In addition to his status as a brilliant instrumentalist and inventive composer, trumpet player Wynton Marsalis will also go down in history as the man who made jazz respectable. While in the '40s and '50s, jazz was mainly played in an environment teeming with liquor, drugs, smoke and hookers, Wynton Marsalis moved the scene to places that have more social standing. Thus he was named artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and he was the first jazz musician to receive the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, in 1997, for his opera Blood on the Fields. In addition, he is a celebrated interpreter of Western classical music and he also writes pieces for string quartet, for instance. Over the years, Marsalis has proved to be a ardent conservator of jazz history. He is an enthusiastic and popular teacher when it comes to the many workshops, lectures and school concerts he gives. He also revealed himself to be an amiable television personality in the show Marsalis on Music. Time Magazine included him in a list of the U.S.'s most influential individuals and Life classified him as one of the fifty most influential baby boomers. Through his efforts, he has managed to convince a whole generation that jazz is essentially the only real American classical music. At North Sea Jazz 2003, Marsalis will be performing with his septet.
