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Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, and music instructor, who is currently the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has been active in promoting Classical music and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, and his 1997 oratorio Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Marsalis is the only musician to have won a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical categories in the same year.
Although he owned a trumpet when he was six years old, he did not practice much until he was 12. He attended Benjamin Franklin High School and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. He studied classical music at school and jazz at home with his father, and he played in funk bands and a marching band led by Danny Barker. Marsalis performed on trumpet publicly as the only black musician in the New Orleans Civic Orchestra. After winning a music contest at the age of 14, he performed Joseph Haydn trumpet concerto with the New Orleans Philharmonic. Two years later he performed Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major by Bach. Aged 17, he was one of the youngest musicians admitted to Tanglewood Music Center. Marsalis applied to only two music colleges, the Juilliard School and Northwestern University. He was accepted to both schools and chose to attend the former.
When asked about influences on his playing style, Marsalis cites Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Harry Sweets Edison, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams, Ray Nance, Maurice André, and Adolph Hofner. Other influences include Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, and Adolph Herseth.
Marsalis has established himself as a lecturer and musical ambassador, a "21st-century Leonard Bernstein" according to one writer.
In 2011, Marsalis and rock guitarist Eric Clapton performed together in a Jazz at Lincoln Center concert. The concert was recorded and released as the album .
In January 2026, Marsalis announced he would step down from his role as artistic director in July 2027, then serving as an advisor through June 2028. Marsalis stated in an interview, "It's the perfect time to identify the next generation of leadership... We want to make sure that we do what we can to nurture what we've already built with the understanding that this is an art form and it will continue to grow and the organization will continue to flourish." However, he will continue to perform on occasion with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
In 2005, Marsalis played at Apple's "It's Showtime" Special Event on October 12, where the new iMac with Front Row, and iPod with Video were introduced. Following this, Marsalis also appeared in an iPod TV ad with his song "Sparks" in 2006.
In December 2011, Marsalis was named cultural correspondent for CBS This Morning. He is a member of the CuriosityStream Advisory Board. He serves as director of the Juilliard Jazz Studies program. In 2015, Cornell University appointed him A.D. White Professor-at-Large.
Marsalis was involved in writing, arranging, and performing music for the 2019 Daniel Pritzker film Bolden.
In addition to Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis has also worked with the Philadelphia Orchestra as a composer for modern classical music. The orchestra premiered a Violin Concerto he composed in 2015, and a Tuba Concerto of his in 2021.
In December 2023, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra announced the extension of Jader Bignamini's contract with the orchestra as its music director through to the 2030–2031 season. At the same time, it announced a plan to record Marsalis's Blues Symphony with the conductor. The album came out in March 2025.
Bassist Stanley Clarke said, "All the guys that are criticizing—like Wynton Marsalis and those guys—I would hate to be around to hear those guys playing on top of a groove!" But Clarke also said, "These things I've said about Wynton are my criticism of him, but the positive things I have to say about him outweigh the negative. He has brought respectability back to jazz."
When he met Miles Davis, one of his idols, Davis said: "So here's the police ..." For his part, Marsalis compared Miles Davis's embrace of rock and pop music (most notably in his 1970 album Bitches Brew) to "a general who has betrayed his country". Marsalis has called rap "hormone driven pop music" and said that hip hop "reinforces destructive behavior at home and influences the world's view of the Afro American in a decidedly negative direction."
Marsalis responded to criticism by saying: "You can't enter a battle and expect not to get hurt." He has said that losing the freedom to criticize is "to accept mob rule, it is a step back towards slavery."
Marsalis was raised Catholic Church.
After his first album came out in 1982, Marsalis won polls in DownBeat magazine for Musician of the Year, Best Trumpeter, and Album of the Year. In 2017, he was one of the youngest members to be inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame.
In 1997, he became the first jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his oratorio Blood on the Fields. In a note to him, Zarin Mehta wrote, "I was not surprised at your winning the Pulitzer Prize for Blood on the Fields. It is a broad, beautifully painted canvas that impresses and inspires. It speaks to us all...I'm sure that, somewhere in the firmament, Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong and legions of others are smiling down on you."
Wynton Marsalis has won the National Medal of Arts, the National Humanities Medal, and been named an NEA Jazz Master. In 2001, he was also named a UN Messenger of Peace.
Approximately seven million copies of his recordings have been sold worldwide. He has toured in 30 countries and on every continent except Antarctica.
He was given the Louis Armstrong Memorial Medal and the Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts. He was inducted into the American Academy of Achievement and was dubbed an Honorary Dreamer by the I Have a Dream Foundation. The New York Urban League awarded Marsalis the Frederick Douglass Medallion for distinguished leadership. The American Arts Council presented him with the Arts Education Award.
He won the Dutch Edison Award and the French Grand Prix du Disque. The Mayor of Vitoria, Spain, gave him the city's gold medal, its most coveted distinction. In 1996, Britain's senior conservatoire, the Royal Academy of Music, made him an honorary member, the academy's highest decoration for a non-British citizen. The city of Marciac, France, erected a bronze statue in his honor for the key role he played in the story of the festival. The French Ministry of Culture gave him the rank of Knight in the Order of Arts and Literature. In 2008, he received France's highest distinction, the insignia Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In 2023, he won the Praemium Imperiale.
He has received honorary degrees from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami (1994), University of Scranton (1996), Kenyon College (2019), New York University, Columbia, Connecticut College, Harvard, Howard, Northwestern, Princeton, Vermont, the State University of New York, and the University of Michigan (2023).
Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group
Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with orchestra)
Best Spoken Word Album for Children
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