In 1983, at age 22, Wynton Marsalis accepted the highest honor in his field in two fiercely separate genres, jazz and classical, on the same night, then repeated the feat in 1984. This episode charts how a young trumpet prodigy from New Orleans built a sprawling global institution for jazz while igniting some of the most intense debates about what the genre actually is and who gets to play it. Born in 1961 into a musical dynasty, with a father who was an influential music teacher and pianist and brothers who became touring jazz musicians, he received his first trumpet at six from a jazz legend sitting at his father's table, yet did not practice seriously until he was 12.

We follow the acceleration that came next: a classical concerto with a New Orleans Philharmonic orchestra at 14, Bach at 16, an elite summer music center at 17, a New York  ...