From PRX.

I'm Kurt Anderson, and this is the Studio 360 podcast.

Hi, my name is Sandra Lopez-Monsalbe, a producer here at Studio 360.

In 1997, Winton Marsalis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work, Blood on the Fields,

a two and a half hour jazz oratorio about a couple moving from slavery to freedom.

Jesse thinks not of God, not of heaven, not of justice.

Only his own freedom is on his mind.

It was the first time a jazz composition had ever won,

but even though Wynton Marsalis is best known as a jazz trumpet player, he also is a classical composer himself.

He has written four symphonies and a violin concerto,

and this year he released a recording of his symphony number three,

the Swing Symphony with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra

and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson.

In this podcast extra, Wynton Marsalis sits down with Kurt Anderson to talk about his love of classical music.

He says it all started with a chance encounter on a New Orleans streetcar when he was just a kid.

So a guy went into the back of the street card, a white trumpet player from a college,

which was unusual for a white guy to Duke.

He saw my trumpet case, and he had a trumpet case.

So, wait, as a kid in the in the 70s, you're sitting in the back of the street car because

that's required.

No, no.

You didn't have to.

...