11 minute read
Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. by Alvin Carter Bey
ELLIS LOUIS MARSALIS, JR.
November 14, 1934 – April 1, 2020
Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. (November 14, 1934 – April 1, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and educator born in New Orleans, Louisiana. This is a radio interview with Ellis Marsalis by Alvin Carter-Bey on April 28, 2013 ACB: The applause was for a great band, the Marsalis family, America’s first jazz family. My guest is the senior member of that family, an outstanding individual. It took me a lifetime to get an opportunity to talk to Mr. Ellis Marsalis. How are you sir? EM: Fine. how are you? ACB: I like that voice. Your voice gives me a feeling of warmth, right away. EM: Ha ha ha ha ha. ACB: You are in New Orleans. How is everything with you? EM: Fine ACB: Musically? Healthwise? EM: I’m doing ok. I could stand to hit the gym a little bit, but other than that, I’m good. ACB: There are so many things that I want to talk to you about. You have six sons. Are all of them musicians? EM: No, just four. ACB: Wynton was born in 1960. That was the year I graduated from high school. EM: 1961. ACB: Oh, a year after I graduated from high school. You had a son born in 1960? EM: Branford. ACB: That was the year I graduated from high school. Those were turbulent years, yet, there was time for your sons. How were you able to deal with six boys? EM: Well, I always tell people when they ask me that, I was fortunate to marry a great lady. Which makes all the difference in the world because I was around a lot of guys who had children. Looking back on it, now, I don’t know that any of us were great parents. ACB: [Laughing.] EM: Keeping families together was a primary role of the wife for a lot of reasons. We could see a big improvement, in turns of what is taking place in athletics, today. I remember listening to Dr. Phil on TV. He said that when a child gets to be thirteen years old, he’s going to join something. Whatever that something might be. ACB: True EM: In the 20th century, opportunities for young Black males increased because people in power understood that they made more money by putting the skids on prejudices. The music industry has never been a money-making endeavor. In the early days, when Ed Sullivan got the Supremes, the Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, when it was rare to see Black people on television. In the 1950s, we heard recordings on some radio stations in New Orleans. ACB: It was the same in Chicago. There wasn’t much difference. Were you a musician at the time that you were raising your children? EM: Yes. ACB: You never changed your style of playing from what I am hearing in your recordings. It has always been the same, but it’s getting gooder. A lot of artists who have changed over because the cash registers were calling. But you have maintained your style. EM: Wynton and I talked about that with different people. It boils down to one’s personal philosophy. I played in and out of New Orleans, over the years. There were times when I was without Herb’s band that was good, economically, and a stable situation. The music was ok, but it didn’t prevent me from practicing and staying on track to be as good as I could be. When people look at my progeny, they see Branford and Wynton, Donald Harrison, and lots of young brothers. Those who are Branford’s age are 60 years old, now. Opportunities were measured by their personal philosophy, which helped them make decisions about what was important. When Wynton first went to Columbia, he heard the same story that a lot of people heard. The first thing you have to do is get a hit. Then, you could do whatever you wanted to do. EM: Wynton asked the guy who did that? Unless you have a philosophy about what you want to do and pay the dues to continue in that direction, you can go chasing hit records forever.
ACB: I noticed the change in Wynton’s music for a long time. In American Classical Music within the idiom of jazz, the oldest art form here in America, aside from Native American music, we added other musical forms. That is why I assume people call themselves hit makers. How did you introduce Wynton and Branford to this music in the 1970s, when all this other music was coming up. It seems that they would have adapted to other music styles rather than Jazz. EM: I had a problem with friends who referred to Jazz as America’s Classical Music because of the creation of a lot of music by Black musicians that was never heard but was notated. When you put the word classical in front of anything, you change the structure of how it is created and notated. So, when it comes down to it, there are several musicians of different stripes like Arnold Nathaniel Deck who had piano and vocal music. William Gladsdale was one of the great composers. Howard Swanson, and several female composers were overlooked. It is not that I see those people as classical musicians in the sense of what that means. Duke Ellington did not recognize the term, Jazz. He tried to make a campaign out of it. He thought there were three kinds of music, good music, bad music, and whatever that other kind was. When Branford and Wynton were in high school, they played in a local band called the Creators that did music from Parliament Funkadelic. They were one of the few groups that could do
music from Earth, Wind, and Fire in high school. They didn’t escape it. They were playing gigs and made jokes, saying, “Man, we be
Ellis Marsalis Jr. (seated) is pictured with four of his six sons: Jason, Mboya, Delfeayo and Ellis III. (Undated photo, The Times-Picayune) playing with our band and make more money than our Daddy.” ACB: Really? EM: Yes, that was true. It didn’t bother me because it was part of the learning process for them. When they got, it was time for them to decide what they were going to do, musically. They had good instruction. ACB: I’m sure. EM: Good instruction created options for them. A lot of young brothers who don’t get good instruction, across the board, can’t make good decisions in a timely manner because of the way that the world moves. Some of us are still thinking neighborhood. ACB: Yeah. EM: But the plan is moving toward the global community. ACB: You can’t get past the neighborhood. Let me ask you about this band the American Jazz Quintet? I was familiar with them because he and I had the same birthdate in different years, of course. I was born on October 10. How was that relationship? How was that band and where did the idea come from? EM: The came from me. We were native New Orleanians and the eldest statesman was Harold Baptiste. ACB: Okay. EM: Harold was three years older than me. Alvin Baptiste was older than me, also. I don’t remember by how much. It was not much because Alvin and I met in elementary school. ACB: So, you were the baby of the group? EM: Yes, essentially. I never thought about that but you‘re right. ACB: Go ahead EM: It was an interesting period because the group had Alvin
Baptiste, Harold Baptiste, Chuck Barry, and a couple of bass players. Eventually, Chuck Barry left New Orleans to join Lionel Hampton with Jim Gardner. There were some good jazz players here. The music we were playing was close to Rhythm and Blues. There wasn’t a wide margin. At the beginning of segregation, bands came to town to play at the Booker Washington Auditorium in the neighborhood. Ray Charles came to town with David “Fathead” Newman, Marcus Belgrave, and Hunt and Leroy Cooper, who were good jazz players. Ray had good musicians. We would get together and jam. I was surprised that Alvin Baptiste wrote a piece called Cold Cheese that Marcus Belgrave, Fat Head Newman learned. When I went on the road with Branford in Detroit, Marcus Belgrave remembered Cold Cheese. It must have been 30 years later. There was a lot of activity in urban centers. There were musicians in Little Rock, Houston, and Los Angeles who came from different places. I was in the military and I used to go to this club on Sundays called the Le Cris in east LA. I sat in, one night, with Dexter Gordon because Elmer Holt was in the band but he had some other business to attend to. ACB: Alright. EM: So, a lot changed. The country changed and the world changed. Um, we may be a little too close to it to scrutinize it, objectively. ACB: Yea, but I don’t want to see it disappear. I really love your son, his ideology, and his ability to make people aware of this music. There was a point, in the 1970s, when it disappeared in comparison to the 1950s and 1960s, swing and blues. I call jazz “swing, blues and lyricism” with that toe tapping, thigh slapping, swinging good stuff. I feel good about that and I thought that it disappeared to be replaced by another type of music. So, your son brought back the history of who these great masters were, including you, Louis Armstrong, and a host of others, which made people aware of this great art form. EM: Yeah, he made a strong contribution. I know what you mean when you say disappeared. I can remember when Branford and Wynton were in high school and they were playing in the rock band Creators. They played a lot of engagements along with other local rock bands in the city. When our 4th son, a trombone player, Delfeayo came along, all of that was gone. There were no more rock band because those musicians were playing jazz. I was teaching at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. I introduced young people to Jazz. But I was learning how to teach it. It was like a pendulum. It would swing one way, then, swing back another way. I ran into people who met Wynton and Branford in the band in different cities. Wynton said, “I met a lot of young brothers out here trying to learn how to play, especially those from St. Louis, Missouri.” I was not a consistent world traveler. So, there were a lot
who I would see, vicariously. ACB: Right! EM: I started teaching at the University of New Orleans in 1989. Some students were influenced by what Branford and Wynton were doing. ACB: Hold that thought. You’re listening to WHBK, 88.5 FM, streaming on www.whbk.org. I’m Al Carter-Bey, empresario, here with the one and only fantastic composer, musician, and educator Ellis Marsalis. Mr. Marsalis, we’re winding down, you didn’t forget that point, did you? EM: No. ACB: Go head, continue. EM: Yeah, I started to see more and more younger people coming into the university who were playing this music under the influence of Branford and Wynton. I saw a dearth of young African American youngsters trying to play, from 1989 to 1992. Later, I saw more and more young African Americans. Our youngest son Jason is teaching at the New Orleans Center of Creative Arts. He had some drummers that he taught who sound really good. Also, he plays with Marcus Roberts. In fact, Marcus Roberts just completed a concerto. I haven’t heard it yet. ACB: Was Marcus Roberts one of your students? EM: No. I did a workshop when Marcus was a student at Florida State, where I met him. The next time I saw him he was playing with Wynton’s band. He has a trio with Rodney Jordan, a bass player, who’s on the faculty at Florida State. My son Jason was the drummer in that trio. Jason has been playing with Marcus since he was 15 years old. ACB: Hey listen, I want to thank you. I could talk to you for another hour and I would like to do this again. Whenever you are in Chicago, you have my number. Please call me. I want to talk to you some more I need your knowledge. You have been helpful in supporting this great music. EM: Okay. ACB: I will see you soon. Keep swinging. EM: Yeah, the whole idea of swing slid away because we lost the connection with people dancing. ACB: And a lot of other things. That’s why I need another hour or two with you to talk about it. Thank you very much Mr. Marsalis. I appreciate you. EM: Aww, you’re welcome. ACB: Enjoy the rest of your day. EM: You too. ACB: Take care. You’re listening to WHBK, 88.5FM Hyde Park, Chicago. I have been speaking to my good friend, Mr. Ellis Marsalis, who was on the line and, oh my God, I guess we could go on and on and on talking about him. Here’s some music by Ellis.
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