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tv   60 Minutes  CBS  June 22, 2014 7:00pm-8:01pm PDT

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captioning funded by cbs and ford >> simon: like the greeks and the russians, copts are orthodox christians. but they have one thing in common with the roman catholics- - they elect a pope. the final choice is made by a boy who is blindfolded and led to a crystal chalice containing three names. the name on the piece of paper the boy picks becomes the next pope. the copts believe his choice is not a roll of the dice, but is inspired by the divine. ( cheers and applause ) >> say i want to fly right through this hole in the tree, that little gap. i'm going to bring it down, fly back through the hole, right at us. >> safer: drones are operating
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all over america right now. >> there you go. >> safer: and what they're doing is more than you ever imagined. >> governments don't just get to have drones now. your everyday person can go buy a drone on the internet. >> safer: i find that scary, quite honestly. ♪ ♪ >> please help me welcome to the stage marcus roberts. >> marsalis: the good lord giveth, he taketh away. marcus roberts lost his sight, but gained a rare insight into the soul of american music. he's a virtuoso who remembers, as a kid, picking out songs he heard on the radio. >> like, for example, stevie wonder's tune "i wish." ♪ ♪ >> marsalis: well, let me hear the right hand with the left hand. ♪ ♪ ( laughter ) >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl.
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>> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." woman: everyone in the nicu -- all the nurses wanted to watch him when he was there 118 days. everything that you thought was important to you changes in light of having a child that needs you every moment. i wouldn't trade him for the world. who matters most to you says the most about you.
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the first thing that comes to mind is not christianity. but egypt is home to the copts, one of the world's oldest christian communities, with roots dating back to the time of christ himself. back then, the word "copt" meant, simply, "egypt". but after the advent of islam, it came to mean "the christians of egypt" and the name has stuck. copts have never had it easy there. as we first reported last december, they've been persecuted and discriminated against by the muslim majority for centuries. they'd hoped the egyptian revolution would change that. but it hasn't. instead, last summer was one of their worst periods ever. copts were murdered by islamic extremists and dozens of their churches were gutted after egypt's military overthrew the ruling muslim brotherhood government. but our story begins before the onset of all these horrors with a coptic rite we witnessed, one of the most unusual events in all christianity.
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like the greeks and the russians, copts are orthodox christians, but they have one thing in common with the roman catholics-- they elect a pope. ♪ ♪ and in egypt, it's a public ceremony. it all happens in cairo's grand cathedral. this was the first papal election in 41 years, and copts from all over egypt had come for what was likely to be a once-in- a-lifetime experience. it's the last step in a process that has narrowed the candidates for pope down to three. but the final choice is made by a boy who is blindfolded and led to a crystal chalice containing the three names. the name on the piece of paper the boy picks becomes the next pope of coptic christians. they believe his choice is not a roll of the dice, but is
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inspired by the divine. when the name is read out, pandemonium reigns. ( cheers and applause ) the new pope, called tawadros ii, is a 61-year-old pharmacist turned monk, and the 118th pope in a line stretching back to the 1st century. now, in the roman catholic church, a pope is elected, as you know, by secret ballot behind closed doors. and you are selected by a boy... >> pope tawadros ii: yes. >> simon: ...putting his hand in a box. how did that come to pass? >> pope tawadros ii: this is a tradition in the coptic church, choosing the pope through a boy, because the boy is the symbol of purity. >> simon: purity and a young child-- the association is as old as christianity itself.
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copts believe that the baby jesus came to cairo, that his life was saved here. febe armanios, an expert on copts from middlebury college, took us down to the underground chapel of the abu serga church, where the pastor, father angelos shenouda, showed us where the holy family sought refuge from king herod after their flight into egypt. >> febe armanios ( translated ): local traditions say that they lived here, that the virgin mary may have even bathed the baby jesus in that spot there, that you can hear his voice in this room, that he breathed in this room. all of this is part of that memory. >> simon: that's why christians from all over egypt come to coptic cairo to pray. to them, the abu serga church is as sacred as the church of the nativity in bethlehem or the holy sepulcher in jerusalem. but while foreigners used to flock to egypt to see what the pharaohs left behind, very few
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came here or even knew about egypt's christian past. >> armanios: i don't think there's a lot of awareness of egypt's role in the christian story. it's a forgotten community, as many people have called it. >> simon: are coptics a little bit upset about that? >> armanios: i think they would be eager to share their stories. they want to share this story with the world. >> simon: they want people to know that christianity has deep roots in egypt, in places like the eastern desert next to the red sea. we visited st. anthony's, the first christian monastery in the world. father maximous el-antony has been a monk here for four decades. now, i think most people think that the monastic tradition began in what we call "the holy land"-- israel/palestine? >> maximous el-antony: yeah. >> simon: but it began here? >> maximous: yes, it began here, of course, in egypt. >> simon: it began in these mountains, 450 feet above the sands.
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the monks believe it was in that tiny cave that st. anthony, the first christian monk, followed god's instructions to seclude himself in the desert. every night around midnight, monks and novices climb through the darkness to pray here and honor his memory. it was very crowded and very cold. ( chanting ) >> simon: the monks believe that st. anthony's remains are buried near here, and they've been searching for them for centuries. then, in 2003, when they probed beneath the monastery's floor, they made an amazing discovery-- what are believed to be the oldest monk cells in christianity, dating from the fourth century. they lived here. >> maximous: they lived here. >> simon: and there was no church? >> maximous: no church, no cells, no walls, nothing. ( chanting ) >> simon: from nothing, the copts developed a religious culture that's distinctly
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egyptian-- everything from music to art to some of the most magnificent churches of the early christian era. scholars have called the red monastery, "the coptic sistine chapel." its walls are covered with paintings of the church's prophets, saints and martyrs. today, the traditions that were planted in the desert 1,600 years ago have hardly changed. the estimated eight and a half million copts form the largest christian community in the middle east. but in egypt, they are a distinct minority, 10% of the population. when we first met pope tawadros, egypt's first islamist president, mohammed morsi, was still in power. christians were terrified islamic rule was coming their way. by last june, the economy was a shambles. millions of egyptians took to the streets demanding that morsi
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leave. on july 3, egypt's army leader, general el-sissi, announced a military coup on national tv. lending him their support-- civil, military, and religious leaders, including pope tawadros ii. wasn't the mere fact that the pope's picture was taken next to general sissi...? >> heba morayef: dangerous. >> simon: wasn't that enough...? >> morayef: yes. >> simon: ...to incite the brotherhood? heba morayef, who headed human rights watch in egypt, says the pope's support of the military was denounced at muslim brotherhood rallies, which often blamed christians for conspiring to overthrow morsi. when you talk about anti- christian dialogue, what are you referring to specifically? >> morayef: accusations that christians were responsible for the coup, chants that would call christians the pope's "dogs." >> simon: it all came to an abrupt end last august 14, when
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the army crushed two huge muslim brotherhood encampments. close to 1,000 protestors were killed. >> morayef: the dispersal of the two sit-ins on august 14 were the most bloody incidents of police violence we've ever seen in egypt. >> simon: as word of the killings spread, all across egypt, muslim mobs began attacking christian churches. this cell phone video shows one surrounding the coptic church in sohag, 245 miles south of cairo, battering their way in, setting it on fire. it took a while to destroy the cross, but when it finally came down, the crowd began shouting "god is great." over the next two days, devastation like this was visited on more than 40 churches. >> youssef sidhom: we never expected that they will turn so fierce and vicious in their attacks.
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>> simon: youssef sidhom is the editor of egypt's most important coptic newspaper. well, how did you explain it? i mean, why was there such violence? >> sidhom: they were furious about the copts, and they wanted really to punish them for that. >> simon: and right outside cairo, in a town called kerdasa, a mob broke down the gate of another coptic church complex. redha girgis, a caretaker, was there. >> redha girgis ( translated ): they looted everything, from chairs to pews. they stole anything that could be carried. what they couldn't carry, they destroyed. >> simon: how did they set the church on fire? >> girgis: they set the whole place on fire, with molotov cocktails and gasoline. >> simon: and on their way out, the attackers left behind a calling card, graffiti saying that egypt is islamic. the whole complex was gutted. everything was incinerated--
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pews, paintings, bibles. the copts had supported the overthrow of muslim brotherhood rule, were overjoyed when the army took over. but when they saw their churches in flames, they realized they were paying a price for siding with the military and that they were on their own. no one was going to help them. but martyrdom has always been at the core of the coptic religion. suffering, copts believe, deepens their faith. the day we were in kerdasa, they held a service in the only place that hadn't been destroyed. but we were surprised there was no anger, no call for revenge. bishop thomas, one of the church's senior clerics, says whatever pain copts are suffering, they must turn the other cheek, at least for now. >> bishop thomas: forgiveness is a very important principle in
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the christian life. when you are able to present forgiveness and love, you are able as well to ask for justice. one day in this life, justice has to be fulfilled. >> simon: one day, perhaps. but it's not happening now. four copts, including two children, were killed last october when masked gunmen shot them as they arrived for a wedding. thousands attended the funeral for the church's latest martyrs. >> pope tawadros ii: in every period, we must present some martyrs. >> simon: so you think that christianity in egypt requires martyrs today as it has in the past? >> pope tawadros ii: yeah, every day. every day. >> simon: febe armanios believes the violence is one reason people are flocking to charismatic coptic services. she took us to one at st. simon in muquattam in cairo, one of the largest churches in the
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middle east. 2,000 people attended the night we went, and the service was broadcast all over the country. it went on for three hours and ended like no other we had ever seen... with public exorcisms. ( screaming ) have you ever seen anything like this? >> armanios: i've attended some of these ceremonies in this church before. >> simon: and it always ends like this? >> armanios: yeah, there's just a sense in the community of helplessness, of people in need of the priest's blessing, people in need of healing from god, people in need of support. >> simon: they find support in their own history. in a rite of passage unique among christian churches, the cross is tattooed on children's wrists. it hurts a little, but the pain doesn't last.
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it's a tradition that dates back to the middle ages when muslims forced copts to wear the cross as a sign of identity. today, they wear it as a sign of pride. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by: >> glor: good evening. the crisis in iraq has helped push a gallon of gas up four cents in 12 days at a time when prices usually fall. starbucks is boosting prices for some drinks by up to 20 cents on tuesday, and france has cleared the way for ge to acquire the power generation business of alston. i'm jeff glor, cbs news.
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the impersonal killing machines that patrol the badlands overseas, but drones used by the fbi, by university researchers, by amateur photographers, even by your nosy neighbors. as we reported in march, domestic drones are poised to become a multi-billion dollar industry, revolutionizing everything from crop management down on the farm to, possibly, package delivery to your front door. the federal aviation administration is trying to figure out the rules of the road for drones, but for the moment, they're barely regulated. tonight, we offer a quick once- over of just what these gizmos can do. we begin in a park in austin, texas. >> colin guinn: so i'll go ahead and hit "record" and i'll start flying this for you. and then, just slowly tilt up my camera to reveal the city. >> safer: we're looking at the future. >> guinn: and then i can spin around us here...
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>> safer: and whether we like it or not, the future is looking back at us. >> guinn: ...and then come right in on us. there you go. and it's just going to hang out there till we're done with it. >> safer: colin guinn is showing us his flying cameras, his own squadron of drones. these are definitely not your grandfather's model planes. >> guinn: and then this shows me that i have seven satellites in view. >> safer: they navigate by gps signals, this one controlled through a very smart phone. >> guinn: this is a wi-fi repeater that the phone only has to talk this far. and then, this talks to that. >> safer: sensors on board tell the drone exactly where it should be and how to get back home. >> guinn: now, if i take it and i move it over here... if i let it go, where does it go? it knows where it's supposed to
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be. so it goes right back to where it's supposed to be. >> safer: sophisticated as they are, any idiot can fly one. >> guinn: now, just push up on this one. >> safer: up? >> guinn: push up and just let it keep going. just let it keep going. >> safer: and in the hands of someone who actually knows what they're doing, you can get a bird's eye view of things, literally. >> guinn: so say i want to fly right through this hole in the tree, that little gap. so i'm going to bring it down and fly it back through that hole right at us. it takes a little practice to be able to, you know, stick them down through areas like that, but... and there you go. >> safer: ( laughs ) guinn saw the potential of drones early on, and became an entrepreneur, selling small drones for the consumer market. >> guinn: we thought the people that would be buying them would be just your photographers and
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your videographers, right. but what's interesting is that people see this thing flying around and they go, "man, i'm not really too sure what i'm going to take aerial photos or video of, but that thing's really cool and i want one." >> safer: and the pictures they take are often breathtaking. here, a drone hovers over niagara falls, looking straight down. "gadget guys and girls," as guinn calls them, have sent drones weaving their way through the leafy avenues of new york's greenwich village and through the grand canyons of times square. and at the other end of the country, they've watched the endless summer unfold in hawaii, the surfer dudes in paradise. young gadgets for a young crowd. i noticed the average age in this business seems to be somewhere in the 20s say, right? >> guinn: absolutely, it's definitely a very young business. >> safer: increasingly, drones are being used for much more than fun and games-- environmental research, for example. they monitor marine wildlife off
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the washington coast. and there are other uses. >> guinn: anything from a farmer that wants to take a photo every week of his crops to look for hot spots, to know where to not use too much pesticide or where they might need to add more water. >> safer: they help the forest service battle wildfires. >> guinn: they can just monitor it. they can be 200 feet in the air, looking at this fire. where is it moving? there's a ton of environmental uses-- to fly around after an earthquake or after a flood and see what the damage is and... and, you know, who needs help. >> safer: indeed, after the 2011 tsunami in japan damaged a nuclear reactor, drones flew in to measure radiation when it was still too dangerous for humans. and after last year's typhoon in the philippines, they surveyed the devastation, flying lower than any helicopter or plane could do. >> michael toscano: we have a saying that we build unmanned systems for the four ds-- that's the dirty, dangerous, difficult and dull missions.
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>> safer: michael toscano presides over the world's biggest trade show for drones. he heads the association for unmanned vehicle systems, which is what he'd prefer you call them. you don't like people calling them "drones"? >> toscano: well, "drones" is... most people, when they hear the word "drone," think of something that's military, something that's large, a system that's weaponized, something that's hostile. and that's not what we're talking about. >> safer: i'll call them drones. >> toscano: you can call them drones. >> come on in. >> safer: to the first-time visitor, the drone show is part sci-fi, part video extravaganza, and part old-fashioned sales pitch, reflecting the steady movement of the technology from military to civilian use. >> toscano: the manufacturing of these systems is a whole new industry, so these are new jobs that are being created. >> safer: the big defense contractors are here, but so are the gadget guys and the software
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developers who write the code for piloting, or simply monitoring, unmanned aircraft from the ground. >> missy cummings: we're actually moving from a tom cruise "top gun" persona to the geeky "revenge of the nerds" persona, right? >> safer: we toured the floor with missy cummings, a former navy fighter pilot, now a professor in charge of drone research at both m.i.t. and duke university. she's become an expert on teaching new drones new tricks. just give me a sense of how big this industry is, as we speak. >> cummings: most of the dramatic leaps in technology will now be happening in the commercial sphere. we will see small drones that deliver wedding cakes. we will see large drones that deliver your fedex packages. we will see medium-size drones that do air quality management. >> safer: there's something spooky about no windshield. >> cummings: it is spooky, right? >> safer: this experimental medivac chopper can be programmed to fly itself if need be; an on-board pilot is optional. >> cummings: this helicopter
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will take itself off, navigate itself, land itself, and then you will load that injured person and it will fly off, back to the trauma center, all by itself. this kind of helicopter in the future will be how first response missions are done all over the world. >> safer: so put your styrofoam gadget together. on the other end of the scale, it takes just a minute or so to assemble the skate, an almost- lighter-than-air drone equipped with night vision. american troops in afghanistan use it to seek out enemy forces. and weighs... >> about two pounds. >> safer: i would say nothing. the common denominator in the world of most drones is the camera. small drones deliver perfect high-definition pictures. and more sophisticated cameras are able to track vehicles and people from great distances. looking around the hall, our crew had the sense, once again, that the future was looking back at them.
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the issue that really comes to mind is the issue of privacy. i mean, these machines are all peeping toms. >> cummings: all sensors are peeping toms. and so anything that you have that's electronic is a peeping tom. i would say, probably, your greatest privacy invasion is your cell phone, if not your facebook account. yes, there are potentially flying cameras everywhere, except that in many cities, there are cameras everywhere. >> safer: cummings and others argue that, like it or not, we live in a surveillance society. and that using a drone for pictures is no different than using high-powered binoculars or telephoto lenses. others aren't so sure. >> dianne feinstein: the privacy concerns are very, very major. >> safer: dianne feinstein is chairman of the senate intelligence committee, which oversees spying at home and abroad. she's a defender of the n.s.a.'s controversial telephone
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tracking, but is troubled by the proliferation of drones over america. >> feinstein: this is a whole new world now, and it has many complications. and the question is, how does it all get sorted out? what is an appropriate law enforcement use for a drone? when do you have to have a warrant? when don't you have to have a warrant? what's the appropriate governmental use for a drone? >> safer: a recent government report says the fbi has been using small drones in "very limited circumstances" for the last seven years, to track suspects and photograph crime scenes. customs and border protection, which operates unarmed predator drones along the border, has flown them on behalf of other law enforcement agencies hundreds of times in recent years. >> feinstein: when is a drone picture a benefit to society? when does it become stalking? when does it invade privacy?
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how close to a home can a drone go? >> safer: for feinstein, it's not a hypothetical question. >> feinstein: i'm in my home and there's a demonstration out front, and i go to peek out the window and there's a drone facing me. ( laughter ) well, whoever was running it turned it around quickly and it crashed. >> safer: the demonstrators, who were protesting government surveillance, say it wasn't a drone, just a toy helicopter. but as questions about their use loom larger, camera drones are getting smaller. there's one that looks like a hummingbird; another that flaps its wings like a dragonfly. once this genie's out of the bottle, how do you stop this? >> feinstein: well, it's going to have to come through regulation-- perhaps regulation of size and type for private use. secondly, some certification of the person that's going to operate it. and then, some specific
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regulation on the kinds of uses it can be put to. >> safer: feinstein counsels going slow on drone development. drone advocates think the process is moving too slowly, especially since the machines are already out there in the marketplace. >> cummings: governments don't just get to have drones now. your everyday person can go buy a drone on the internet. >> safer: well, i find that scary, quite honestly. >> cummings: a little scary, you know. and i'm always worried that my students are trying to fly a drone over to my office window and peek in on me and see what i'm doing. but i'm willing to accept the possible negative consequences of the technology, because it's revolutionizing science and technology in a way that, particularly in the aerospace industry, we have not seen in 25 years. >> safer: so when will a drone be at your front door? it makes for great fun on youtube videos, as in this spoof from netflix, but the idea of amazon or fedex or, indeed, domino's doing home deliveries in the next couple of years is
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just pizza pie in the sky. there are too many issues of privacy, safety, and liability to work out. in the meantime, time and technology wait for no one. what do you see, in reality, is the future of these devices? >> guinn: i wouldn't be surprised if, you know, one in five people owns some kind of small, flying camera that they can use to take aerial photos and videos with, you know, and that's a lot of people. >> safer: and as with any technology, new uses tend to pop up that nobody could foresee. on our sunday in the park with drones, we discovered that man never needs to exercise the dog again. just sic the drones on him. here at fidelity, we give you the most free research reports, customizable charts, powerful screening tools, and guaranteed 1-second trades. and at the center of it all
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>> pelley: now, wynton marsalis, jazz great and cbs news cultural correspondent on assignment for "60 minutes." >> marsalis: who's the greatest american musician most people have never heard of? to me, it's marcus roberts. i'm biased, because marcus worked in my band when he was just starting out. but anybody who's heard him at the piano usually agrees-- he's a fearsome and fearless player, and a homegrown example of overcoming adversity with excellence. marcus went blind when he was five years old, and soon began trying to make sense of life in the darkness. he was unusually curious, and even tore his toys apart just to find out how they worked. marcus roberts developed a powerful analytical intelligence, capable of producing music that will move your mind as well as your body. as we first reported earlier this year, the story of his genius begins with a precious gift from his parents, a piano.
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>> marcus roberts: i remember coming home from school one day. i walked in the house. i had no idea they had the piano, and i actually ran into it. ( laughter ) i said, "what is this?" and then, i figured it was a piano. i swear, that's, like, one of the most, like, gratifying, exciting days of my life. ♪ ♪ >> please help me welcome to the stage, marcus roberts! ( applause ) ♪ ♪ >> marsalis: the good lord giveth, he taketh away. marcus roberts lost his sight, but gained a rare insight into the soul of american music. he's a virtuoso, a monster musician. ♪ ♪ he's an icon to a whole generation of jazz players-- not just a thrilling performer, but a composer, too, of innovative modern music who remembers, as a kid, picking out songs he heard on the radio.
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>> roberts: like, for example, stevie wonder's tune "i wish." ♪ ♪ >> marsalis: well, let me hear the right hand with the left hand. ♪ ♪ ( laughter ) so, did you ever feel some type of kinship or relationship to stevie because he also was blind? >> roberts: i think so. >> marsalis: in childhood, he taught himself the basics, playing with four fingers on each hand because no one told him you could use the thumb. some dedicated music teachers straightened him out along the way. and after years of practice and sheer determination, marcus today is a walking encyclopedia of america's jazz heritage, with the dna of pianists long gone in his fingertips. ♪ ♪ we gave him a musical test-- play a familiar tune in different styles.
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>> roberts: let's take "america the beautiful," for example. ♪ ♪ >> marsalis: first, as it might have been played by erroll garner, a legend from half a century ago. ♪ ♪ what about james p. johnson? ♪ ♪ in the early 20th century, johnson took ragtime and made it swing. ♪ ♪ what about thelonious monk? monk was the modernist, the picasso of the piano. ♪ ♪ what about duke? >> roberts: duke would be kind of... ♪ ♪
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>> marsalis: he heard duke ellington, one of the pillars of american music, on the radio in 1975, and it changed his life. >> roberts: they were playing "catch the 'a' train." ♪ ♪ >> marsalis: "catch the 'a' train"? >> roberts: yeah. i mean, that's what i used to call it. >> marsalis: "take the 'a' train"-- you called it "catch the 'a' train"? >> roberts: that's what i called it back then, yeah. "take the 'a' train." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> marsalis: hearing ellington's band, louis armstrong and other jazz greats, 12-year-old marcus roberts was hooked, compelled to figure out the sounds he heard, taking them apart as he'd done with his toys. >> roberts: it was just swinging. there was a quality to it that made me feel good. like, figuring it out, something about that made me feel better about myself. ♪ ♪
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>> marsalis: nearly 40 years later, he's at the top of his game, improvising here on the music of jazz legend chick corea. the way marcus gets around the keyboard even amazes other pianists, including corea himself. >> chick corea: marcus embodies a perfect kind of art, in my mind. you can see that marcus absorbed a lot of the history of music, but then comes with a rendition that is completely marcus roberts. ( plays "rhapsody in blue" ) ( cheers and applause ) >> marsalis: for instance, this performance a few years back that marcus calls one of the greatest experiences of his life, playing his take on george gershwin's "rhapsody in blue" with the berlin philharmonic and conductor seiji ozawa before 18,000 people. ♪ ♪
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♪ ♪ a lot of it's improvised, spur of the moment. gershwin, not a bad pianist himself, would have been knocked out. ♪ ♪ ( cheers and applause ) marcus grew up in jacksonville, florida, across the tracks from downtown and deep in the 'hood, where his mother still lives. as a little kid, wherever there was a piano, he'd try to unlock the mystery of the keys. so his mother and his father, a longshoreman down on the jacksonville docks, scrimped and saved for that piano marcus could call his own. >> coretta roberts: he went right to it, and went to playing "mary had a little lamb." ( laughs ) >> marsalis: his mother coretta
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is sightless, too, blinded by glaucoma. she remembers the pain of having to leave school in the seventh grade because she couldn't see the blackboard. >> coretta roberts: it was just like i had lost a loved one or something. >> marsalis: and by the time he was five, severe cataracts blinded marcus as well. how did your parents explain your blindness to you? >> roberts: they really didn't explain it. they just taught you how to do stuff for yourself. that was the main thing. >> marsalis: marcus told me that you were never about self-pity or feeling bad about yourself. >> coretta roberts: oh, no, no. ( laughs ) i got adjusted to it and accepted it as it was god's will. >> roberts: she showed you by example. i mean, she could do a lot of stuff that to this day i can't really do. like, she can iron clothes, she can cook, she knows how to, like, run a household. >> marsalis: he taught himself enough to get his first gig at the silas missionary baptist church, on this very piano. it's out of tune but still quite
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soulful. ♪ ♪ >> sister murray: i remember him. >> marsalis: sister murray used to lift marcus up on the piano bench. his mama said, when he first started playing, he didn't sound good. >> murray: ooh. he got better. he could really play and he could sing. >> marsalis: oh, he could sing at the same time? >> murray: oh, yeah. >> marsalis: and then, where you hold chords out is real important in gospel music. so they'll be playing... ♪ ♪ he learned the gospel style-- music for praise, for consolation, and for teasing a few more coins into the collection plate. when you really wanted the church to get more intensity, give me an example of something you would do to have some intensity to it. ♪ ♪ ♪
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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> roberts: maybe something like that. ( laughs ) >> marsalis: when marcus was ten, his parents sent him to the florida school for the deaf and blind, down the road in st. augustine, where a music teacher, also blind, changed his life. hubert foster introduced marcus to bach and beethoven. that's marcus on the sax. foster taught him more about jazz, and how to read musical scores in braille. >> roberts: he was an amazing man. his biggest point was that, he just said, "look, you don't want to be ignorant, because if you add ignorance with not being able to see, you're going to have a rough life." ( laughs ) he said, "that's not going to work out for you." >> marsalis: so you embraced education? >> roberts: yeah, absolutely. i didn't want to be participating in this "noble savage" notion of being an artist who doesn't really know what he's doing.
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>> marsalis: we took marcus back to the school for a homecoming with some of the people who knew him as a kid, like vicky palmer. >> vicky palmer: he was just a good, genuine young man. every time i hear his name, i say, "oh, that was one of my students." ( plays "sweet georgia brown" ) >> marsalis: for the current crop of blind music students, we put in a good word for jazz. marcus remembers being inspired here by a visiting musician long ago. we figured we might just do the same. >> i was wondering... >> marsalis: one young man wanted some pointers, and played us a tune he liked. ♪ ♪ he soon found himself in a duet with the master.
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>> roberts: the same way that this young man came up and had the courage to come down and play... ( applause ) that's the same courage that you all have to have when you go out into the world. you got to go out into the world with confidence, but you want as much information as you can get your hands on. >> marsalis: information-- learning-- is at the heart of marcus's world. he travels with various devices that let him email, surf the web, even write music in braille. and he has a devoted band of young musicians who record and perform with him. ricardo pascal decided to give up computer science and study instead with marcus. >> ricardo pascal: he's one of the patriarchs right now of this music. >> marsalis: back in jacksonville, we celebrated his 50th birthday, making him an official elder statesman of jazz. the mother who told him to find success in adversity was there. and so was the spirit of the father who did without, so
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marcus could have that piano. and for the man who can play just about anything, we had one more challenge. one final test for you. >> roberts: ( laughs ) >> marsalis: art tatum. >> roberts: oh, no. good lord. okay. >> marsalis: what you got? ( plays "someone to watch over me" ) art tatum was probably the greatest jazz piano virtuoso ever. in the tatum style, marcus plays the gershwin tune "someone to watch over me," remembering the parents, teachers, and fellow musicians who watched over him and set him on his way. can anyone top tatum? "never," says marcus. >> roberts: but you know what? it's about the search for it. ♪ ♪ the search for that higher level of virtuosity, that higher level of intimacy with music. if you are one of the lucky ones
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to be able to do what you actually want to do, then you are blessed. ♪ ♪ ( cheers and applause ) >> what happens when two jazz greats sit down for an interview? go to 60minutesovertime.com. t. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap.
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previously on elementary... joan watson, meet gareth lestrade. my relationship with lestrade started as a marriage of convenience. because i prefer to work in anonymity, the glory of my casework was accrued to him. over the years, he became accustomed to the spotlight. he began to crave it. you might say, i turned him into an addict. i'll thank you not to take credit for any of my insights into the case.