Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center,
musician, educator, and composer, was born in New Orleans,
Louisiana, and received his first trumpet from renowned musician Al
Hirt at the age of six. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, in
both jazz and classical categories, and is the only artist to have
won Grammy Awards in five consecutive years, from 1983 to 1987. In
1997, Marsalis's oratorio on slavery and freedom, Blood on the
Fields, became the first and, to date, only jazz composition to win
the Pulitzer Prize in music.
Geoffrey C. Ward, a historian, screenwriter, and former editor of
American Heritage, is the bestselling author of many books,
including The War- An Intimate History, 1941-1945, Jazz- A History
of America's Music, and A First-Class Temperament- The Emergence of
Franklin Roosevelt, which won a National Critics Circle Award.
“An absolute joy to read. Intimate, knowledgeable, supremely worthy
of its subject. In addition to demolishing mediocre, uniformed
critics, Moving to Higher Ground is a meaningful contribution to
music scholarship.”—Toni Morrison
“I think it should be in every bookstore, music store, and school
in the country.” —Tony Bennett
“Jazz, for Wynton Marsalis, is nothing less than a search for
wisdom. He thinks as forcefully, and as elegantly, as he swings.
When he reflects on improvisation, his subject is freedom. When he
reflects on harmony, his subject is diversity and conflict and
peace. When he reflects on the blues, his subject is sorrow and the
mastery of it–how to be happy without being blind. There is
philosophy in Marsalis’s trumpet, and in this book. Here is the
lucid and probing voice of an uncommonly soulful man.”—New
Republic
“Wynton Marsalis is absolutely the person who should write this
book. Here he is, as young as morning, as fresh as dew, and already
called one of the jazz greats. He is not only a seer and an
exemplary musician, but a poet as well. He informs us that jazz was
created, among other things, to expose the hypocrisy and absurdity
of racism and other ignorances in our country. Poetry was given to
human beings for the same reason. This book could be called “How
Love Can Change Your Life,” for there could be no jazz without
love. By love, of course, I do not mean mush, or sentimentality.
Love can only exist with courage, and this book could not be
written without Wynton Marsalis’s courage. He has the courage to
make powerful music and to love the music so, that he willingly
shares its riches with the entire human family. We are indebted to
him.” —Maya Angelou
“A joyful primer . . . Come blow your horn–and let the music
begin.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“I think it should be in every bookstore, music store, and school
in the country.” —Tony Bennett
“Wynton Marsalis has been a beacon for music since his early
twenties. In Moving to Higher Ground, he continues to exhort,
elevate, and educate us.”—Yo-Yo Ma
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