough young people are listening to older music forms nowadays? Do they understand the context for today’s music?

WM: When I started to teach music, I came up with a list of 100 songs called “The American Song List,” because it dawned on me that our students, all over the country, don’t know any American folk music — Anglo American folk music, Afro American folk music, Anglo Celtic music, Texas swing, Tex-Mex folk songs, bluegrass, Delta blues, Anglo American gospel, Afro American gospel. Folk songs like “John Henry,” “The Tennessee Waltz.” Hymns that we share — “Walking to Jerusalem,” “Rock of Ages,” “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” These are songs that jazz musicians should know and be able to play.

Take “Amazing Grace.” When you learn why he wrote the song, there’s a reason that it is so emblematic of the American struggle for identity. [Editor’s note: The song’s writer, John Newton, was a former trader of enslaved people who repented and changed his ways.] Everybody should know “Amazing Grace,” and they should be able to play it.

OS: Well, one thing is for sure — lots of folks in North Carolina know “Amazing Grace.” What do you do in your time off while visiting North Carolina?

WM: I love North Carolina. I love the barbecue. I love the people. I love the folkways. I’ve played at the University of North Carolina [at Chapel Hill] so many times over the years, it’s like the highlight of our gigs. I have a very strong relationship with the university. And, of course, my brother has lived in North Carolina for a long time. He loves it in Durham. He works at North Carolina Central [University], teaching the band, teaching kids. And one of my really good friends, Anthony Foxx, was the mayor of Charlotte. The list of relationships and times I’ve had in North Carolina, it goes on and on.

Don’t miss Wynton Marsalis at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, September 5, 2024. Click here to reserve your tickets.