Branford Marsalis Solo - sold out

In 2014, Branford Marsalis recorded a live solo saxophone album at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. In this legendary place, which played host to Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts in the 1960s and has been the home of the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival since 1983, the saxophonist opens up a dialogue with the cathedral's acoustics. Working on the purity of his instrument's timbre, he unambiguously and easily moves from one musical style to another: traditional jazz to post-bop, classical music (hence the title In my Solitude in reference to the aria O Solitude by the English baroque composer Henry Purcell), and of course spontaneous improvisation. Set in the Brussels jewel of the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, the musician once again indulges in this experience of musical elevation and this timeless journey.

Branford Marsalis: A Portrait

During the roughly thirty years that I have been writing regularly on jazz I have never written about Branford Marsalis. Apart perhaps from setting down some brief biographical details somewhere or other (Born in 1960 in New Orleans, the eldest of the six sons of (jazz) pianist and (jazz) music teacher Ellis Marsalis, a saxophonist, studied at the Berklee College of Music while his younger brother, a trumpeter, studied at the Julliard School, both coming to jazz at a young age and playing, among others, with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the ideal school for ambitious young jazz players… Or something of the kind).  Then a rapid cataloguing of the Marsalis brothers as pacesetters of what, in the last but one decade of the 20th century came to be known as a "neoclassical" tendency in modern jazz. A phenomenon that was subject for discussion. For some the Marsalis brothers had the right idea with their return to "roots". Others saw it as a conservative reaction. What was notable was that never before in the history of jazz had black jazz musicians taken the lead in such a "revival".   

Each his own way

But things move fast in the world of jazz, and the debate soon fell silent. The brothers each went their own way. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis remained true to what had been his stylistic starting point: the so-called "second great Miles Davis quintet" and his freer aesthetic, something akin to what was once known as bebop and subsequently hard bop, modal jazz and free jazz.  

At the same time he delved deeper into the jazz history that he had encountered in his native New Orleans and showed a growing interest in the big band idiom. He also emerged as a virtuoso interpreter of the trumpet music of the West-European "classical" tradition.  

Saxophonist Branford, a year older than his brother but at first largely overshadowed by him, seemed to take another direction. In 1982 he played with one of Miles Davis' "electric" groups, recording the album Decoy. Yet the title song of his first album, Scenes In The City, in 1984, was taken from a 1957 album by Charles Mingus. A kind of melodrama, or rather a sound drama, that tells the story of a black jazz fan who arrives in New York in the 1950s. In addition to various references, musical and otherwise, to this period – a distant past for Branford, born in 1960 – dominating it all, as sad as it is hopeful, is the blues.  Perhaps Marsalis saw in Mingus' story and music a parallel to his own experience as a young jazz player from the south arriving in New York. Of the other five tracks, four are in the sax/piano/bass/drums format introduced by Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins in 1943 and one a trio without piano, a line-up used in the 1950s by Sonny Rollins and Lucky Thompson. Marsalis alternates between tenor and soprano saxophone. The music is at times freely improvised, showing an indebtedness to a Coltrane or the "balladry" of the old masters of the tenor saxophone. The highlights are many: on Romances for Saxophone (1986), Branford gives virtuoso and exemplary renditions of a number of little known - and also perhaps too well-known - pieces from the European concert repertoire, orchestrated by Michel Colombier, and ranging from   Debussy, Ravel and Fauré to Stravinsky, Villa-Lobos and Rachmaninoff. 

It was around this time that he teamed up with the vocalist Sting who loves to work on the borders of rock and jazz. A successful collaboration that lasted around four years. During this same period the album Royal Garden Blues was released, featuring his father Ellis Marsalis, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter.   

Jeepy, the son of many fathers

In 1989 Steep, or Jeepy, as Branford is also sometimes called behind the scenes, aimed high with the album Trio Jeepy recorded with the great Milt ‘Judge’ Hinton (born 1910!) on bass – bringing with him almost the entire history of jazz -  and the now loyal and trusted Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts on drums. It sounded as if the whole archive of the tenor saxophone had been unlocked. From the old and, at that time, almost forgotten masters, such as Chu Berry, Ben Webster and Don Byas, to the inescapable contemporary jazz heroes: Coltrane, Rollins, Ornette Coleman, etc. Apart from a couple of own compositions by the leader, the trio perform numbers from the great American songbook and three classics from the more modern jazz repertoire: Strayhorn's UMMG, Coleman's Peace and Sonny Rollins’ Doxy. The album exudes a very distinctive, nonchalant and relaxed atmosphere, as if it arose from a chance performance: three jazz players who want to become better acquainted and to explore how far their affinity can go. The critical reactions were mixed. Some critics found it a somewhat bland production; others were enthusiastic about the whole idea. Above all, the duet with Judge, playing pizzicato, on Three Little Words was well received. There are also critics who see the album as a Sonny Rollins parody. Rollins himself invited Marsalis and Watts in June to play on two numbers on his new album Falling in Love with Jazz. Steep was not altogether happy with the result when he learned that his contribution was far back in the mix, especially on I Should Care. So perhaps somebody who had not enjoyed this Trio Jeepy wanted to make a parody of a parody – who can say? 

On Crazy People Music, which, as the title suggests, should not be taken too seriously, Keith Jarrett makes his entrance to the quartet's repertoire: the beautiful Rose Petals, a foretaste of the overwhelming balladry that would feature on Marsalis' albums in the years to come. It has since been used as the soundtrack for Spike Lee's Mo’ Better Blues with Terence Blanchard on trumpet, and one track featuring the hip-hop duo Gang Starr. 

1991 is the year of an ambitious album of exclusively self-penned numbers: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. A pianoless trio with two guest musicians who are not mixed into the background: brother Wynton on Branford's Cain And Abel and the black English tenor saxophonist Courtney Pine on Dewey Baby, an homage to Dewey Redman. Another of Branford's heroes, Monk's tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, gets pride of place on the opening number Roused About. The album is dedicated to Stan Getz, who died just a couple of weeks after the recording sessions for The Beautiful Ones. Branford Marsalis is the respectful son of many fathers.  

In the spotlight

Between May 1992 and early 1995, Marsalis was bandleader on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show broadcast on NBC television. He and his regular quartet performed with, among others, Kevin Eubanks. The 1990s also saw him form the group Buckshot Le Fonque that played a mix of funk, rock, soul, hip-hop and jazz. The name is a reference to a pseudonym once used by Cannonball Adderley and an homage to the musician. 

1993 brought the release of Bloomington, a live recording of a concert at Indiana University in Bloomington. A kind of rehearsal, but now for real, for the already released The Beautiful Ones: the repertoire is almost the same, but without the guest musicians and including a memorable encore of Monk's Friday the 13th: another homage. To round off the decade, the quartet first recorded a blues album: encounters with B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and others. Subsequently, Ellis and Branford paid tribute on Loved Ones to all the ladies who feature in the repertoire, and also in the life, of a jazzman, from Warren and Dubin's Lulu, via Miss Otis Regrets (Cole Porter) and Ellington's Angelica to Dear Dolores, dedicated to Ellis’ wife and Branford's mother.  

A turning point

After yet another album without piano, featuring guest artists Joe Lovano and Kenny Garrett, in 1998 the quartet was once again complete with the return of Kirkland. In August, they started work on recording a new album, planning to finish it in the autumn. In November, Kirkland died. Branford decided to allow the session, Kenny Kirkland's last, to stand as it was. However uneven Requiem may be, we are most certainly in the presence of four musicians at the zenith of their art and with an unfailing insight into what jazz had become at that moment in its history.  The way these four musicians respect the rules and, at the same time, so easily depart from them is simply unique. Branford Marsalis had once said that he would stop playing when he reached the age of forty. Having reached that age, his music was now more essential than ever. A new quartet with   Joey Calderazzo replacing Kenny Kirkland was to steer the course of jazz for the next twenty years. The beginning of the second century of jazz.  Steep, Jeepy, Branford, a man of many peregrinations knew what lay ahead: he was to continue. He knew the roads, in all directions, and spoke the languages. 2002 saw the release of   Footsteps of our Fathers. Here we have the playful, irresistible wisdom of Ornette Coleman's Giggin’. Plus the uncompromising emancipation that Sonny Rollins demanded and in many ways demands more than ever in his Freedom Suite. Then the seriousness, the dedication and the longing for sheer beauty of Coltrane's A Love Supreme. And finally, John Lewis' Concorde expressed both the physicality of the blues and the mathematical purity of all music.  

Combination of circumstances

The new albums followed in rapid succession. Beginning with another homage to another father, namely "jazz painter" Romare Bearden (1911-1988), designer of the cover of what is regarded as Wynton's classic album J Mood. On the album American Spectrum, Branford plays solo alto saxophone with the North Carolina Symphony conducted by Grant Llewellyn on John Williams’ Escapades. In 2011 he duetted with Calderazzo on Songs of Mirth and Melancholy. 2012 saw Branford give a solo concert, on tenor, alt and soprano sax, at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, a performance issued two years later under the title In My Solitude. A miniature by Steve Lacy, the time-honoured Stardust by Carmichael (Ben Webster's "feature" with Duke Ellington), C.P.E. Bach, the contemporary Japanese composer Ryo Noda, improvisations by Marsalis himself, plus the blues, always the blues…

On its latest albums, the quartet reaches a level at which any parts of the music that could lend themselves to analysis become inseparable from the whole. The melodic flow – whimsical or exceptionally elegant – the complex and ever evolving rhythm, the sometimes luxurious, sometimes thin harmonic component, the constantly changing dynamic: everything combines in what is experienced as a whole, a sound, that is indefinable, identifiable when it is there and then irretrievably gone.  

Bozar

On 24, 25 and 26 March Branford Marsalis is a guest of Bozar as part of the Klarafestival: solo at the Cathedral of St. Michael (24/3), with the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Dirk Brossé at Bozar (25/3) where he will be performing Escapades by John Williams and other musical Americana, in the premier of Vince Mendoza’s orchestration of Branford Marsalis’ own Cassandra (cf. Requiem, 1999), and finally: the quartet, Branford with Joey Calderazzo, Eric Revis and Justin Faulkner at Bozar (26/3).

Coda

A much used term to describe contemporary art and artists is that they are "idiosyncratic". Branford Marsalis is not that, in my opinion. He throws open all the doors and windows, welcoming one and all into a house that is too small for all the music that is played there.   Perhaps I had never previously written about him because what he does speaks so eloquently for itself. (Writing about Branford Marsalis makes me feel like a teacher who has an evaluation meeting with the parents of a child about whom "there is really nothing to say, they are doing just fine". That's just the way it is.)

Marc Van den Hoof

Branford Marsalis, saxophone

From his first record Scenes in the City (1984), released after the experience of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers to Metamorphosen (2009), Branford Marsalis has regularly been acclaimed for his recordings, winning a Grammy Award for I Heard You Twice the First Time (1992) and Contemporary Jazz (2000). In 2011, Songs of Mirth and Melancholy firmly established him in contemporary music. In 2014, the saxophonist released his solo album, combining jazz and classical music, In my Solitude: Live at Grace Cathedral. In 2019, Marsalis released The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul with his quartet, an ensemble active since 1986.