You may know that Wynton Marsalis – trumpet player, music educator, jazz leader, philanthropist and artistic director of jazz at Lincoln Center – has close to 40 jazz and classical recordings. And that he has nine Grammy Awards. And that in 1983 he became the first and only artist to win Grammys in both the classical and jazz categories. And repeated the distinction in 1984. And that he is the director of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, one of the most respected and prestigious collections of jazz musicians in the world. And that he is the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer Prize in music (which he did in 1997 for his work “Blood on the Fields”). And, as if that were not enough, he won the United Nations designation as “Messenger of Peace.”

All you really need to know if you have tickets to Saturday’s sold-out concert at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono is that the guy can wail on the trumpet. And the 15 musicians who make up the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, who will perform with him, ain’t bad either.

Marsalis, who is making his third local appearance in a dozen years, is one of the most popular acts to perform at the Maine Center for the Arts, according to programmers there.

At 40, Marsalis has clearly achieved an early legend-in-his-own-time status because of the long-stretching vision of his musicianship. He has been smart enough to peer backward in time – all the way to Bach and Haydn – and bold enough to look into his own heart to mine not only the influences – Armstrong, Ellington, Blakey (whose Jazz Messengers included Marsalis when he was 17) – but an originality of his own.

Not bad for a boy who started playing funk music in New Orleans garage bands. It didn’t hurt to have Ellis Marsalis, the pianist, as a father, and a slew of musically gifted brothers – Branford on sax, Delfeayo on trombone, Jason on drums. Wynton rose through the ranks by starting out at The Juilliard School and recording his work early. The comparisons to jazz greats came fast and certain. He was only 21 when Maurice Andre – himself a legend – pronounced Marsalis “potentially the greatest trumpeter of all time.”

If that’s not enough to convince anyone of Marsalis’ sure-footed place in jazz history and the annals of American music, consider something more basic. He has always given time to young people, encouraging them to listen to jazz, questioning them about the role of rap in their lives. He stands in his Armani suit and tells them to reach for the stars with music.

During earlier visits to the area, Marsalis offered master classes to music students who crowded in small studios to hear the advice and wisdom of a man not much older than themselves. While Marsalis decided not to offer a class this time – nor did he agree to be interviewed (his handlers say he’s too busy) – two other musicians from

the LCJO will give a master class to local students.

Josh Whitehouse, who teaches trumpet at the University of Maine and has seen Marsalis perform several times, said that many jazz students from around the state will participate in the master class and then attend the concert. Both events are a powerful teaching tool and carry the most important promise of all: inspiration.

“He represents a progression, a long history of jazz and jazz styles,” Whitehouse said of Marsalis. “In him you can hear Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and a little bit of everybody who has played jazz in the last 100 years. He has an amazing ability on the instrument. He gets around the horn effortlessly. He is peerless when it comes to technique. But he has also tried to bring back Duke Ellington and that kind of jazz. He wants it to be treated not as a passing fad but as classical jazz. It’s pretty important work he is doing in that regard.”

While many musicians are quick to praise Marsalis, critics have sometimes found his music lacking in warmth. True or not, the assessment frequently lands in the lap of musicians who garner fame early and hold on tight because they truly are talented.

It’s possible, one might counter, that the best is yet to come from Marsalis. After all, the first permanent home for Jazz at Lincoln Center at the southern tip of Central Park in Manhattan is still under construction. Marsalis does more than 40 concerts a year for that program, and many more concerts on tour – as well as educational and cultural outreach. (In May, he recorded his travels to Brazil and his insights into the implications music has for meaningful cultural exchanges in an article in the New York Times.)

For the lucky few who have tickets to Saturday night’s performance – the program of which is sure to include works by the old guys, from Marsalis’ Brazilian finds, from his own substantial body of compositions, and from a repertoire of more than 200 works – the answer won’t be found in the awards or the honors, or the Lincoln Center programs. It will be, as always, in the music.