Here is the lucid and probing voice of an uncommonly soulful man.” There is philosophy in Marsalis’s trumpet, and in this book. When he reflects on the blues, his subject is sorrow and the mastery of it–how to be happy without being blind. When he reflects on harmony, his subject is diversity and conflict and peace. When he reflects on improvisation, his subject is freedom. He thinks as forcefully, and as elegantly, as he swings. “Jazz, for Wynton Marsalis, is nothing less than a search for wisdom. “I think it should be in every bookstore, music store, and school in the country.” In addition to demolishing mediocre, uniformed critics, Moving to Higher Ground is a meaningful contribution to music scholarship.” Intimate, knowledgeable, supremely worthy of its subject. Jazz as an art–and as a way to move people and nations to higher ground–is at the core of this unique, illuminating, and inspiring book, a master class on jazz and life by a brilliant American artist.Īdvance praise for Moving to Higher Ground At the heart of jazz is the expression of personality and individuality, coupled with an ability to listen to and improvise with others.

Marsalis shows us how to listen to jazz, and through stories about his life and the lessons he has learned from other music greats, he reveals how the central ideas in jazz can influence the way people think and even how they behave with others, changing self, family, and community for the better. In this beautiful book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musician and composer Wynton Marsalis explores jazz and how an understanding of it can lead to deeper, more original ways of being, living, and relating–for individuals, communities, and nations.

“In this book I hope to reach a new audience with the positive message of America’s greatest music, to show how great musicians demonstrate on the bandstand a mutual respect and trust that can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life–from individual creativity and personal relationships to conducting business and understanding what it means to be American in the most modern sense.”

Moving to higher ground wynton marsalis