On the first day of the 2009 Essentially Ellington Festival, competition participants had an opportunity to ask questions of virtuoso trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Amongst the brown nosing band nerds asking about Marsalis’ preference for shrimp or oyster, clean cut Garfield pianist Ben Hamaji had something else in mind. He issued his proposal, “I was wondering if you wanted to play some one-on-one.”

All Marsalis said at the time was an indefinite “maybe,” but he could not back down from the challenge. Two days later, Hamaji was promised “a guaranteed butt-whooping,” as he demonstrated his crossover to Marsalis on stage at Lincoln Center.

Nevertheless, at 11:30 p.m. on the last night of the festival, Wynton was nowhere to be seen. Personally, I had given up and gone back to the hotel before receiving a fortuitous text from Frankie Pavia at 12:15 in the morning, “It’s on.”

The court was a converted recording studio on the fifth floor of the Time Warner Building, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The game was to 11, make-it-take-it. Hamaji started with the ball. Marsalis, realizing that he did not have the quickness to defend Hamaji off the dribble, pulled off the ball and let him shoot. Hamaji quickly went up 5 – 0. Then the dream died.

After a fateful missed jumper, Marsalis recovered the ball. It is difficult to overstate the level of stroke demonstrated by Marsalis. He did not miss. Eleven waxed Js later, he had won 11 – 6. The game was finished, but the party lived on. Marsalis continued to showcase his prowess from the perimeter, knocking down 19 out of 20 shots from three-point range.

“He was actually unbelievable,” says Hamaji.

The games continued. Marsalis carried his teams to victory, no matter who he was paired with. All different combinations were attempted. The team of Marsalis and Phil McCarthy even dispatched three jazz band girls, despite Alex Evenson’s stunning shooting performance.

With the undercard completed, third-place Garfield March Madness team Give ‘em the Willis took the court against Marsalis and two security guards. The guards both stood about six-foot-one and were in their twenties. Marsalis and the guards proceeded to run the Showtime offense. Willis had no chance.

Cliff, one of the security guards, happened to possess a mind-blowing vertical leap. At one point Cliff drove around Pavia and threw down an unbelievable reverse dunk all over his face.

“Man, those guys were good,” said Willis star Calvin Moland.

Indeed, it is hard to know exactly what the ceiling was for Marsalis and the security guards. Marsalis claimed that he was recruited out of high school, and Cliff was at least was as athletic as any NBA guard I’ve ever seen.

Hamaji, having been spanked back to Seattle, took it all in stride. “We won Ellington, we played basketball with Wynton Marsalis until two in the morning. Best. Day. Ever.”