When an aspiring young musician of 17 has a chance to get sage advice from one of the great professionals of our day, it often has lasting influence.

After a master class with saxophonist Branford Marsalis Monday, Napa High student Tom Gartner summed up his experience: “It’s great to have someone like Mr. Marsalis to give us ideas.”

Marsalis, known to most Americans as a member of a famous New Orleans-based family, was in Napa for three days of rehearsal and performance — and instruction aimed at the jazz bands from Napa and Vintage high schools.

Harry Cadelago’s contingent from Napa High was first up, and after a brief question and answer session and remarks from Marsalis, Gartner, drum major for the Napa High marching band, interjected, “Well, you want to hear us?”

The band played an arrangement of “Down By the Riverside,” which was followed by pointers from Marsalis.

 “Have any of you listened to Big Band music?” he asked.

 Most had, but not the Ellington and Basie standards from the ’40s and ’50s.

Crescent City roots

And what do they have in common with the music of today?

“Intensity,” Marsalis told them. Intensity in feel but danceable. “Music at its best has nothing to do with technical problems,” he added, encouraging the young players to study and practice, but emphasizing that when it comes to performance, intensity comes from within.

Lacking in the jazz education of most young people today, he said, is a sense of history, an understanding of the roots of the American art form. “At least 90 percent of orchestral musicians have played Baroque music,” said Marsalis, “but young players don’t have all the elements of jazz. It’s all based on the blues, gospel, even a single note.”

Marsalis encourages an intensity in performance and feels that’s an important part of what listeners seek. His latest recording “Bragg-town.” It is a sampling of emotional playing with a variety of tempo and tone color, emphasizing Marsalis’ belief in the roots of jazz. “I’m interested in being a fundamentally sound musician,” he said.

He spoke of his own musical roots as a pop player, a traditional jazz musician in his native New Orleans and his early jazz days in contemporary music, which took a detour with stints as music director of the Tonight Show and playing with Sting.

Marsalis, in an interview between rehearsal sets on Saturday, said he hopes tourists keep on coming to his Katrina-ravaged hometown on the Gulf Coast. “It’s going to be broken for a long time,” he said, adding it was broken before Katrina. “Now it’s worse.”

Marsalis is involved in a New Orleans project known as Musicians’ Village, an enclave that will provide housing for 70 musicians and their families displaced by the hurricane. Nearly a dozen units in the former junior high school will be earmarked for the elderly.

“We have 34 homes now and financing in place for more,” said Marsalis.

Most of the locations such as the French Quarter and its famous Bourbon Street have been restored to their previous state. “The tourists need to come,” said Marsalis, noting the support is a necessary part of the infrastructure rebuilding process for the entire community.

The jazz world just lost one of his contemporaries on the jazz scene, Michael Brecker. While Marsalis and Brecker did not always see eye to eye on music production and style, they were friends. “I kept in contact with him by e-mail,” Marsalis said of Brecker who passed away Jan. 13 from complications of a rare bone marrow disease. “If you’re personally OK, ideological differences don’t matter. It’s based on humanity.”

Reprise

The students played through their tune again, better the second time after some coaching. Bill Gantt’s Vintage High jazz band followed and went through a similar exercise.

Gartner doesn’t think he’ll move toward music as a profession, but, he said, Marsalis taught him “we can shape our sound. I learned a lot about the philosophy of the music.”

The master told his students he’s had a lot of great experiences and played with some of the greats of the jazz world and can’t waste his time on mediocrity. “I’d rather be at Shea Stadium watching the Mets lose than play a bad gig,” he said.

Marsalis concluded, “Play with conviction.”