I agree about Marsalis. I had a similar experience (although it wasn’t a local thing, it was on a high school trip) and he definitely seems to be very directly, personally involved in promoting the arts instead of just being some big-time pop star who’s got ‘promoting the arts’ as one of their pet causes that they pressure politicians to take up every once in a while.
In Louisiana, around 4th grade (at least when I went to public school there) all kids are to pick up a music instrument. Doesn’t require pushing up NEA grants ($40,000 to shove a yam or bullwhip up a rectum, in the cases of Karen Finelay and Robert Mapplethorpe).