Ellis Marsalis Jr. was the patriarch of the most remarkable musical family in American music — the father of Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo, and Jason Marsalis — but he was also, in his own right, one of the finest jazz pianists New Orleans has produced: a masterful, thoughtful player whose hard bop sensibility was shaped by the city's unique musical culture.
Biography
Marsalis was born in New Orleans in 1934 and studied at Dillard University, where he became deeply immersed in the emerging bebop tradition while remaining connected to the New Orleans roots around him. He taught for decades at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, where his students included not only his sons but Harry Connick Jr., Nicholas Payton, Donald Harrison Jr., and Terence Blanchard — making him arguably the most important single figure in the development of the jazz renaissance that transformed New Orleans music in the 1980s. His own recordings, largely made in the later decades of his career, document a pianist of extraordinary sensitivity and a musician who understood that teaching and playing were equally important expressions of his commitment to the tradition. He died on April 1, 2020, at the age of 85, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discography
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