“I’m a product of the American music-education system,” Marsalis says from Japan, where he’s touring with his jazz band. “In high school I was playing everything from John Philip Sousa to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. So it’s not hard for me to think of playing and writing in different styles.”
The release of “All Rise,” Marsalis’s first symphony since 1997’s Pulitzer-winning “Blood on the Fields,” was not without its drama–its Los Angeles premiere was Sept. 13, 2001, and the album was recorded on Sept. 14. “It was emotional, but the audience loved it,” he says. “It’s like a spectacle, a combination of many different types of music that you’ve probably never heard before.”
