by Erik Philbrook and Jim Steinblatt
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Branford Marsalis |
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"We didn't have the kind of house where, as a 15 year old kid, you would lock your door and put a Keep Out sign on it, because you'd be dead. Forget it. We were a family and we all lived together." Branford Marsalis is explaining one of the keys to understanding how the Marsalis family, all seven of them, were able not only to live together peaceably in a small house in Kenner, Louisiana, but to actually cultivate a family musical dynasty. The fact that five out of the seven Marsalises are accomplished musicians is impressive enough. But when you consider that father and jazz educator/pianist Ellis, and brothers saxophonist Branford and trumpeter Wynton, each one an ASCAP writer member, are three of the most renowned figures in modern jazz, and that two younger brothers, record producer and trombonist Delfeayo and drummer Jason, are making a name for themselves in their own right, one wonders how these guys could ever have pulled off such a familial feat.
It's not that the Marsalises didn't have their share of problems. They did, as all large families do. It's just that Ellis and Dolores Marsalis created a home environment for their children in which each child was able to discover his niche and thrive. In addition to the great influence that Dolores, a strong, well-educated and nurturing woman, had on raising her children to respect themselves and others, the musical relationship that Ellis developed with his young sons -- part education, part discipline and part inspiration -- was paramount to their success.
"My relationship with my father is what it is and how it has always been," says Branford. "I didn't go through those typical angst-filled teenage years of getting tattoos and sticking stuff in my nose or doing anything to irritate my parents or to rebel against them. There was never a generation gap in my house."
As the oldest son and the first son to be exposed to his father's music, Branford recalls his father's hopes for him becoming a musician. "The pride factor wanted us to be musicians, but there was no taciturn expectation," says Branford. "We lived in New Orleans. Everybody played instruments. I played the piano first and my dad was teaching me and I said forget that. I didn't want him teaching me. He would make me practice and would slap my hands if I looked at the keys because that's the way he was taught. I was five years old and that's when the real Marsalis attitude gets set in stone. He would say 'you're gonna sit at that piano until you practice.' The average kid would just cry and practice. My son, if I made him do that, would cry and practice. I just sat there. He stopped teaching me, because he knew that it wasn't going to work. He realized that he shouldn't make me do it, and asked me what I wanted to do. I wanted to play in a band. That's what got me off the piano. So he got me a clarinet and Wynton wanted to play the clarinet, and he said 'No two sons will play the same instrument in this house.' It was that kind of smart thinking. You know how everybody talks about sibling rivalry? Well, we didn't really have one. The competition was between instruments. Wynton had the guy he wanted to beat on his instrument and I had the guy I wanted to beat on my instrument So there wasn't really any competition because my father really knew how to defuse any potential situation like that."
Branford, who initially played alto sax when he replaced Bobby Watson in Art Blakey's band in 1981, switched to tenor and soprano sax when he joined Wynton's band in 1982 and toured the USA, Europe and Japan with him. In 1984, he played on some tracks of Miles Davis's album, Decoy. In 1985, Branford left his brother's band to join Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones and Omar Hakim in backing up international pop star Sting on the album, Dream of the Blue Turtles. Although the move brought Branford world exposure, it was met with criticism by other jazz musicians, and even his own father.
Branford's response to that is: "My dad, like a lot of Americans, was raised to get 'a craft.' You find one thing to do, and you do that. My father's point to me has always been this: the amount of time that I have spent working on other things shows a certain level of extraordinary ability, but that ability would best be suited in the jazz world, because there is an absolute paucity of quality jazz musicians. And making another record with a pop guy isn't really going to change the world. But I disagree with that. Anybody can get a saxophone and get a jazz band, but the music won't sound like mine. And not anybody can pick up the saxophone and play with Sting and have that kind of sound."
"There were some guys who felt that I was selling out the music, but the majority of the guys were just envious. They were envious of the perceived level of success. Invariably, I told one guy -- a famous person who will remain nameless -- 'dissing me in the media is absolutely ridiculous, because when this tour is over, I'm going to be back in the jazz world kicking your ass and you're going to look stupid, so you might as well just shut up.' He said: 'you ain't coming back.' And I said, 'you know I'm going to come back, if only for you.'"
Branford did come back and went on to record several progressive and inventive albums: Trio Jeepy, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Bloomington, and as one of the more well-known young jazz artists in the world he was closely-examined in the jazz press. But as the jazz press also discovered, Branford Marsalis had a mind of his own, and liked to speak it.
"There's an extended process to becoming a John Coltrane or a Sonny Rollins," says Branford. "I remember doing interviews when I was 24, and some people would say, 'well, you don't sound like you have your own sound.' And my response was, 'I don't have my own sound.' And they would say 'well, what are you going to do about it?' I'd say, 'There's nothing I can do about it. I'm going to listen to the music that I listen to, keep imitating the guys that I imitate, and I figure by the time I'm 30 or 31, I'll have a sound.' And this, of course, was met with much cynicism, because no one had openly discussed these sort of things. Most musicians had allowed these poor, pathetic writers to define their existence for them and to defend their own musical process."
"I learned from some of the greatest musicians in the world," continues Branford. "Dizzy Gillespie taught me and Herbie Hancock taught me and they all said the same thing. This is how it is done. We all imitate. We all emulated musicians and over a period of time we became these other things. The difference is, when guys like Dizzy were kids, kids didn't get signed to record contracts. Adults did. Wynton was 19. I was 20. It's a matter of knowing the long process and ignoring all the crap, and doing what you do. Wynton and I have put ourselves in the position where we challenge the authority of the experts and now they're not going to turn around and admit that I was right. Their existence is so inconsequential to me and to the scope of this music. If my music is as good as I think it is, it will stand the test of time. People will be listening to it and talking about it long after some of these guys are dead."
Branford's jazz career has led him down varied and interesting paths. He has performed and recorded with the Grateful Dead and Bruce Hornsby. He has won two Grammys, one in 1993 for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group, for his album I Heard You Twice the First Time, and another in 1994 for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for "Barcelona Mona," a single he recorded with Bruce Hornsby for the Olympics in Spain. He succeeded Doc Severinsen as Music Director of the Tonight Show band, where he also played comic foil to host Jay Leno. Last year, he broke new musical ground with the debut album from his jazz/hip-hop outfit Buckshot LeFonque, whose new album will be released in September. He is now putting together a jazz trio.
