Wynton Marsalis to Share Jam Secrets

Celebrated trumpeter Wynton Marsalis will return to Sanders Theatre on April 17 to deliver a lecture on collaboration in jazz. Entitled “At the Speed of Instinct: Choosing Together to Play and Stay Together,” the lecture is the fourth in a series and will explore spontaneity and improvisation within small group settings.

The event will include both a talk and a performance, as Marsalis will bring a group of longtime collaborators and bandmates to illustrate his points. The quintet will consist of Marsalis, Ali Jackson on drums, Carlos Henriquez on bass, Walter Blanding on tenor sax, and Marcus Roberts on piano. Jackson, Henriquez, and Blanding are members of Marsalis’s acclaimed Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Roberts is not usually part of Marsalis’s group, but the two worked on several albums together in the late 1980s.

The long collaborative history between the five musicians has heightened their musical creativity and allowed them to push boundaries. “When one person zigs, another person might zag,” Jackson says. “When we’re playing, everyone has the same bag of choices, but interesting things will happen.”

Marsalis has delivered three lectures at Harvard over the last two years as part of the university’s ongoing effort to integrate music and art into campus life. His topics have included the evolution of American dance and the link between blues, jazz, folk, and rock and roll. This time, he’ll be focusing on the music he’s famous for with a group that has spent years together honing its sound and developing as a unit.

“Our communication has always been like, he can read my mind, and I can read his,” Roberts says of Marsalis. On the 17th, the quintet will give audience members a glimpse at how this magical collaboration takes place.

—Staff writer Andrew R. Chow can be reached at andrewchow@college.harvard.edu.