Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert is the best-selling solo album in jazz history. But as the story goes, a teenage Branford Marsalis wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t until he heard the lesser known Belonging album that he understood the hype — and it would prove transformative for the young R&B fan.
On June 1, the Branford Marsalis Quartet will bring its reinterpretation of Belonging to Spoleto Festival USA. The performance marks the group’s festival debut and the midpoint of its Belonging tour.
“Branford comes out of a very important music family in New Orleans, which has created its own imprint in jazz,” said Larry Blumenfeld, music critic and jazz curator for Spoleto.
Acclaimed soloist, devoted bandleader
Aside from his family’s legacy, Marsalis has his own successful and wide-ranging career. He is a saxophonist, bandleader, Emmy and Tony nominee, Grammy and Drama Desk winner, Broadway composer, orchestral soloist and university professor. He led The Tonight Show band, toured with Sting and co-founded the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music in New Orleans.
Still, his renowned quartet demands much of his attention. For 16 years, he’s led the group on the saxophone, with Joey Calderazzo on piano, Eric Revis on bass and Justin Faulkner on the drums. Years of working together has given them unmatched chemistry.
“His quartet is one of the longest-running and best small ensembles in jazz,” said Blumenfeld. “There’s a level of group telepathy.”
As the musicians have grown together, so has their capacity for playing music with emotional depth. Marsalis points to Belonging as a prime example.
“The songs are hard to play. I will say that. I’m glad I didn’t try to do this 15 years ago,” he said in an NPR interview in March. “But for us, I mean, we’ve been dealing with all these different styles and strains of music since this particular iteration of the band started in 2009. So we didn’t have to talk it through. We just had to play it.”
Marsalis brings personal roots to a European classic
Belonging was released in 1974 by Jarrett’s European Quartet and featured Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen. Through the reinterpretation, the Branford Marsalis Quartet aims neither to copy nor completely transform the original album, an approach that is well within jazz tradition.
“Throughout the history of jazz, great musicians have interpreted the music of other great musicians,” said Blumenfeld.
Marsalis learned to replicate the sounds of “better” artists in a cover band at age 14. But although his quartet’s version of Belonging borrows the same songs, its version came out different, naturally.
“I feel comfortable in saying that some Norwegian guys born in the 19 — I think it’s the 1940s — weren’t in a Southern university-type marching band and didn’t grow up listening to R&B with the regularity that we did,” Marsalis told NPR. “So we have all these sonic perspectives that we can bring to the music. So we don’t have to spend much time trying to alter or change the original songs or the construction of the songs.”
IF YOU CAN GET TICKETS: “Spoleto Festival USA: ‘Belonging’ – Branford Marsalis Quartet” at 7 p.m. June 1, Charleston Music Hall. Ticket site.
Olivia Meier is a magazine, news, and digital journalism graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.