Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 9, 1995 TAG: 9510100051
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Too often, jazz (ooof!) and classical music (double ugh!!) are greeted by kids with all the enthusiasm they'd have for spinach or math homework. Sure, everyone loves music, but who wants to tangle with that ``serious'' stuff?
Who even understands it?
Wynton Marsalis, for one. This virtuoso trumpeter, zesty educator, children's advocate and all-around cool guy wants to give youngsters a painless, even entertaining introduction to music theory.
With telling simplicity, the series is called ``Marsalis on Music.'' Picking up where Leonard Bernstein left off with ``Young People's Concerts'' a generation ago, it starts tonight at 8 on PBS (WBRA, Channel 15), and continues on three subsequent Mondays. Tonight's hour, ``Why Toes Tap,'' focuses on rhythm. Future episodes deal with musical form, jazz, and, finally, ``Tackling the Monster: Marsalis on Practice.''
To help put his ideas across, Marsalis has brought aboard his own jazz band, as well as recruited maestro Seiji Ozawa, who leads the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. The series takes place before a group of 9- to 12-year-olds at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
But, hey, Wynton, why should the rest of us kids who are perfectly pleased with our music bother catching your show?
Maybe you shouldn't, replies Marsalis, a man who doesn't deal in ``shoulds.'' But for those willing to make the investment in ``Marsalis on Music,'' he adds, there might be a payoff.
``The more you know about something,'' he points out, ``the more you enjoy it.''
A man who by turns can be a cut-up and passionately serious, he is in sock feet, jeans and turtleneck one recent afternoon. He has flopped himself down on the floor of his apartment in a highrise towering over Lincoln Center, where he serves as Artistic Director of Jazz.
From his relaxed and disarming supine position, Marsalis turns his attention to next week's subject, form - ``to me, the most important thing. Getting that right is half the battle.
``Form is the way we can keep from getting overwhelmed,'' he goes on. ``Kids especially need it, because they've got so many emotions, so many things bombarding them from so many angles. If they don't have a way to put things in a form to help them manage, things can overwhelm them.''
You can tell he isn't just talking about music, but that's one virtue of ``Marsalis on Music'': It really isn't just about music. Marsalis wants you to see that, whether in or out of the musical realm, things can't be neatly pigeon-holed. Everything in life is connected.
``When you learn about how stuff in the world is related to each other, you live a richer life,'' he says.
Connections. On his series, Marsalis asks the musical question: What do basketballs, trains, skyscrapers, shopping malls, hamburgers, hamsters and hats have to do with the complexities of music theory?
He brings together the jazz band and the orchestra to show the similarities between quite different musical styles.
He addresses what kids tell him is the most confusing thing about music: how it can communicate human experience without the aid of lyrics.
``Lots of kids think if a song doesn't have words, it has no meaning,'' Marsalis says. ``But I ask them to think about the sound of a person's voice. When somebody talks, they can sound angry, even if you don't know what language they're talking in.''
The 33-year-old Marsalis got his easygoing, common-sense approach to education from his music-teacher father. Then, he refined it in master classes he has held at high schools across the nation.
``Over 14 years, I'm sure I've been in a thousand schools,'' he says, though allowing that in the tougher ones, ``You don't talk about music. You talk about having manners.''
On TV, as well, Marsalis is realistic in his goals.
``You teach a feeling,'' he says, ``and maybe some of the information will leak through. Then maybe one day, the kid will say, `Oh! OK.' '' Something sank in.
But if Marsalis delights in his mission, don't get him started on the people who dismiss the importance of teaching kids music.
``Music is the most popular art form in the country,'' he says, now on his feet, ``but you're cutting money for the little bit of music education you have. Then you wonder why the music kids like is somebody grabbing themselves and cursing on top of a backbeat.
``The more intelligent the music is and the deeper its level of soul,'' he says, ``the more profound the music's relationship to our actual lives, the better the quality of life we're going to live.
``Music really can uplift you. But it can also hold you down.''
It's your choice, Marsalis is saying to kids and adults as well - but you have to know enough to make it.
by CNB