Around The World In A Single Stroke
Wynton Marsalis and Drue
Photo Courtesy Frank Stewart, J@LC

WYNTON MARSALIS QUOTE ON ENSO 2008

Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center

Music’s Jazz Maestro

" Drue has done so much to forward the idea that we have of the integrated arts and of people coming together, and that's kind of a modern movement but it's been a part of jazz since the beginning because jazz music was created when people actually came together. She's a powerful advocate for the arts in many different ways — a woman of peerless intellect, not just talking about what she's doing — any subject classical mythology jazz... she's a person who believes in knowledge and that's what makes her so important and special for a younger person. [Drue] is a representation of the Enso, because what you are looking at is not what you are seeing, but it is what you seeing. It's like the blues it's happy and it's sad, the blues is a cycle it starts and stops and it starts again, and the blues, you heard the wonderful piece she played, it sounded like the blues, when she started bending the notes. The blues is related to everything and the blues is everything. It's all that you'd ever want to know. It's all that you know. It's all that you could wish to know. It's Mahalia Jackson and its Bessie Smith. It's Duke Ellington and its Louis Armstrong. She's the type of young people we want to encourage so I think that what Drue represents is very important. She's traveling around the world presenting her artwork, her poetry, her performance, but even more importantly her presence and the level of intelligence and sophistication and nuance that she brings to every occasion and situation. We need so much more of that in the world, so much more actual active intelligence and artistry so I'm honored to be here. "

Wynton Marsalis