Branford Marsalis

CT.com Interview: Saxophonist Branford Marsalis

Publication: CT.com
Author: Michael Hamad
Date: February 4, 2013

In his 52 short years on this planet, what hasn’t saxophonist Branford Marsalis done? Composing Broadway scores and movie soundtracks; recording with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey and his brother Wynton; running the Tonight Show band, when Jay Leno took over from Johnny Carson; jamming with the Grateful Dead (check out the exquisite “Eyes of the World” on Without a Net) and subsequently venturing out into the jam-band world with Buckshot LeFonque; teaching college; winning Grammys; starting a record label; bringing aid to his native New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; leading his own quartet for more than a decade. (Whew.)

Sometime around 1996, Marsalis decided to make his quartet — longtime members Joey Calderazzo on piano and Eric Revis on bass, and relative newcomer, Justin Faulkner, on drums — his primary focus. Last year they released the aptly titled Four MFs Playin’ Tunes, which was named Best of 2012 Instrumental Jazz Album of the Year by Apple’s iTunes. He’ll bringing the powerful, musically telepathic group to UConn’s Jorgensen Center for a single night on Feb. 7.

Marsalis spoke to CT.com by phone about his new recording and the highlights of a long career in music.

Q: You’ve been with your quartet for more than a decade (drummer Justin Faulker came on board more recently). When rock groups are together for a long time, nobody bats an eyelash, but when it happens in the jazz world, it’s perceived as more of a rarity. What’s the secret behind keeping a band together?

A: Rock groups stay together for a variety of reasons, mostly that it’s a lot of money to walk away from if you become one of those groups. With a jazz group, all of the musicians have to see potential for growth. Read more »

Submitted by Bobby on February 5th, 2013 — 11:03am

Branford Marsalis and Quartet to Showcase FOUR MFS PLAYIN' TUNES at Jorgensen, 2/7

Publication: BroadwayWorldMusic.com
Date: January 23, 2013

rammy-winning saxophonist Branford Marsalis has played with everyone from Art Blakey and Miles Davis to Sting and the Grateful Dead, and he’s led The Tonight Show Band. Now this NEA Jazz Master and his top-notch jazz quartet will stop at Jorgensen on Feb. 7, 2013, at 7:30 p.m. in “An Evening with Branford Marsalis.”

The quartet’s new album Four MFs Playin’ Tunes recently won the iTunes Best Instrumental Jazz Album of 2012. In this new work, Marsalis and his tight-knit quartet, enhanced anew by young drummer Justin Faulkner, play selflessly in service of each song. Compositions include two original works by each of the veterans in the group - Marsalis, pianist Joey Calderazzo and bassist Eric Revis - a cover of Thelonious Monk’s classic “Teo” and the 1930 standard, “My Ideal.”

The deft way the recording flows puts Marsalis in mind of the one-day wonders of Blue Note-style recording sessions. But more time was taken here. Marsalis says, “I feel blessed to have marvelously talented musicians in this band that can play very difficult tunes and hook them up and make it sound easy. This recording is a perfect example. They always hook it up.” Read more »

Branford Marsalis headlines Haiti jazz festival

Publication: The Miami Herald
Author: Jacqueline Charles
Date: January 17, 2013

Like New Orleans, Haiti has experienced great suffering - poverty, disease, natural disaster.

So perhaps it’s only fitting that a week after an unlucky Haiti marked the third anniversary of its cataclysmic Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, it is one of New Orleans’ great musical sons - jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis - who will open this year’s Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival.

Being from New Orleans, Haiti has a kind of mythic status there,” said Marsalis, 52, who performs Friday in Jacmel at the Tourism Port and again Saturday in Port-au-Prince at a former sugar cane plantation-turned outdoor concert venue, Parc Historique de la Canne a Sucre.

We have a lot of similar traditions; relationships with Vodou, with music and with rhythm that’s very, very different from all of the states in the United States,” he said. Read more »

Submitted by Bobby on January 18th, 2013 — 11:47am

Branford Marsalis: Confident MF Playin’ Tunes

Publication: All About Jazz
Author: R.J. DeLuke
Date: December 10, 2012

Musicians evolve, and so do bands, if they’re allowed to stay together long enough to develop their musical relationships—that certain chemistry. Such is the case with Branford Marsalis, the outstanding saxophonist who has been through so much in his storied career. It’s also the case with his band, which he has kept together, with few personnel changes, for more than a decade. They are a tight unit that continues to ripen. Read more »

Harry Connick Jr., Branford Marsalis lead tribute to the late Bob French

Publication: The Times-Picayune
Author: Keith Spera
Date: December 5, 2012

Among other, sometimes less flattering designations, Bob French was considered the unofficial mayor of the Musicians’ Village. In November, he also became the first of its residents to die.

On the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 4, Harry Connick Jr., Branford Marsalis and their manager, Ann Marie Wilkins, the trio who championed the construction of the Musicians’ Village after Hurricane Katrina, hosted a private memorial concert for French, the longtime leader and drummer of the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band and an especially colorful WWOZ-FM deejay.

Over the decades, French mentored scores of young musicians, including Connick and Marsalis. After their success and fame had far surpassed that of their mentor, they returned the favor. Read more »

Branford Marsalis Quartet: Four MFs Playin' Tunes (Marsalis Music)

Publication: Jazziz
Author: Josef Woodard
Date: November 29, 2012

Four MFs Playin’ Tunes sports a fitting package and moniker. Each member of the Branford Marsalis Quartet — tenor/soprano saxophonist Marsalis, pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner — is featured on a single panel of the insert, while the others appear in blurred focus behind him. And the players more than live up to the designation of mother****ers — a term of highest praise in this context.

Marsalis is a wise and humble leader, who willingly shares the spotlight. Read more »

Submitted by Bobby on December 5th, 2012 — 11:16am

Branford Marsalis engages in classical, jazz with the CSO

Publication: Cincinnati.com
Author: Janelle Gelfand
Date: December 1, 2012

The symphony went hip Friday night.

That’s not hard to do when you have one of the finest jazz musicians in the country performing with you.

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, a three-time Grammy-winner, NEA Jazz Master, and former “Tonight Show” bandleader, was soloist in the American premiere of a concerto for alto saxophone with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. But he took it a step further, sitting in with the orchestra to play the saxophone solos in Prokofiev’s “Lieutenant Kije” Suite, which opened the evening.

Even though Marsalis easily crossed over into classical, it was no surprise that he seemed to be having the most fun in his encore, Charlie Parker’s bebop “Au Privave,” with CSO musicians Matt Zory, Jr., on bass and Marc Wolfley on drums. Read more »

Classical Blast: Branford Marsalis flashes his Classical chops with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra this weekend

Publication: CityBeat
Author: Brian Baker
Date: November 28, 2012

The brothers Marsalis are an interesting study in dichotomy. Wynton, the younger, is an absolute giant in the Jazz community and he has no qualms about his genre elitism, vociferously and famously proclaiming the need to maintain Jazz’s purity and sanctity and rejecting anything outside of his definition (although he teamed up with Eric Clapton for an excellent Blues/Jazz hybrid concert at Lincoln Center last year and with Willie Nelson and Norah Jones for a Ray Charles tribute in 2009).

Branford, the elder, who has a doctorate in music, views music through a much broader lens, embracing Pop, Jazz, Classical and anything in the vicinity, which has led to a long association with Sting, a brief stint as Jay Leno’s bandleader on The Tonight Show and sessions and gigs with artists as varied as Miles Davis, Bela Fleck, Harry Connick Jr., Dave Matthews Band and the Dead.

When the question is posed as to the reason for the brothers’ stylistic divergence, Branford Marsalis has a ready, if not totally enlightening, answer.

Read more »

Submitted by Bobby on November 29th, 2012 — 01:03pm

Branford Marsalis shows classical side

Publication: Cincinnati Enquirer
Author: Janelle Gelfand
Date: November 25, 2012

Branford Marsalis may be best known as the former music director and bandleader for NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in the 1990s. But his artistry runs much deeper.

He’s a member of a distinguished New Orleans jazz dynasty that began with his father, pianist Ellis Marsalis. Branford, a saxophonist and the oldest of his siblings – who include trumpeter Wynton, trombonist Delfeayo and drummer Jason – established his reputation while still a student at the Berklee College of Music, working with jazz luminaries Art Blakey, Lionel Hampton and Clark Terry.

Since then, he’s appeared with a who’s-who of jazz giants. He has also partnered with musicians as diverse as Sting, the Grateful Dead, and the hip-hop group Public Enemy. The Grammy Award-winner founded his own record label a decade ago, and records with his own Branford Marsalis Quartet.

The other side of this artist is that he is as comfortable discussing Shostakovich as he is Miles Davis.

Marsalis made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2010, the same year that his score for the 2010 Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “Fences” earned a Tony Award nomination for “Best Original Score Written for the Theater.” He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras around the world in music by composers such as Copland, Debussy and Darius Milhaud.

This year, Marsalis is a creative director for the Ascent Series for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Read more »

Branford Marsalis returns to Holland

Publication: Omaha World-Herald
Author: Kevin Coffey
Date: November 8, 2012

The last time Branford Marsalis was in town, he stopped in to jam with some friends.

The time before that, the jazz master helped open the Holland Performing Arts Center.

On Friday, Marsalis and his quartet will come back to the venue to play music from his new album, “Four MF’s Playin’ Tunes,” as well as old favorites.

“We go all over the place. It depends on the audience, what they can listen to,” he told The World-Herald. Read more »

Submitted by Bobby on November 8th, 2012 — 12:28pm