Marsalis family

Marsalis family, American family considered to be the “first family of jazz” who had a major impact on the genre in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly brothers Wynton and Branford. The family includes Ellis and his sons Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason.

Ellis Marsalis: Pianist and family patriarch

Ellis Marsalis began as a tenor saxophonist but switched to piano while in high school. After earning a music degree from Dillard University and serving in the U.S. Marines, he worked for the AFO (All-for-One) record label in the late 1950s, recorded with brothers Nat and Julian (“Cannonball”) Adderley in 1962, and was trumpeter Al Hirt’s pianist during 1967–70. It was as a jazz educator, however, that he made his greatest mark. In 1974 he began teaching at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, where his pupils included Harry Connick, Jr., Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Nicholas Payton, and Kent and Marlon Jordan, as well as his own six sons, four of whom became celebrated musicians. The success of his sons resulted in Ellis’s attaining stardom in the 1980s, and he recorded steadily thereafter.

Wynton Marsalis: Trumpeter and ambassador of jazz

Wynton Marsalis was the first family member to achieve national fame. He was given his first trumpet by Hirt and studied both classical music and jazz. Although he played with Danny Barker’s Fairview Baptist Church Band and was featured with the New Orleans Philharmonic at age 14, his early musical jobs were mostly in rhythm-and-blues (R&B) and funk bands. He became devoted to jazz while studying at the Berkshire Music Center, and he later attended the Juilliard School (1979–81), where he was recognized as among the most gifted musicians at the institution. At age 19 Wynton joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, in which he displayed the influence of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. He soon began emulating the sound of Miles Davis and toured with former Davis sideman Herbie Hancock in 1982–83 before rejoining Blakey for a brief stint. By age 20 Wynton was the talk of the jazz world. His brilliant technique, his dedication to acoustic jazz (rather than fusion or R&B), and his ability to excel in both jazz and classical music (winning Grammy Awards in both categories in 1984) generated headlines, and he became the unofficial leader of the “Young Lions”—new players who updated the hard bop tradition.

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Wynton led a quintet that included his brother Branford during 1982–85. Pianist Marcus Roberts was a featured player in a later combo that eventually grew to be a septet (and proved to be the best vehicle for Wynton’s playing and composing). In 1987, when he was 26 years old, Wynton cofounded the ongoing Jazz at Lincoln Center program and undertook the leadership of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. In this capacity he became a lightning rod of controversy because of his championing of traditional jazz styles and his dismissal of most musical developments after 1965. Since he developed his own distinctive style in the late 1980s, however, he consistently ranked among jazz’s all-time great trumpeters, playing everything from New Orleans jazz and swing to hard bop. In the 1990s he wrote many extended works (such as Blood on the Fields, which won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1997), toured the world extensively, and became a prominent spokesman for jazz and music education.

Wynton also worked closely with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, notably on the 2001 miniseries Jazz. In addition, he wrote the music for Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004) and provided the soundtracks for the miniseries The War (2007) and Prohibition (2011). He continued to perform and record prolifically both with his band and on his own, including with such collaborators as Willie Nelson and Eric Clapton. His publications include Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (2008; with Geoffrey Ward). Wynton was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2005 and the National Humanities Medal in 2015.

Branford Marsalis: Saxophonist and bandleader

Branford Marsalis started out playing soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone (although he rarely played alto after the late 1980s) and studied under his father at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts; he continued his studies at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 1980 he played with the Art Blakey Big Band, as well as with such jazz luminaries as Lionel Hampton and Clark Terry, before joining brother Wynton as a member of Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1981–82. Branford was a key member of Wynton’s quintet from 1982 to 1985, during which time he also recorded with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie and toured with Herbie Hancock. He had a falling-out with Wynton in 1985 when he played with pop singer Sting’s band, but the brothers later reconciled.

A talented saxophonist who had the ability to emulate a variety of his predecessors (including John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Jan Garbarek), Branford primarily led his own groups from 1986, including a quartet with pianist Kenny Kirkland and a mid-1990s hip-hop ensemble called Buckshot LeFonque. He also recorded soundtracks, acted in films, was the musical director of The Tonight Show (1992–95), made guest appearances on many recordings, worked as a talent scout and record producer for the Sony label, and was featured regularly as a radio host on National Public Radio. More flexible than Wynton in his willingness to explore contemporary music, Branford was nevertheless a highly skilled player in the traditional styles. Branford formed his own record label, Marsalis Music, in 2002, and he continued to record and tour extensively.

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Delfeayo and Jason Marsalis: Trombonist and drummer

Although overshadowed by Wynton and Branford, Delfeayo Marsalis carved out a significant career for himself as a J.J. Johnson-inspired trombonist. He studied music, producing, and engineering at Berklee College of Music and made his initial reputation as a record producer starting in 1985. As a trombonist, he worked with Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Abdullah Ibrahim, and, most notably, Elvin Jones. He made his recording debut as a leader in 1992 and began performing and recording with his Uptown Jazz Orchestra in 2016.

The youngest member of the Marsalis family, Jason, made a strong impression at age 14 as a drummer on Delfeayo’s recordings. Influenced by New Orleans rhythms and the drum work of Tony Williams, Jason was a coleader of the band Los Hombres Calientes in the late 1990s and also recorded with Marcus Roberts, Marcus Printup, and his father. He formed his own quintet in 2001, and in 2009 he released the first of several well-received albums on which he played vibraphones.

Additional honors

All five members of the Marsalis family were named Jazz Masters by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2011. In 2023 the U.S. Library of Congress added Wynton’s 1985 album Black Codes (from the Underground) to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”