As a performer, Wynton Marsalis won eight Grammy Awards for his jazz and classical trumpeting skills. As a composer of the jazz oratorio Blood on the Fields, he became the first winner of a Pulitzer Prize for a non-classical composition. As an author, public speaker, public television personality and director of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, he has become a musical diplomat, a 21st-century Leonard Bernstein, lecturing and performing on six continents.

However, if Marsalis is tremendously accomplished, he is almost equally controversial. Many critics and musicians label Marsalis an artistic conservative with exclusionary aesthetic views, and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has been frequently accused of reverse racism and gender discrimination in its hiring practices.

After his recent lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith Education Forum, Marsalis sat down to discuss music and other related issues with Harvard Crimson writer Malik B. Ali and WERS-FM radio personality Simon Rentner.

The Harvard Crimson: Boston was recently visited by Sonny Rollins, whom many people consider to be jazz music's last living legend. Who are some of the great leading jazz musicians of the next generation, in your opinion?

Wynton Marsalis: Well, there's Marcus Roberts, a pianist from Jacksonville, Fl. He's a clear heavyweight.

THC: Would you say that he's spearheading a new jazz movement?