When Wynton Met Willie

Wynton wears crisp suits, reads sheet music and is the musical director of New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center. Willie wears crumpled jeans, wings it onstage and runs his concert venue, Willie's Place, out of a truck stop in Abbott, Texas. So what exactly do these music legends have in common? The blues, of course. Wynton Marsalis, 46, and Willie Nelson, 75, are the two men on the new CD "Two Men With the Blues," a live recording culled from two concerts they played at Lincoln Center last year. "I like playing with Wynton," says Nelson, "because you know the piano player won't show up drunk, and whatever comes out of it, it'll be worth the listen." They are playing venues including the Hollywood Bowl and "The Tonight Show" between breaks on Nelson's tour and Marsalis's Lincoln Center duties. Recently, the two chatted with NEWSWEEK's Lorraine Ali in Nelson's second home—his airbrushed, tricked-out tour bus:

ALI: Your collaboration has been described as "a summit meeting between two American icons."
NELSON: I like the way they put that.

MARSALIS: I'm not an icon, he is.

NELSON: I thought an icon was one of those things on your computer screen. I'm not one of those.

MARSALIS: OK, I say this modestly—this is a historic event. It's not a big surprise to have Wynton and Willie playing together, but to have this much attention for it, that's a surprise.

But the attention makes sense: both of you are highly respected, and Willie, you can't go anywhere without being recognized.
NELSON: I'm offended if I don't get recognized. I say, "Hey, man, don't you know who I am? Perhaps you didn't realize."

MARSALIS: My son always says, "I want to repudiate you, Dad, but nobody knows who you are. When I have to explain who I'm repudiating, it's not really worth it."

Willie, I imagine you as an off-the-cuff player, but with Wynton, there's the whole issue of keeping time. Is that a problem?
NELSON: Well, it's a little different than when we just go up there and wing it for four hours and play requests. This has to be exactly right, especially because Wynton and the guys are reading off pieces of paper, and I'm just up there trying to remember words. These guys have a lot more to do and think about than I do. For me, it's a free ride on top of their rhythm and rockin'.

MARSALIS: He'll come in with a phrase, and we'll think, "Uh-oh, he ain't gonna make it fit." And then he'll collect it on the back end. It's like somebody jukin' or fakin' on a basketball court. They take you this way, then come back that way. He'll come in perfectly on key, on time, and we're, like, "Damn!" It's so natural and true.

Do you see yourself as an odd couple?
MARSALIS: No. As musicians, we like a lot of the same things.

NELSON:Louis Jordan's "Caldonia."

MARSALIS: Yeah, that's right, or "Saturday Night Fish Fry." See, we came up on the same sounds.