Jazz artist to play tonight

Jazz is the music of choice. Or so says Wynton Marsalis, an award-winning jazz artist, composer and artistic director for jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis said this principle defines jazz, in an interview on the Live From Lincoln Center Web site, www.livefromlincolncenter.org.\n"It's your choice," he said. "You choose how long you're going to play. You choose what register you want to play in. You choose whether you want to play at all."\nStudents and community members can watch these choices come to life as Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra perform at 7:30 p.m. today at the IU Auditorium. \nThe concert is sponsored by Union Board and SFX Entertainment. Tickets are still available for the performance. Student tickets are $33 and $20 for the balcony. Nonstudent tickets are $35 and $22.\nMarsalis said the freedom to choose isn't enjoyed by all musicians.\n"... Musicians, many times we get into a convention and we just play however it is we always played," he said. "But that doesn't say anything about the possibilities afforded by jazz because we have infinite possibilities."\nMarsalis was born in New Orleans, began classical training on the trumpet at the age of 12 and entered The Juilliard School at 17. He made his recording debut as a leader in 1982 and has won eight Grammy awards for his almost 40 classical and jazz recordings. In 1998, he was the first jazz artist to receive a Pulitzer Prize in music, for Blood on the Fields, a musical and vocal epic about slavery in the United States. \nAndy Proctor, a senior and concerts director for Union Board, said the organization chose to bring Marsalis and the orchestra because both groups' schedules coincided.\n"We looked at his tour schedule and we had an opening," Proctor said. "We're really excited to bring him. Expect progressive big band music from some of the finest players in jazz today."\nJazz as played by Marsalis means paying homage to the roots of the genre, said music professor Edmund Cord, who teaches trumpet performance.\n"I wouldn't say that what he plays sounds like Louis Armstrong -- that's not the point," Cord said. "It has to do with keeping alive a vernacular of traditional jazz."\nAlthough some might see this kind of traditional jazz as being in conflict with people attempting to innovate the genre, Cord said there is an important place in jazz for both styles.\n"The development of any art form evolves through a period of time and there is much to build on the work of the people who came before," Cord said. "You cannot progress and develop an art form without innovation. But if it's innovation just for the sake of being different, sometimes that causes things to be a flash in the pan and it falls by the wayside."\nTwo other trumpet players in the ensemble, Seneca Black and Marcus Printup, will attend a master class at the School of Music today. Cord said they will listen to three or four trumpet students play with a rhythm section and then offer suggestions about trumpet and jazz playing. \nThe visit was arranged through the educational section of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and paid for by the School of Music.\n"Most importantly, it will provide a model of sound and performance, so younger players have their imaginations sparked and can see what's possible," Cord said. "(Black) is not much older than a lot of the students here and it's great for students to be able to see what can be accomplished with talent and hard work -- a lot of hard work"