The Tennessee Williams / New Orleans Literary Festival is a beloved institution — held each year around the birthday of its namesake, and centered around the French Quarter, where he famously lived for a time. (For more than 20 years running, the fest has concluded with a Stella and Stanley Shouting Contest, which I’m sure is as flat-out awesome as it sounds.)

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah at the New Orleans Jazz Market

I’m excited to partake of the festival, and be included on this year’s roster of events. This will take the part of a conversation with David Kunian, music curator at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. We’ll access the ideas and themes in Playing Changes through an appropriate framework: A Tale of Two Trumpeters. (Dickens, not Williams, I know. Should I have called it “The Two-Character Play” instead?)

Wynton Marsalis, who looms large in the book's early chapters, will obviously be one of these New Orleans trumpet players. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, who makes a substantial impression later on, will be the other. Choice musical selections will serve to highlight the topic at hand. We’re going to have some fun with this!