Jason Marsalis

Jason Marsalis was born in New Orleans, LA on March 4, 1977. He was the sixth son of Ellis and Dolores Marsalis and the fourth son, after Branford, Wynton, and Delfeayo, to pursue music. After receiving a toy drum set at age 3, Jason first studied violin at age 5 and then received a real drum set at age 6. After sitting in at age 7 with his father, pianist Ellis Marsalis, career moments started to happen at an early age. He studied with New Orleans legend James Black, traveled to Boston a month before his 9th birthday to perform on his older brother Delfeayo’s recital at the Berklee College of Music. At age 13, he appeared on the PBS TV show “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” with his father and brothers Branford and Delfeayo and then a year later, performed on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in Delfeayo’s band.

During his senior year in high school in 1994, Marsalis ascended to the drum throne of a new group lead by virtuoso pianist and former sideman for Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts. It was on the day after graduation that Marsalis flew to New York to split time working with his father’s trio at the Iridium while recording his first album with Roberts, “Portraits in Blue”. The album was a fresh take on George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the drums in between a jazz band and symphony orchestra. This concept would be developed with Roberts over the years to come. Despite a demanding touring schedule with Roberts, Marsalis furthered his educational goals by attending Loyola University in New Orleans, as well as studying composition with notable classical composer, Roger Dickerson. While Marsalis made appearances with such international jazz luminaries as Joe Henderson and Lionel Hampton, he was visible on the New Orleans scene working with a diverse cross section of bands from Casa Samba (Brazilian), Neslort (jazz fusion) Summer Stages (children’s theater), Dr. Michael White (traditional jazz) and many others. It was in 1998 that he cofounded the Latin-jazz group Los Hombres Calientes. While recording two albums with the group, Marsalis also produced two albums under his own name, Year of the Drummer (1998) and Music in Motion (2000), as well as producing reissues and current recordings of his father on their self-owned label, ELM Records.

In 2000, Jason left the Los Hombres group to attain more focus with the Marcus Roberts Trio. It was around that time the Marsalis started to play the vibraphone on gigs in New Orleans. This evolved in yet another chapter in Marsalis’ career as he recorded on the vibes with clarinetist Tim Laughlin and drummer Shannon Powell while starting to lead his own band on vibes. In 2005, Marsalis’ made a recording of George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” with the Marcus Roberts Trio and the Saito Kinen Orchestra. It was a project that involved fusing jazz and classical music and it was an important moment for the Trio. While this exciting event was taking place in Tokyo, Japan, it was marred by the events happening in his hometown, Hurricane Katrina. Even though his career took a slight hit after that event and living in Brooklyn for a year, Jason returned to New Orleans in 2007 to put the pieces back together.

After returning to New Orleans in 2007, his reach with the types of bands widened considerably. Early that year he recorded with John Ellis and Double-wide on a well received album entitled “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow”. He also recorded and produced an album of Thelonious Monk’s music with his father entitled “An Open Letter to Thelonious”. In January of 2008, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) called for him to start teaching the students. He also started working on the traditional jazz scene with musicians such as Lars Edegran and Tommy Sancton at Preservation Hall and Palm Court Jazz Cafe. It was in April of 2008 that Marsalis was asked to play the vibraphone with the legendary Lionel Hampton Orchestra at the Ogden Museum in New Orleans. In fall of that year, he was on a double-bill tour with Doublewide and a jazz-fusion group from Denton, Texas, Snarky Puppy. After that tour, Marsalis would make guest appearances with the group and has developed a following amongst the groups fans.

In 2009, the Marsalis Family would receive the NEA Jazz Masters award. In June of that year, the family would appear at the White House and the Kennedy Center to do a tribute show to their father. The concert was made into an album entitled, “Music Redeems”. Later that year, Marsalis would release his first new album in 9 years and his debut album on vibes, “Music Update”. In 2010, the bassist from the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, Christian Fabien, called him to participate in a recording session with drummer Ed Littlefield and pianist Reuel Lubag. The made two records, Christian’s “West Coast Session” and Ed’s “Walking Between Worlds”. The latter would include folk songs from the leader’s native Alaskan Tlingit tribe from his hometown of Sitka, Alaska. That project inspired the group to be named the Native Jazz Quartet, a group that would arrange folk songs into jazz tunes. Their first recording of that concept was “NJQ Stories”, recorded in 2012. Also in 2012, Marsalis was involved in another genre-breaking collaboration as the Marcus Roberts Trio released an album with banjoist Bela Fleck. The combination of jazz and bluegrass was entitled “Across the Imaginary Divide” and the unit toured successfully that year. Marsalis also managed to do a performance on various percussion at the 2012 Essence Music Festival in New Orleans with Aretha Franklin. Ironically, Franklin would contact Marsalis to do some performances on vibes but sadly, she passed away before anything came to fruition.

2013 was a monumental year in which Marsalis released his next recording as a leader on vibes entitled “In a World of Mallets”. The album went to number 1 on the CMJ Radio Charts and also won an Offbeat Magazine award, a New Orleans music magazine, for best Contemporary Jazz Album. There was even recordings from the drum kit as Marcus Roberts released three recordings that year. Two with Wynton Marsalis, “Together Again – In the Studio” and “Together Again – Live in Concert”, and the ambitious original trio suite from Roberts, “From Rags to Rhythm”. Marsalis’ latest recordings included the follow-up album as a leader, “The 21st Century Trad Band”, and an album he produced for his father entitled “On the Second Occasion”, both released in 2014. 2016 brings the newest release entitled “Heirs of the Crescent City”, a soundtrack to the film “Heirs”, a documentary about the traditions and cultures of New Orleans passed on through generations.

In recent years, Jason has worked more with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He’s recorded three albums, “The Ever Fonky Lowdown”, “A Swingin’ Sesame Street Celebration”, the latter also being a TV special, and “Swing Symphony” with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson. Marsalis is currently teaching adjunct at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University in New Jersey.