Wynton Marsalis is one of the best-known faces in jazz the world over, but he holds a special place in the hearts of New Yorkers as the mastermind of this great city’s newest, and, arguably, one of its most magnificent, concert venues.

Last year, Jazz at Lincoln Center celebrated the opening of that venue, Frederick Rose Hall. This year, the spotlight was on its artistic director, Mr. Marsalis, the beloved trumpeter and composer.

“The object is to swing and have a good time, and no one swings harder than the man we are honoring,” the “60 Minutes” journalist and Jazz at Lincoln Center board member Ed Bradley said at the start of the event.

What followed was a joyous and diverse program of music, interspersed with roasting and testimonials (see jazz critic Will Friedwald’s report on page 13 for more details).

The audience delighted over a yearbook photograph of Mr. Marsalis in which he sported an enormous Afro – a far cry from the dapper, Brooks Brothers-clad impresario he is today.

The documentary filmmaker Ken Burns described Mr. Marsalis as “a ferocious force in all our lives – like a hurricane, but a force of startling goodness.” Messrs. Burns and Marsalis worked together recently on a documentary on the boxer Jack Johnson.

The lyrics of George and Ira Gershwin’s “Embraceable You,” which Mr. Marsalis performed with Hank Williams Jr., summed up the feelings toward the horn player from New Orleans, whose family is a jazz dynasty: “My irreplaceable you / Just to look at you / My heart grows tipsy in me / You and you alone.”

Indeed, guests at the affair swooned over Mr. Marsalis, in their fashion, among them Angela Bassett, Peter Cincotti, Tipper Gore, Edward Lewis, Peter Norton, Ashley Schiff, and David Stern.

One man who knew him when is the founding chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Gordon Davis.

“Starting in 1988, when I first worked with Wynton at Lincoln Center, I knew that his unique genius was the key to creating what has become the most important institution in the world devoted to jazz,” Mr. David said.

Just in case hearing Mr. Marsalis play wasn’t enough of a memento, Jazz at Lincoln Center gave the 750 guests a silver toy trumpet, and the satisfaction that $1.88 million had been raised for the institution’s educational programs, which, like Mr. Marsalis’s fame, extend across the country.

***

Bookworms don’t get out much, so it was generous of the New York Public Library to bring nature indoors at its gala Monday night.

Leaves were falling in the Celeste Bartos Forum, where 450 guests sat for dinner, helping to raise nearly $2 million for the library.

The setting, not to mention the mix of cloves and cinnamon perfuming the air, helped the titans – Thomas Lee, Jerry Speyer, Carl Pforzheimer – and the intellectuals – Harold Bloom, Toni Morrison, Sam Tanenhaus – relax.

It wasn’t all an Emersonian ramble, however. Most restorative, perhaps, were the comments about the library by certain of the dignitaries gathered.

Mayor Bloomberg brought humor to the occasion. “Being asked to stand here in front of such a distinguished crowd may be intimidating to some, but since I am an author myself, I can handle it,” he said, referring to his memoir, “Bloomberg by Bloomberg.”

Mr. Bloomberg also thanked the patrons gathered for their support of the library. “Government can’t do everything. We really must depend on New Yorkers like you,” he said.

The five men and women honored as Library Lions commented about their relationship to the New York Public Library in a video presentation.

At the age of 15, Mr. Bloom’s objective became to read his way through the New York Public Library’s flagship at 42nd Street (he’d exhausting the branches near his home in the Bronx). His quest was interrupted by a scholarship to Cornell, but over the years, he’s likely achieved the goal.

The author Shirley Hazzard said she didn’t grow up in a literary family. But when, as an adult, she found the New York Public Library, she was hooked. “Just going here is an experience. I feel more than pleasure, it’s a feeling of openness,” Ms. Hazzard said.

Mike Nichols’s first library was the branch at Amsterdam Avenue, when he was a student at P.S. 87. His first time at the Humanities & Social Sciences Library was to film a scene.

“My biggest use is the library at Lincoln Center, to read the plays I missed and to see what I can steal from other films,” he said.

The New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman spoke of the library’s role in providing people who cannot afford them free access to books and the Internet.

The pianist Billy Taylor, who has a collection of papers and artifacts housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, spoke fondly of the time he spent at the library researching his doctorate.

And there was of course, the chairwoman of the New York Public Library, Catherine Marron. She said she first came to understand “the power and magic” of the library when she was at college, researching her thesis at the Library of Performing Arts.

***

As Andy Borowitz predicted in this column on Monday, he lost the Thurber Prize to Jon Stewart, who wasn’t even present to accept the award. However, Mr. Borowitz fared better in his second challenge of the evening, a StorySlam at the Moth’s annual benefit, in which he tied with Jonathan Ames. The event did have two clear winners, though. For storytelling, the crowd, filled with angst ridden writers, was pleased with the author Gay Talese, who apparently shares their pain.

“Among my distinctive problems is being among the slowest writers in New York,” Mr. Talese said, describing the agony he feels when trying to fill a page. In 1999, he got out of a bout of writer’s block by going to China on a whim (he decided at the Frankfurt airport, just before he was about to board a plane home to New York).

There he came up with the idea for his next book, which is soon to be published by Knopf. “It’s called ‘The Writer’s Life.’ I’d like to recommend the book to you if not the life.”

The most valued author at the event was Malcolm Gladwell. Lunch with Mr. Gladwell garnered $800 at silent auction, which was the highest bid in the “do something with a writer” category. These writers have their priorities straight, though. Rather than hang out with other writers, they spent their money – in the thousands – on the “take a vacation here” category, such as a weekend at a Hamptons estate.

agordon@nysun.com

To submit an event for consideration for the Calendar, please wire the particulars to calendar@nysun.com, placing the date of the event in the subject line.