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Delfeayo Marsalis
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s highest jazz honor" a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award.
Born in New Orleans on July 28, 1965, Marsalis was destined to a life in music. “I remember my dad (Ellis Marsalis) playing piano at the house, and me laying underneath the piano as a child, listening to him play. After briefly trying bass and drums, in sixth grade I gravitated towards the trombone, which was an extension of my personality. Early on my influences and inspirations included J.J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller, Al Grey, Tyree Glenn and Tommy Dorsey.” Marsalis attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts high school, was classically trained at the Eastern Music Festival and Tanglewood Institute, and majored in both performance and audio production at the Berklee College of Music.
About the time that he first started playing trombone, Marsalis was already greatly interested in the recording process. “When I was in fifth or sixth grade, my brother Branford showed me how to create a feedback loop on a reel to reel machine. At that time there was a real need in the family for demo tapes. In fact I was recording Wynton when he was in high school. When I was in seventh grade, he challenged me to have his demo tape sound on the same level as Maurice Andre’s classical studio recordings. It was all trial and error and I learned a great deal.” From the age of 17 until the present, Marsalis has produced over 100 recordings for major artists including Harry Connick, Jr, Marcus Roberts, Spike Lee, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Roberts, Adam Makowicz, Nicholas Payton, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the projects of Ellis, Branford and Wynton Marsalis.
In addition, Marsalis is an exceptional trombonist who toured internationally with five renowned bandleaders. “Art Blakey taught me a lot about patience and how to construct a solo. My compositions are influenced by Abdullah Ibrahim’s harmonies. Slide Hampton inspired me with the relaxation that he displays in his trombone playing along with his command of the instrument. With Max Roach, I learned that I had to be on top of my game every moment. And Elvin Jones, who I worked with for seven or eight years, taught me about humanity, expressing myself through my instrument, and how to keep time without relying on other players.” During a tour with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, he was filmed as part of the Ken Burns documentary, Jazz and he was an integral part of Marsalis Family: A Jazz Celebration, a DVD that assembled all of the musical Marsalis’ for the first time and was featured on PBS.
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Delfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Crescent City Jewels
by Jack Bowers
Among the four musically talented Marsalis brothers from New Orleans, Delfeayo is the one who plays trombone. He is also the one who leads the impressive Uptown Jazz Orchestra in Crescent City Jewels, an affable salute to his beloved home town. The playlist spans the gamut from blues to ballads, breezy bon bons to flat-out burners, and the UJO is brightly polished and at ease in every mood and at any tempo. The New Orleans vibe is ...
Continue ReadingDelfeayo Marsalis: Crescent City Jewels
by Pierre Giroux
Delfeayo Marsalis' release Crescent City Jewels is a vibrant tribute to the resilience and spirit of New Orleans, expertly captured by his Uptown Jazz Orchestra. The album reads like a journal from Marsalis, full of musical moments that celebrate life's joys. Featuring an array of veteran musicians and rising stars from the Crescent City, it is a high-energy collection that showcases the vitality of big-band jazz with an infectious New Orleans flavour. The session's blend of jazz standards, original compositions ...
Continue ReadingDelfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Uptown on Mardi Gras Day
by Jack Bowers
Even though New Orleans' lively and colorful holiday festival is the focal point of trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis' Uptown Jazz Orchestra's latest recording, this is an album that can be heard and appreciated at any time of the year, as there is never a day when pleasure and happiness aren't in style. Delfeayo, a member of the multi-talented Marsalis family from New Orleans that includes brothers Branford (who is a guest artist on two tracks), trumpeter Wynton and ...
Continue ReadingDelfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Jazz Party
by Jerome Wilson
This album was recorded in 2019 but its message of unabashed joy is welcome these days for obvious reasons. The people responsible for it are Delfeayo Marsalis and Uptown Jazz Orchestra. The music is steeped in the various musical traditions of Marsalis' native New Orleans but brings in a few outside influences to enhance the fun. All sorts of Big Easy sounds are touched on here. Blackbird Special," a tune originally by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, intensifies ...
Continue ReadingDelfeayo Marsalis: Kalamazoo
by Dan Bilawsky
How is it that we haven't been gifted a live album from trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis before? He's been such an important part of the fabric of this music, whether producing works of lasting significance for other jazz greats in the studio, sharing space with his famous family, or leading his Uptown Orchestra through a rousing set in the Crescent City, yet there's nothing in his leader discography to highlight what it's truly like to hear one of his shows in ...
Continue ReadingIn Jazz We Trust: On The Politically Inspired Work Of Delfeayo Marsalis and Ted Nash
by Dan Bilawsky
The current state of American politics--a veritable cesspool that makes reality television seem sane by comparison--leaves little to feel good about. Moral compasses are skewed, elected officials bicker like fractious toddlers, and candidates ranging from the lunatic sybarite variety to the bumptiously insincere seek the highest office in the land with strong approval from the loud and entrenched in opposing corners. It's enough to make you cry, sigh, and check out completely. But before you withdraw from any discussion of ...
Continue ReadingDelfeayo Marsalis: Sweet Thunder
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Was Delfeayo Marsalis undertaking a task too challenging when he recorded music from one of Duke Ellington's most beloved albums to make Sweet Thunder? Gunther Schuller offers a doctrine that seems to suggest this has been so. Apparently the size and composition of the ensemble lead to this mishap. Would it have been remiss, to replicate the tonal colors that Ellington brought forth when he recorded Such Sweet Thunder (Columbia, 1957)--his jazz musical interpretation/relocation of the iambic pentameter of William ...
Continue ReadingJazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford... Read more.
Place our Musician of ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford... Read more.
Place our Musician of ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!
Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his “technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor…” (Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times), he is “…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation.” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.) In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford... Read more.
Place our Musician of ...
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Music Education Monday: Video workshops with Urbie Green & Delfeayo Marsalis
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week for Music Education Monday series, we've got a bone to pick with someone, via video workshops from jazz trombonists Urbie Green and Delfeayo Marsalis. Green, now 88 and retired from music, was known for his technical prowess, both as a soloist and bandleader and as a sideman with the big bands of Woody Herman, Gene Krupa and others, while Marsalis is part of the famous jny: New Orleans family that includes his dad, pianist Ellis Marsalis, and brothers ...
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Delfeayo Marsalis has taken a beloved, yet perhaps overlooked work and added to it with great care and respect in reinventing a classic into a modern classic. —"Brad Walseth, jazzchicago.com
…Here Marsalis turns it into another timelss album, with nuanced shades and colors bringing to life characters and emotions that are just as nuanced. " —Raul d'Gama Rose, All About Jazz
Primary Instrument
Trombone
Location
New Orleans
Photos
Music
Uptown on Mardi Gras Day
From: Uptown on Mardi Gras DayBy Delfeayo Marsalis
Raid on the Mingus House Party
From: Delfeayo Marsalis and the...By Delfeayo Marsalis
Sesame Street Theme
From: KalamazooBy Delfeayo Marsalis
Autumn Leaves
From: KalamazooBy Delfeayo Marsalis
If I Were a Bell
From: KalamazooBy Delfeayo Marsalis