E-mail a friendBranford Marsalis
airdate September 29, 2004
Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Branford Marsalis hasn't limited his activities. Born into one of New Orleans' most noted musical families, he's classically trained and equally at home playing bop, rock and soul. Marsalis has played with leading jazzmen, in his brother's band, jazz-rock bands and with his own group. He's also contributed to film scores and had a bandleader stint on Jay Leno's The Tonight Show. 'Eternal' is Marsalis' newest release.
Branford Marsalis
Tavis: Branford Marsalis is a multiple Grammy award winning saxophonist, composer, and band leader, who is, of course, a member of a family you might have heard of called the Marsalis family out of a place called N'awlins. He's now out with his latest CD "Eternal" which is now available through--get this--the Marsalis music label. Branford got his own thing, and I ain't mad at him. Nice to see you, Branford.
Branford Marsalis: Always good.
Tavis: How are you, man?
Marsalis: Good, brother.
Tavis: Let me start with this and get this out of the way right quick. A few years ago, eight to be exact, you walked off of another sound stage in this city, decided to do something totally different. There are folk who couldn't understand why you made the decision to do it in the first place, and others who couldn't understand why you walked away after you decided to do it. We speak now of you being the original bandleader for Jay Leno. I raise it because Mr. Leno, as you know, has announced he's retiring in 2009. Tell me about Jay Leno and what you think about your decision eight years later to have left producing his band.
Marsalis: Well, my decision was mine. It was good to be on a show like that and to see entertainment at its highest level, and it made me realize that I was probably better suited being in the more arts-oriented environment because like one good friend of mine says, Miss Renatta Hall of Durham, North Carolina says, "Your problem is you ain't got no gatekeeper." See, I just--my mouth starts going, and it's like--In more popular mediums, when you have, like, a lot of money that's riding on things that people do and things that people say, you have to be more mindful and I don't have a gatekeeper. So you know what I mean? It was just better that I was allowed to just go ahead and do the more creative thing. That way I can be crazy and nobody will mind.
Tavis: How did you process, though, the people who did have things to say about the fact that Branford is selling out, the jazz purist, who couldn't understand why you would take that gig in the first place.
Marsalis: No, the jazz purists were over me. Because the jazz purists were screaming when I joined Sting's band in '85.
Tavis: That's true. I forgot about that.
Marsalis: My response to them was I'll be back in '86. And '86 came, and they were like,
Tavis: You might be able to sell five million copies if you did something called, say, "Love Supreme."
Marsalis: No.
Tavis: Not even then?
Marsalis: No.
Tavis: I raise that only because as you well know...
Marsalis: You checked the sales.
Tavis: ‘Trane can move 5 million?
Marsalis: I think it just went platinum and he recorded it over 40 years ago.
Tavis: That's an amazing stat. John Coltrane, the baddest thing to ever walk the planet. Of course, "Love Supreme" is his signature piece. I'm told that it was when you heard that piece, that you knew, as y'all say down south, sho nuff that you wanted to do this jazz thing.
Marsalis: Oh, yeah. It was one of the pieces that really made me realize that it was something that I should aspire to. And it's really difficult to play that way, which is why a whole lot of people haven't tried to record it. They just avoid it. I don't blame 'em.
Tavis: Yeah, leave that alone.
Marsalis: I left it alone for a long time. I left it alone for a long time. Then, uh...it's just one of those mountains I wanted to tackle.
Tavis: My condolences. We all read in the paper a few days ago, your grandfather, the original Ellis Marsalis senior, passed away at 96. He had a good run.
Marsalis: Yeah, he had a very good run.
Tavis: A very good run. You have a couple of kids, and your brothers have kids. What kind of pressure on this next generation of Marsalis given what y'all have just put down?
Marsalis: It's going to be pressure if they choose to do it. See, it was easy for me because nobody had ever really heard of my father, except a handful of older musicians. Like, the press had never heard of my father. So when Wynton got to town, they were like who's this kid? It wasn't, oh, that's Ellis Marsalis' son. Now, in hindsight, they're like, oh, yeah, the Marsalis dynasty. They were, like, who's this kid named Wynton? Oh, and he has a brother. Historically in jazz, the brothers of successful brothers can't play anyway, so we ain't gotta worry about that. So, there was no real pressure on me. I just did my thing and the next thing you know...with our children, there will definitely be pressure. My son has already said later for it.
Tavis: He ain't gonna try.
Marsalis: He don't want no part of it, and I can understand.
Tavis: I think I might be like him, try something totally different.
Marsalis: I don't blame him.
Tavis: Yeah. This new CD, Branford Marsalis Quartet, "Eternal" is all ballads. Why?
Marsalis: It was just next up on the docket. We'd been talking about it since '97, and it slowly but surely took shape. With finding the right compositions, interpreting the compositions, and when it was ready, we just recorded it. It wasn't, like, let's do a ballads record now. Like I say, we started talking about it in '97 and I think we did three records before we finally got around to this one. That's kind of how we work. We talk about ideas on things to do and as they take shape, that's when we record them.
Tavis: We were talking earlier, and I got a chance to talk to you a little bit about the title track "Eternal", which you wrote for a woman named Nicole, who happens to be your baby mama, your wife to be exact.
Marsalis: Yes. Thanks for clarifying that. I appreciate it. Thanks for clarifying that.
Tavis: I didn't want to leave you hanging like that. Anyway, so you wrote this piece after all these years. Nicole, you told me earlier, had been razzing you about writing a song for her. 'Cause all the other band members--
Marsalis: Well, see, that was what it was. If they hadn't, like, messed it up...
Tavis: Tell the story, though. Your other band members...
Marsalis: Yeah, they wrote songs for their girls.
Tavis: But you hadn't.
Marsalis: No. Nicole's, like, well, what's up with my song? I said, well, baby, I just haven't heard it yet; which, musicians understand that. Lay people--she's like, you just ducking it, ain't you? No, why would I duck it? It's got to be your song, so it's got to be right.
Tavis: You got to hear it. You hadn't heard it yet.
Marsalis: It didn't come in. It has to sound like her. To people that don't listen to music that specifically, that sounds like some rubbish, it sounds like bull, but no, the music has to take on her personality, like the melody and the way that the song is constructed if you knew her, because she appears very, like, cool and stoic, but, like, the turbulent waters are raging on the inside. She just keeps a cool exterior. And that's the way the song is. It simmers for 12 minutes. It's a 17-minute song.
Tavis: I was about to get there, 'cause the one thing I didn't get a chance to razz you about--let me delete the word razz...ask you about. You finally got around to doing a song for Nicole called "Eternal," but the cut is 17 minutes long.
Marsalis: I had to make up for all them years.
Tavis: OK, OK.
Marsalis: No, it's like her. The song has an arc. It's an epic kind of thing, and it simmers for 12 minutes. And in the 13th minute, it just explodes. It's, like, a very passionate piece of music, man.
Tavis: Let me ask a question. It may be a stupid question, but I'm curious about your answer anyway to my stupid question. When you do ballads, as opposed to something else, what does doing ballads, and certainly a whole CD of ballads allow you to bring out stylistically, or to do-- or to play, or to offer that playing another tempo wouldn't allow you to do?
Marsalis: Well, the challenge in it, particularly in jazz, the challenge is in the idea that you have to express the same kind of emotional intensity with a modicum of notes. A lot of guys just circumvent that issue by playing the melody real slow and then taking off and playing a million notes anyway. But to do it the proper way, or the way that I perceive is the proper way, that's the challenge. And playing the song the way Miles Davis used to do, when he'd do songs like "Old Folks" or he'd do "Someday My Prince Will Come," there's, like, a certain kind of patience you have to have and care you have to have with the music that's very, very difficult to do. Particularly when I was younger, I just didn't know how to do it. And each one of those songs has a different beat, a different chord structure, a different feel. We were really meticulous in the approach to each song. It's not like all the songs sound the same. They sound very, very different, and they evoke very, very different sound, but they evoke a very similar feeling. And that was the challenge...to keep the emotional continuity even though all the songs were very different.
Tavis: Twice now, by my recollection, you have referenced "when I was younger." What have you most learned about this thing called jazz, given that you've have a little distance--you've got something in your rear view mirror now?
Marsalis: I think that ultimately, to play any kind of artistic music, you have to embrace the philosophy of process over product. I think that the whole notion of making a record, tailoring it to an audience, and touring to support that particular record at that particular time is something that is just not going to be successful in the long run for a jazz musician. I think you have to use the recording less as a product and think of it more as a document of your progress as a musician or your lack of progress as a musician, 'cause I've had a few records like that, too. I'm not proud of 'em, but they exist. You just have to look long term and say things like, well, if I start working on this now, in 10 years, I might be able to get it right. In our kind of fast food world in the States, we've got shortcuts for everything. So a lot of musicians say, there's got to be a shortcut. Surely it can't take 10 years. Yeah, it does take 10, 15 years.
Tavis: I promised myself that I would end this conversation with where your career began, because I don't know that I've ever heard--I've never had a chance to talk to you, at least, about your mama. Everybody knows about your daddy and your granddaddy and your brother and your other brothers, and you, but where's your mom at and what influence did your mama have on your career? We can't leave mama out of this.
Marsalis: My mom is the glue, but she doesn't play an instrument, so it's not a romantic story. My mom is actually the firebrand of the family. My father, he questions everything, questions authority, he questions tradition, he questions people's tastes, and he has a sly way of bringing things up. My mother does the same thing but does it dead up in your face. She's just in your face. Like, she came to one of my gigs, when I had this other band called Buckshot Lefonque.
Tavis: I know it well. Absolutely.
Marsalis: We had this thing that just happened, like, the first gig of the tour would just be as sad as hell, and nobody knows why, and it was our running joke. Oh, here comes the first gig. Well, you know what that's gonna be. And sure enough, my mom comes to the first gig on this run in New Jersey, and the gig is over and she goes, so honey, did y'all rehearse? I said, no, we didn't rehearse. She goes, yeah, it figures, 'cause that's what this sounded like--just one big rehearsal. Y'all ain't gonna play like that all the time, are ya? I'm sitting there, like, no, mom.
Tavis: Mom is keeping it real.
Marsalis: It's going to be better tomorrow, mom. The guys in the band were like, damn, man, is she like that all the time? I'm, like, all the time, man. And I think that that really helped us, because I think that what my brothers and I, if there's one attribute that we have, it's that we are always very cognizant where we are musically in a period in time. Like, we don't need critics or other people to tell us whether we're good or whether we stink, because we're our own worst critics. And I think that that was one of the things that my mom really honed in on and made us really learn to embrace.
Tavis: Well, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Marsalis down in N'awlins, we thank you for doing what you did with Branford and the rest of the siblings. And Branford, we thank you for the new CD, the Branford Marsalis Quartet, "Eternal," with the 17-minute cut on it for Nicole.
Marsalis: It's a good song, man.
Tavis: It's a very good song. And you're a good artist, too. A great artist. Thank you, Branford. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from Los Angeles, and as always, keep the faith.
Back to September 29, 2004