(www.dukeellington.com)

(www.dukeellington.com)

I didn't listen to Duke Ellington's music until I left home in New Orleans for college in New York. I was about 18 or 19 years old, and that’s when I discovered for the first time that jazz could be so sophisticated. Duke's work was an entirely original blend of New Orleans jazz, blues, spirituals, American folk music, and various European forms--a complex brew that was uniquely itself. I was overwhelmed. I started really getting into his music and reading books by and about him, like his autobiography, Music is My Mistress. What came through was his love of life, the depth of his intelligence, his dedication to American music, and his work ethic. He always said the bags under his eyes were the symbols of his virtue: He would stay up all night working on his music. He partied, too; he was justifiably celebrated for that as well.

(www.dukeellington.com)

Duke Ellington moved to New York at the start of what is called the Harlem Renaissance. But when he was the featured player at the Cotton Club in Harlem, blacks were only allowed on stage, not in the audience. When he toured, he rented a train with sleepers and dining cars so his musicians wouldn't have to face segregated hotels and restaurants and other incidental forms of social ignorance. His extended pieces from Black Brown and Beige to A Tone Parallel to Harlem were the inspiration for my oratorio about slavery, Blood On The Fields. That piece details in music what I feel it takes to achieve soul: the willingness to address adversity with elegance. That's what Duke did--address adversity with elegance.

(www.dukeellington.com)

Duke Ellington composed and performed right up until his death in 1974, at the age of 75. He dedicated himself to living a life of music. I knew that I wanted that life when I was 12. (I started playing when I was six, but I didn't start practicing until I was 12!) I was always around musicians; my father Ellis Marsalis is a pianist and music educator. He inspired me to become a musician, and he’s my hero as a teacher.

When everyone else was saying don't waste your brain on music, musicians don’t do anything but struggle, and they can't make any money, my father said, "The only advice I can give you is, if you go into music, don't have nothing to fall back on. Because if you have something to fall back on, you'll fall back."

From my father and Duke Ellington I learned the value of nonstop learning--I still take the occasional lesson--of practicing, of being a responsible and responsive part of a group, of having a good time, of embracing difficult things. I've won lots of awards, but ceremonial honors, while a lot of fun, aren’t that important to me. I think I won more Grammys and things when I was younger. I really never knew why I was winning them back then. With awards you never know. The greatest reward is all those people who bring their kids to me and wait around for me to give them lessons. That's a true award. Sometimes they bring a pie or some cookies and stuff to say thank you.

Copyright 2005 by The MY HERO Project

MY HERO thanks Wynton Marsalis for contributing this essay to My Hero: Extraordinary People on the Heroes Who Inspire Them.

Thanks to Free Press for reprint rights of the above material.

ON THE BOOKS...