Faces to Watch in ’96 : The Year’s in Their Hands : Well, maybe not just theirs (notice we don’t list Jim Carrey). But these artists and entertainers--some you know, some you don’t--are most likely to make some kind of splash in ’96. Ready? Everybody into the pool. : JAZZ : Wynton Marsalis

It may appear redundant to list Wynton Marsalis, surely the most visible jazz musician around, as one of the important faces for 1996. But the recent decision by the board at New York’s Lincoln Center to elevate the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, for which Marsalis serves as artistic director, to equal status with the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet, is an extraordinary acknowledgment of the impact that the trumpeter-composer-bandleader is having upon the music.

Marsalis, 34, is surely going to see his authority dramatically enhanced in the coming year, not just in New York, but throughout the world via the international concerts and events from Jazz at Lincoln Center, the videos in his Leonard Bernstein-influenced PBS television series, “Marsalis on Music,” and his continuing NPR radio show, “Making the Music.”