arts & entertainment
Ellis Marsalis: Likely Never to
Play Portland Again
Saturday show will feature son, Jason, Devin Phillips
by brian Stimson
T
his weekend, the Soul’d Out
Music Festival will con-
clude with a performance
by pianist and jazz master Ellis
Marsalis, the man responsible for
the Marsalis family jazz legacy
that includes sons Branford,
Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason. Last
week, The Skanner News spoke
with the pianist from his home in
New Orleans.
Ellis, now retired from teaching
at the University of New Orleans,
still plays a weekly show in New
Orleans, but says that his perform-
ances during this tour will likely
be his last away from Louisiana.
This year, the Marsalis family
received the first NEA Jazz
Masters group award for their
accomplishments in the genre.
Ellis is also serving as a consultant
to the Ellis Marsalis Center for
Music, which features perform-
ance halls and education spaces
for residents at Musicians Village
and others in the neighborhood.
Marsalis will play this Saturday
with his son Jason at the Aladdin
Theatre in Portland, with an open-
ing set by the Devin Phillips
Quartet.
The Soul’d Out Music Festival
continues all this week with per-
formances from a number of
national soul, jazz and hip hop
acts including Das Racist, Dr.
Lonnie Smith, Tinie Tempah,
Page 6 The Portland Skanner april 13, 2011
Rusko, Trentemoller, Breakestra,
Mos Def and more. Check
www.souldoutfestival.com for a
full schedule of events
The Skanner news: You’re
about to embark on a multi-city
tour going from Portland to San
Francisco coming up here in the
next…
ellis marsalis: I wouldn’t
exactly call it a tour going from
Portland Oregon to San Francisco
… I don’t really do touring per se,
it’s not something I can really do.
In fact, in February, my wife
broke her hip and I was close to
having to cancel the little bit of
something I had to be at home try-
ing to help her with her rehab. As
Ellis, on right, with
it is, I did cancel the workshop I
was going to do the following day
because as it is, it’s taking me out
of town for too many days.
TSn: Do you tend to still play a
lot of live shows in your home of
New Orleans?
em: I do once a week at a club
called Snug Harbor.
TSn: What does your set look
like these days, when you’re play-
ing in New Orleans or traveling to
a place such as Portland?
em: Well, I usually play as
much as possible with my son
Jason. I have a young saxophonist
that I play with. This particular
time, he’s not available, so I’m
going to ask Jason to play vibra-
phone, which he’s getting better
and better and better at. We’ll be
doing some Thelonius Monk
music. Some things I’d normally
be doing with a saxophone player,
except Jason will be doing vibes.
TSn: Are you still actively
writing music?
em: I do a little. I’ve been
working on some spirituals. I had
over a period of time, I had actu-
ally composed, I don’t know if the
correct term is composed or
arranged, some of the old negro
spirituals, sort of modernized the
harmonic approach to that.
There’s some things I want to fin-
ish. I may do some composition
originals in the future. I’ve started
on a piece by R. Nathaniel Dett,
from In the Bottoms suite, but I
haven’t gone back to that, cause I
want to finish some things that
have been languishing for a
while.
TSn: What is it that you’re fin-
ishing?
em: There’s one piece that I’m
arranging which is a piece for
solo piano, but I’m doing it for
piano and cello. And the cellist is
the director of a string quartet in
residence at the New Orleans
Center for Creative Arts
Riverfront. And I promised I’d do
something. It’s a short piece.
TSn: Tell me a bit about the
Ellis Marsalis Center for Music at
Musicians Village. Are you active
in the project or playing benefit
shows?
em: There’s a lot of yes and
no’s in that. The building is basi-
cally complete. Um, I am func-
tioning more like a consultant,
which I’m glad of. There’s a
director who’s currently looking
to do the day-to-day operations. It
hasn’t officially opened as yet. As
of now, the center has been asked
to partner with an elementary
his son, Branford.
school, called the Desire Street
Ministries Charter School, to pro-
vide music education, which is
located in the vicinity of the center.
We’re sort of working on that now,
how we gonna do it, where the
kids are gonna be, how much of it
at the center, how much at the
school … the logistics of some-
thing that is coming to fruition that
has no history.
TSn: Do you pay a lot of atten-
tion to the state of music education
in New Orleans Public Schools?
em: No, cause there’s never
been much music education in
New Orleans, except there were
some very good band directors
who were the sole persons doing
things. A lot of people came under
the tutelage of these very good
band directors. Some went into
music professionally and some
didn’t. When it came down to it,
there’s never really been any
music education in the system. The
closest thing was the New Orleans
Center for Creative Arts and there
was a lot of political jealousy
involved with that.
TSn: I’m curious how the jazz
club scene has changed over the
last five years or so. Do you see it
reviving itself to pre-Katrina inten-
sity? Or has it changed complete-
ly?
em: It hasn’t changed much at
all. I think, if anything, what the
difference is, most of all the music
shifted from Bourbon Street to
Frenchmen Street. And there’s
only one consistently modern jazz
space, which is Snug Harbor,
which I play Friday nights. Now
there are some other spaces that
occasionally have a group come in
and play modern-type music, but
other than that, I haven’t seen
much of a difference at all.
TSn: Last year, you released an
album, “Music Redeems,” which
many of your sons. I’m curious
what it’s like working with your
sons. Whether it’s easier or harder
because they’re your family?
em: All of the sons who do play,
they play on a pretty high profes-
sional level. When you get on the
bandstand, it becomes all about the
music, it doesn’t become about
anything else other than that. And
we do, whenever we get a chance
to play all of us together, some-
times we do some of my pieces,
but between us, we know a lot of
earlier jazz musicians, we can do
that.
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