Home » Jazz Articles » Branford Marsalis

Jazz Articles about Branford Marsalis

About Branford Marsalis

Album Review

Delfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Uptown on Mardi Gras Day

Read "Uptown on Mardi Gras Day" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 24, 2023

Even though New Orleans' lively and colorful holiday festival is the focal point of trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis' Uptown Jazz Orchestra's latest recording, this is an album that can be heard and appreciated at any time of the year, as there is never a day when pleasure and happiness aren't in style. Delfeayo, a member of the multi-talented Marsalis family from New Orleans that includes brothers Branford (who is a guest artist on two tracks), trumpeter Wynton and ...

Radio & Podcasts

Tenor Titans: Branford Marsalis

by Russell Perry
February 9, 2021

Branford Marsalis, tenor and soprano saxophone maestro and member of the important musical clan, emerged forty years ago in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and as a sideman in his brother Wynton's early endeavors. For thirty years, the primary vehicle for his own releases has been predominantly the sax-piano-bass-drums quartet but recently he has produced work in a duo with long-time collaborator, pianist Joey Calderazzo. He continues to also flourish in outside projects with other jazz leaders. The final of four ...

Live Review

Branford Marsalis at The Ohio Theatre

by Matt Hooke
October 26, 2019

Branford Marsalis Quartet Ohio Theatre Cleveland, Ohio October 10, 2019Branford Marsalis is a jazz chameleon. Few saxophonists could go from playing his brother Wynton's straight-ahead outfit to pursing cross over opportunities with pop-star Sting and hip-hop legend Guru to now making music with Gabriel Prokofiev, the great-grandson of pioneering Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.On October 10 at the Ohio Theatre, all these experiences came together for an experience that did not ...

Album Review

The Branford Marsalis Quartet: The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul

Read "The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
March 22, 2019

It was back in 2012 when the last quartet-only recording Four MFs Playin' Tunes (Marsalis Music) was released. So give more room on the floor to the evil toys dancing their pants off to the pure, wild, free-styling surge of “Dance of the Evil Toys," the killer, lead-off track to the Branford Marsalis Quartet's first full release in seven years, The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul. After touring with Sting, and in support of {[Kurt Elling}} ...

Album Review

The Branford Marsalis Quartet: The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul

Read "The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
March 15, 2019

Anyone who's seen the Branford Marsalis Quartet in concert is well aware of what high-flying improvisations the group can embark upon. But the foursome's abandoned approach hardly precludes due emphasis on structure---how better to highlight it than leave it behind?--which is also why this band makes studio albums as trenchant as The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul. Yet the irony in this duality is that strong material is the foundation for concise, purposeful musicianship, whether within ...

Live Review

The Branford Marsalis Quartet at Jazz Standard

by Peter Jurew
March 10, 2019

Branford Marsalis Quartet Jazz Standard New York, NY February 20, 2019 The Branford Marsalis Quartet came into New York's Jazz Standard in late February to showcase The Secret Between The Shadow And The Soul, their first new album release in seven years and, in marking the special occasion, to blow the roof off that primetime jazz basement. That it has been seven years since the band's last new release does not mean ...

Album Review

Benjamin Boone: The Poetry of Jazz

Read "The Poetry of Jazz" reviewed by Duncan Heining

by Duncan Heining
October 27, 2018

Lenny Bruce might have skewered it with his skit, “Psychopathia Sexualis." Mike Myers' mildly misogynist poet might have parodied it in the movie I Married an Axe Murderer (1993). It has been dismissed as a late-fifties fad associated with the Beats. And, yet, the desire of poets and jazz musicians to combine their art forms has proven surprisingly durable. Sometimes, the practice is just plain embarrassing and made worse by the reality that those involved, like the man ...