A Greater Need

Ellis Marsalis wouldn’t have been the first musician to need a day job. Nor would he have been the first to supplement his income with a teaching gig. In fact, it seems that at one time or another, a disproportionate number of musicians have entered the classroom not only as a means of feeding their nocturnal habits, but also as a way to feed themselves and their families. It’s not surprising, really, given that teaching certificates take considerably less time and work to obtain than say, a law or medical degree, and for those who teach only band classes, certification is sometimes waived. In addition, the hours are good (unless you’ve got the 8am class), the vacations long, and the benefits decent.

But teaching is more than just a matter of convenience for many musicians. To some, like Marsalis, teaching is an essential component of their craft. More than simply passing along certain skills, teaching bridges the same gap as playing music. Like the gifted musician, the best teachers unlock our minds, sparking imagination and helping us realize potential we never even knew we had, and that, whether consciously or unconsciously, is what every artist in every medium strives for. The need to create is fed by a greater need to communicate and impart knowledge, beauty, and a sense of greater humanity. Sound familiar? Teaching, at its highest level and deepest commitment, is about those same values.

“I never really wanted to use teaching as just a job to make some money,” says Marsalis over the phone from his home in New Orleans. “I always wanted to be able to either learn something and/or contribute to the development of some students, even as a band director. I wanted it to be about something.” Taking into account that the 62-year-old jazz pianist and one-time tenor saxophonist includes Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Nicholas Payton, Harry Connick, Jr., Jesse Davis, and Marlon Jordan among his pupils – as well as sons Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason – being a teacher has obviously been “about something.”

A native son of the Crescent City, Marsalis began hustling gigs in the late Fifties, and by the following decade had already become a respected pianist, playing with such legends as Nat and Cannonball Adderley, Alvin Batiste, Jimmy Rushing, and Al Hirt. Midway through the Sixties, however, about five years into his marriage, the Marsalis brood was growing quickly (Branford being born in ’60, Wynton in ’61, Delfeayo in ’65), so Ellis took a teaching job to “supplement the household,” beginning as band instructor and later taking an adjunct teaching position at Xavier University. From that point on, Marsalis taught regularly, and estimates that “about half” the household income was derived from the classroom. Today, he is the Director of the jazz studies program at the University of New Orleans, a position he’s held for the past eight years.

Despite a solid track record as an educator and a list of distinguished musical alumni associated with his name, Marsalis’ lasting legacy as an educator remains the fact that four of his six children are successful, respected jazz musicians. When asked about this, the elder Marsalis downplays his role in his sons’ career path, saying it’s common for families “down here” to be involved with music. Instead, he credits school, more specifically the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.

“Sure, I wanted them to have the experience,” says Marsalis. “My wife and I both did. Like my wife took ’em to art camps in the summertime when they were growing up. But they did the normal things – they played little league ball. Wynton was a pitcher. They played little league football, and they spent a certain amount of time with the city game – the hoops, basketball. And they played in the marching band. But ultimately they made the decision to become musicians based upon what they understood was available to them. They went to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, which is a public school whose curriculum was the arts. There was five disciplines: music, theatre, dance, creative writing, and visual arts. They went to that school and studied music. So, coming out of high school, they had a real good understanding of some fundamentals – especially fundamentals of Western music.”

Unfortunately, Fundamentals of Western Music isn’t exactly a required class in most school curriculums.

“Just think,” posits Marsalis. “Suppose we had music instructors for kids at the same age that kids have instructors for little league. Suppose we had the same amount of music instructors as junior highs and high schools have coaches. Suppose the legislature mandated music the way they mandate phys-ed. We lose not because anything is wrong with people. We lose because the people who are in positions of authority deal at the level of least resistance. Especially when it come to the arts.”

And at this level, not much is happening.

“No, it’s not happening,” he says adamantly. “When it comes to public education today, I have a lot of problems. I don’t think anything of very much of substance is being taught, period. But that’s a whole other story. I mean, when it comes down to it, the amount of people that are sort of forced to go to school becomes a very sizable number, and if you’re in an inner city school, the idea that the supreme test of success in public education is a score on a standardized test is, to me, really ludicrous. When it comes down to it, you may be able to draw fantastically, but unless you score a certain thing on a standardized test, whatever talent you have is not even considered. I mean, the NCAA pimps off of that a lot. They won’t even let you play ball unless you score a certain thing on the ACT or whatever. Of course, if you’re good enough, you can bypass them anyway…

“But what I’m really saying is when it comes down to it, what comes from studying one of the arts disciplines is an intangible reward. There’s no way to really measure that. So consequently, it becomes a little suspect when it comes to school, you know. At some point in time, the whole idea of the arts, which is a term over which the word `creativity’ sort of flies under, is really a good thing for the community – for the nation as a whole. You see, because creative thinking, there’s no shortcut to that. There’s no shortcut to creative thinking at all.”

No, there isn’t, which makes its nurturing all the more important. Whether in the classroom, the home of a private tutor, or in clubs, museums, and galleries, the importance of the arts – and jazz in particular – must be passed down from one generation to the next. And if a youngster should choose a career in the arts, then they face a whole other issue entirely: economic survival. Take jazz, for example. Though widely acknowledged as one of this country’s most important contributions to world culture, making one’s living as a jazz musician, especially here in Austin, can be a constant struggle. Like musicians of any genre, jazz musicians, facing the economic realties of feeding themselves and perhaps a family, face an uphill battle, one in which becoming a part-time teacher to supplement one’s income may not be the boon, but rather the bane of one’s existence. What does one say to someone facing this decision?

“Well, there really isn’t much that you can say,” answers Marsalis. “I mean, it’s just like those guys that go out and play for the University of Texas. What do the coaches tell them? How many of them are gonna make it into the NFL? I mean, when they get out there on that field, they gotta be playing for some reason, you know? I’m sure there’s a goodly percentage of them aren’t that concerned about making it in the NFL. And some of them aren’t even gonna even try.”

But you yourself sent four kids to the pros, not to mention a world-class talent like Terence Blanchard. What did you do? What did you say? What’s the secret to being an educator, a motivator?

“Well, I don’t really know, man. I’m also about skills. I tell kids all the time, `Hey man, it’s all about skills.’ Because if you don’t have the skills, everything else becomes a moot point. If you do have the skills, then it puts you in a position to be competitive…

“If you got a school like the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts with a good faculty, basically those kids can experiment with time. You know, they can come to the school and stay there for a year, check it out, and see if they really want to try and make it in the arts. What we really need is a way to introduce people to various realities of what any particular situation is about. Medical schools do a fairly decent job of acquainting people with the ways of life, and what it’s like to be one of them. When it comes to music, music is presented in such a fantasy way, because it becomes essentially whatever anyone wants to think it is. There’s some people who think that jazz is what Kenny Gorelick plays, and that it doesn’t matter…

“It’s that age-old story: I’m all in favor of it, but not in my neighborhood. People are interested in being amused and jazz doesn’t really amuse very many people. That’s basically the way it is.”

This article appears in June 13 • 1997 and June 13 • 1997 (Cover).