Marsalis: Let’s Support Young Talent

Wynton Marsalis, who’ll be doing three concerts next week in Southern California, is impatient with fans and critics who feel that too many young jazz players are being heralded prematurely.

“A lot of people told me when I was growing up that my style was not fully developed,” said trumpeter Marsalis, who at 29 was hailed as one of jazz’s brightest lights for almost a decade. “So what? It’s OK to watch something develop.

“In other forms of music, there are so many young players. Playing is the only way for them to learn. My whole thing is to support them, not cut them down in any way. I’d just like to hope that their focus is on making music, not record sales or publicity.”

Marsalis, who leads his sextet Thursday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, next Friday at Claremont College and April 13 at UCLA’s Royce Hall, said that while many people see his success as influencing many youthful players to embark on jazz careers, he says there’s a long tradition of bandleaders--from Dizzy Gillespie to the late Art Blakey--hiring younger players.

“Blakey was a key catalyst,” Marsalis said in a recent interview. “He always gave a young musician a chance to play. Young musicians like myself, (trumpeters) Terence Blanchard, Wallace Roney, (saxophonists) Branford (Marsalis), Jean Toussaint, all flocked around (Art).”

On his current tour, Marsalis is joined by the same septet that accompanied him on his 1989 visits here--Todd Williams, tenor sax; Wes Anderson, alto sax; Wycliffe Gordon, trombone, Eric Reed, piano; Reginald Veal, bass, and Herlin Riley, drums.

In the three concerts, the group will perform material from his early albums as well as his just-released “Standards Time, Volume Two.”

Rim Shots: Student ensembles from California Institute of the Arts, prepared and rehearsed by flutist James Newton and drummer Tootie Heath, will highlight the Charles Mingus Scholarship concerts. The concerts are being held at 8 p.m. Saturday in the CalArts Main Gallery in Valencia and 4 p.m. Sunday at the Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles. At the concerts, a scholarship--named after the renowned bassist/composer--will be given to a youth from L.A.’s inner city.

Information: (818) 367-5507.

In the Bins: Texas tenor saxophonist James Clay is in good company. Pianist Cedar Walton, bassist David Williams and drummer Billy Higgins join him on his Antilles Records debut, “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart,” culling items from the jazz (“I Mean You”) and standard (“Body and Soul”) repertoires. . . . Higgins is also spotlighted with piano giant Hank Jones on bassist Ray Drummond’s “The Essence” (DMP Records).