WYNTON MARSALIS' NANCY HANKS ADDRESS
Those present reported that Marsalis gave a deep and moving speech, as did Newsweek:
The impeccably cool artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center had come here to deliver the Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. His speech, which he titled “The Ballad of the American Arts,” was a bravura 50-minute survey of how our country has used “homegrown arts to make us into one people, to teach us who we are.” He made surprising connections, praising Ben Franklin and Charlie Parker in turn for being “the living embodiment of down-home sophistication.” And, because he’d brought a quintet and his trumpet along, he added musical illustrations, tracing the progress of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” through Sousa’s marches to the Mickey Mouse Club theme. “I’m trying to tell you all this stuff was connected before the DNA told you,” he said.