The music that didn’t stop
It was a lecture delivered with cornet and clarinet, trombone and tuba, standup bass and bass drum. Wynton Marsalis and an all-star ensemble gave a capacity crowd at Sanders Theatre a musical history of the roots of jazz in New Orleans on Thursday night, raising Memorial Hall’s ornate roof with the transitional sounds of Dixieland. The presentation, “New Orleans: The Birth of Jazz,” concluded a series of six lecture performances at Harvard by the acclaimed managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis’ lecture series, sponsored by the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost, launched in April 2011. The rousing finale to the series brought down the house. Cornetist Marsalis and company — Lucien Barbarin on trombone, Jonathan Batiste on piano, Troy Davis on drums, Vince Giordano on tuba and bass, Victor Goines on reeds, Ricky Gordon on percussion, Marcus Printup on cornet, Don Vappie on banjo...