WYNTON MARSALIS

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

This month, America’s own jazz standard celebrates his 50th birthday with a musical tour and nationally broadcast concerts from his home base, New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center. Here, the master of brass lays down a few bars on music, memory, and Malraux

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Consistently creating what you love whilst letting go of what you hate (followed by selective remembering and forgetting).

What is your greatest fear?

That our country may never recover from slavery (and not ever know that we need to recover from it).

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King Jr.

(all aspects of their greatness).

Which living person do you most admire?

Brother Haskell Mohammed, who was homeless for 20-plus years and pulled himself off the streets (now at work daily, donning suit and bow tie and clean as a fresh fall chitlin’).

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Impatience.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Unpresentness. (Please join us.)

What is your greatest extravagance?

Working 20 hours a day for months or even years on long, involved pieces that few will hear or even want to hear (perhaps ever).

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

My cherubic cheeks (to avoid mentioning those skinny legs).

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

The Blues. (It cost a lot to hnd her and much more to maintain our relationship.)

What is your current state of mind?

Urgent.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I wish I could be content.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Not driving my kids crazy (yet).

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

A koala bear.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

A jazzman.

What is your most treasured possession?

My memory.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

When people who hate you control what you do (and you don’t even know they’re controlling it).

Where would you like to live?

The Bigs (Easy and Apple).

What do you most value in your friends?

Originality and spontaneity (and the ability to entertain with any nonspecific talent).

Who are your favorite writers?

Ralph Ellison, William Butler Yeats, William Faulkner,

V. S. Naipaul, Stanley Crouch, Thomas Mann, Frederick Douglass, Geoffrey Ward, Charles Schulz, Andre Malraux, Albert Murray (and so many more).

Who are your heroes in real life?

Elementary-school band directors.

How would you like to die?

On the bandstand (playing a blues).

What is your motto?

“Stay hard (keep it moving).” 4il