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Over and over, Marsalis' conversation returns to a key concern: education. His antidote for what he considers the cultural mediocrity that reigns in America today is to promote jazz-education programs throughout the U.S. "I know this music can work," he says. "To play it, you have to have the belief in quality. And the belief in practice, the belief in study, belief in your history, belief in the people that you came out of. It is a statement of heroism against denigration."
Marsalis does more than talk about education. When he is touring, he always makes time to visit local schools and preach the jazz gospel. He stays in touch with many of the students he meets, offering them pointers over the phone, inviting them to sit in on his gigs and sometimes even giving them instruments. "Lord knows how much effect he's had on kids around the country. He's to be praised for that alone," says Steve Backer, executive producer of RCA's Novus jazz label and an active recruiter of young talent.
"Whenever he came to New Orleans, he'd pick me up from school, we'd play basketball, then have a trumpet lesson," recalls Marlon Jordan, whose recording debut, For You Only, was released last year. "He had a definite effect on me, and it will be there until I die." Trumpeter Roy Hargrove points to a Marsalis master class at his Dallas high school as a major turning point for him. "He's incredible. He really knows how to communicate with people and make them understand the tradition," says Hargrove, whose Diamond in the Rough album has won high praise from jazz critics. Marsalis considers such proselytizing part of his legacy: "I'm just passing on the stuff that people like ((Harry)) 'Sweets' Edison, Art Blakey, Max Roach and Elvin Jones told me. I mean, I'm acting on a mandate from them."
The availability of a talented pool of young musicians results in large part from the jazz-education programs that have proliferated around the country during the past two decades. The International Association of Jazz Educators, founded in 1968, has helped start jazz-studies programs at more than 100 U.S. colleges, and many high schools are including jazz in their music curriculum. New York City's Jazzmobile, founded 25 years ago by Billy Taylor, runs weekly workshops attended by as many as 400 kids.
The generally younger audiences attracted by Marsalis and his colleagues are of course nowhere near the size of the enormous market that routinely sends pop records over the million mark -- and probably never will be. Nonetheless, acoustic jazz has become a steady, moneymaking enterprise for many record companies. For one thing, jazz is a low-overhead business: production budgets range from $25,000 to $85,000 an album, in contrast to $150,000 for rock records. That means the companies can start to make profits on as few as 30,000 sales. (Marsalis' sales range from 52,000 for Live at Blues Alley to more than 400,000 for Hot House Flowers.)
The movement is also a lifesaver for club owners and festival producers, promising them new audiences and exciting artists at a time when older, long- established stars are disappearing from the scene. George Wein, who produces the Newport, JVC, Boston Globe and New Orleans festivals, calls the advent of charismatic young players like Marsalis "not only good for jazz but absolutely necessary."