Wynton Marsalis on Blues, Jazz, History, and Democracy

Yesterday, the YouTube algorithm shared a video of Wynton Marsalis answering a question at the Harvard Kennedy School about what draws people to the blues. His deep answer inspired me to watch the entire conversation between him and Anthony Foxx, who, as the co-director of the Center for Public Leadership, leads its “Culture and Civil Society Initiative” project, which strives to build a stronger civic fabric through arts and culture in the United States and beyond.

Anthony Foxx and Wynton Marsalis, February 10, 2025

We’ve previously shared posts on Wynton’s style of leadership and a two-part conversation that began by focusing on his recording, The Democracy! Suite. In this conversation in front of an audience of college students, Marsalis brought a soulful and optimistic realism to bear, while not shirking from biting yet measured critique.  

When explaining what jazz can teach us about promoting civic discourse, Wynton focused on the agreements that make improvisation possible: agreements on rhythm, the musical form, the common language of the rhythm section, and “what you’re trying to do on the bandstand.”

Jazz provides powerful agency of individual expression within fluid and dynamic ensemble collaboration. Likewise, he explained, “it’s important to agree that the Constitution is a document designed to create agency for others. It’s a leveling document. Without it, we can’t have a democracy.”

Foxx asked: “Are we irreparably divided?”

“No, we're not,” Wynton responded, because, first of all, “most people agree with the direction it's going in. Let's be for real.” When hearing this, I thought of Kevin Williamson’s essay from a few weeks ago, “Americans Did Vote For This.”

“Most people in this country agreed that the civil rights movement needed to be rolled back. Nixon was elected after Kennedy and King were killed. Ronald Reagan was elected to roll it back. He didn't make bones about it. A lot of people agree with this direction, and to think that they don't is to make a mistake. The numbers tell you that, and they're real. We only have two choices . . . .

We have to determine whether we want to be an empire or a republic.

—Wynton Marsalis

“I'm always optimistic because I understand what our history has been, and [that] we're still fighting the Civil War. And now the South is ahead. . . In America, there's still a belief that [Confederate general] Robert E. Lee was right. ‘This is our way of life. The South shall rise again.’

“Don't be fooled that this is about DEI or whatever the terms are. That indicates some ethnic breakdown. Normally, the Negro is somewhere in there. This is about dismantling democracy with chaos to create a disenfranchised working class, so that . . . the interests of the world can be turned over to corporations who have done nothing to show you that they're trustworthy. . .

Yet, Marsalis remains “optimistic because that's always been the challenge. And it will remain a challenge until we as people have a higher consciousness—and maybe it'll take an unbelievable conflagration to push us up to a higher level.

“All that you see going on now, we've been going in that direction. So, this administration is just more active. But is it more active than Ronald Reagan was? He destroyed the economic system for farmers. They love him. You need Farm Aid because of [Reagan’s] sell-out to big agriculture.

“We've seen recent presidents [Obama] sell out to pharmaceutical companies while they're forwarding a health plan. Here's my health plan, but you gotta pay these people. . .

“These are long-term fights, fights across many lives. These are battles since time immemorial. The question is: Are we invested in ourselves? When my students [in the jazz program] at Juilliard ask me for one thing I can tell them, I say: Take yourself seriously. Take what you think and feel seriously. Take your power seriously. Take your words seriously.

“These are serious times. And not because of some new President, but because . . . If you want to fight for universal humanism and other people's rights, and to have a more equitable way of life for everybody, it's a long, uphill, painful, thankless battle, and you have to be down for doing that. And it's gonna cost you—it will not be free. For some people, it costs them their lives.”

Towards the end of the interview, Foxx asked: What is it about the blues that makes people draw into it?

Wynton: “If you check out any of the heavyweights, like Shakespeare, Beethoven, William Butler Yeats, Duke, Monk . . . It's when you take two opposite things and hold them in balance. Even in the cliché quote of Shakespeare, ‘To be or not to be.’ It is all in there. That is the nature of human life. The friction of those things. Without friction, you don't have any energy. It's the friction of opposites.”

While recalling a basic blues line sung by a blues man playing his guitar on a roadside corner—“That’s alright, baby, Baby, that’s alright”—Wynton demonstrated how the blues has a major chord sound rubbing up against the minor, as the even duple and 4/4 rhythm intersects with the odd number triplet feel. “It's like you're dancing, and it’s ultimately optimistic. What makes it optimistic is that you're taking something tragic—whoever his baby was, hurt him.

“But the fact that he can say ‘it's alright’ makes it nameable. When you make something nameable, and you put a form on it, it's containable. And once it's containable, you can come to grips with it. And now, after you name and contain it, you can play with it!”

Click here to hear and see the entire conversation with Wynton Marsalis and the Q&A with students.