Branford Marsalis News

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.

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Publication: Pasatiempo
Author: Paul Weideman
Date: October 12, 2012

This album opens with pianist Joey Calderazzo’s “The Mighty Sword.” He and soprano saxophonist Branford Marsalis trade leads over a dynamite rumbling-strings, symbal-crashing foundation by bassist Eric Revis and new drummer Justin Faulkner - he joined three years ago, while Revis and Calderazzo go back with Marsalis to 1997’s Music Evolution. The leader said they could have done the Four MFs program in one day, as things used to be done at Blue Note Records, but those were often simple blues laid down like jam sessions. “The tunes on this record are very difficult, but we are tight enough to make them sound easy, ” Marsalis says on his website. “The difference is that we are a working band.”

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Publication: Des Moines Register
Author: Joe Lawler
Date: November 11, 2012 

“It was great to see your concert.” Branford Marsalis hears that kind of compliment regularly, and as a musician, it used to perplex him a bit — that people were there to see him, not to hear him.

But now he understands that people listen to records but want to see a performer live on stage, and he wishes more jazz musicians would take that to heart.

“People hear with their eyes,” Marsalis said during a phone interview. “You watch a lot of jazz musicians play now, and they don’t look like they’re into it. Someone will finish a solo and stare at their nails while another guy is soloing. I’m not talking about a dance show, but just sitting around doesn’t really suit what we’re trying to do.”

Marsalis said his quartet doesn’t plan out what it is going to do on stage. When pianist Joey Calderazzo stands up while performing, it’s because he’s feeling it in a song. When drummer Justin Fauklner gets his arms and legs moving like crazy, it’s to make sure the music is moving at the proper beat. But it’s a lot more entertaining to watch than four men calmly playing their instruments. Read more »