I had been waiting for this moment ever since I got my welcome letters to Timothy Dwight College over the summer before my freshman year. "We're having Wynton Marsalis over for lunch during second semester," it casually read. At first I put it in the back of my mind; the thought of heading out to Yale for the first time since Bulldog Days was exciting enough without the promise of lunch with a world-famous trumpeter.
However, the various adventures of first semester passed in a blink of an eye, and before I knew it I began to see posters advertising Wynton's arrival began to pop up around TD. My deferred excitement was instantly renewed: there were limited seats, and the lunch was in the best restaurant in New Haven, the Union League cafe. Plus, Wynton was going to be there. All I had to do to sign up for this private lunch was to go into the Master's Office on Friday morning and sign my name on a list.
On the day of the event, I left Philosophy of Mind a little early and hopped across the New Haven Green to Union League Cafe. I walked down Sherman's Alley and found the side door for the cafe. It was locked, warning me that "Sorry, but the restaurant is closed for a private event." Hey, I thought, I'm part of this event! Let me in! Fortunately, I spotted a few fellow TD'ers who were crossing the street in my direction, heading into a larger, ornate entrance. I followed them inside.
I get in line, chat with TD'ers, and unexpectedly have my coat checked by the restaurant staff. Wow, I thought, this is the real deal. People are dressed in suits and ties, and my green jacket and button up shirt makes me feel a little underderessed. And there he is, the man himself, casually chatting with some students and faculty.
When the meal began and he spoke, I was in awe. He spoke of the Jazz Attitude--how you have to keep your individualism--"If you got a flat head, you got a flat head"--while balancing the swing, keeping everyone in line, balancing the voices of the band members. He talked about growing up in New Orleans, and how he loved the town, how it shaped his life, and how Hurricane Katrina made him realize how much one can love a place without realizing it. He talked of his views on rap music--ignorant, almost unmentionably so, and certainly unimaginable 30 years ago.
He talked about his father, a musician, and how when he started playing his own gigs and realized he had more fans than his father, that something was cooking. (He didn't mention that he went to Julliard at 17.) He talked about how the blending of cultures in New Orleans, Creole, Africans, descendants of slaves, white, with tensions of band music, funk music, all sort of strings pulling music into syncopated rhythms, improvisation, the art of jazz. He talked about how raising the scale by one half note was so hard--what was so close together was so far away, like a man and a woman. He talked about raising 20 and 18 year old sons, and the conversations they had, the cultural clashes. He talked about music education, calling for a revolution, raising standards and making a more educated listenership, and more educated public, so they could appreciate real music.
And then he played. You could hear the way he talked in the way he played the trumpet. You could hear his personality--confident, yet modest, sure, steady, not afraid for a flourish or two. The trumpet was vintage, it seemed, not shiny like trumpets played by middle school students, but dull, with character.
My jaw was dropped the whole time. I was stunned. The delicious steak and pear, bacon, and Roquefort spinach salad faded from mind as I watched a master just be himself.
Thanks for Timothy Dwight College and the Chubb Fellowship for making this happen. This is a memory I think I'll cherish for a long while.
(A funny ending to a great day: I took about 6 minutes of footage with Wynton playing the trumpet with my digital camera, and uploaded it onto Youtube. The next day, I found it on his official website!
If you would like to read more about Wynton, here's a link to a Yale publication's bulletin on the Chubb Fellowship. It has a resume of sorts--it will blow your mind.
And a few of my friends managed to get a picture with Wynton. Lucky.)
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