Although the renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis is technically no longer a local, he’s still very much around. He remains an instructor and artist-in-residence at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), passing the symbolic torch of jazz to Gen Z and beyond.
And he’s still gigging in town from time to time: Just last month, on March 19, Marsalis was part of a heavenly Vespers service at Duke Chapel, saxophone and piano filling the reverberant abbey with endless notes of grace.
But here’s the biggest news: the Branford Marsalis Quartet has a new record, its first in six years. Released last week on the legendary Blue Note label, Belonging is a crystalline re-imagining of the pivotal 1974 album by pianist Keith Jarrett’s heralded European quartet.
“We played the music exactly as Jarrett wrote it,” Marsalis explained over the phone from his new digs in his hometown of New Orleans. “We constructed chord changes when they were needed. But it is all based on those original six songs.”
Marsalis, a former leader of the Tonight Show Band, lived in Durham from 2002 to 2024. Belonging is his 32nd release.
While the repertoire between the two records is identical, each release is distinct. Best exemplified by his blur of funky, stutter-step rhythms on “The Windup,” young drum sensation Justin Faulkner is the session wildcard.
“Yes, he’s a beast,” Marsalis confirmed. “But we never spent any time worrying about how we would make our performance different than those guys in [Jarrett’s] band.”
“I played in a youth trad band,” Marsalis continues. “I played in a couple of brass bands. I played in an R&B band. So I had some experiences that [saxophonist] Jan Garbarek and the Scandinavians in Jarrett’s band probably didn’t have. Because all of us in my band grew up listening to different styles of music, there was an attitude we could bring to that music. I knew automatically that it would be different than what was on the original record.”
Indeed, both versions of Belonging kick ass, but they do so in contrasting ways. Jon Christensen, Jarrett’s drummer, floats like a hummingbird, suggesting the pulse, but leaving pockets of emptiness. When Faulkner rolls and tumbles, however, there’s no doubt where the beat lies.
Meanwhile, Marsalis and Garbarek are both hall-of-fame improvisers on tenor and soprano. A stalwart presence for more than half a century on the German ECM label, Garbarek’s metallic, nasal tone is instantly recognizable on both horns.
Marsalis, on the other hand, has cultivated distinct personalities on his instruments. His tenor signature is broad and muscular; inspired by the river-deep tradition of hard-swinging, American-born saxophonists. And on soprano, Marsalis resonates warmth rather than Garbarek’s customary cool. Framed by sweet vibrato reminiscent of jazz clarinet masters of the past, Branford’s straight horn possesses an organic, woodgrain quality.
While the saxophones howl, the pianists hold the music together on both records, sketching harmonic roadmaps for everyone to follow. Jarrett, who suffered a pair of debilitating strokes in 2018, is a generational talent who defined the art of solo piano post-1970.
If you’re a serious jazz aficionado, you probably own a copy of The Koln Concert (ECM), still the gold standard for improvised piano concerts. Like Jarrett in his prime, Joey Calderazzo, Marsalis’ bandmate since 1999, possesses chops galore—and testifies like a country tent preacher on Belonging’s up-tempo rave-ups. It’s on ballads like the bittersweet title-cut and “Solstice,” however, when Calderazzo melts your heart, favoring mood-setting over pyrotechnics. Imagine piano notes cast as wind chimes tinkling in a mellow breeze.
Unwittingly, perhaps, Calderazzo and Marsalis previewed the ever-present spirit of empathy on Belonging during their duets at Duke Chapel. Using minimal amplification, the notes were launched at floor level, then hung in the air, weightlessly spiraling into the ceiling, intertwined in ethereal echo. Beautiful music rendered in slow motion. The effect was tranquil, suggesting a certain timelessness.
“That was fun, man,” Marsalis affirmed of the Duke Chapel show. “Joey and I did a duo record a long time ago. And I did a solo saxophone record in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The delay [in the room] was about 7 seconds.”
“Instrumental musicians spend so much time developing whatever they think will be their instrumental niche,” he continued. “Sometimes they spend more time enforcing their instrumental niche rather than looking at their surroundings. Duke Ellington performed and recorded a concert of sacred music in Grace Cathedral. He understood how to write for the room. Mozart wrote an oratorio with a place like that in mind.”
“I told Joey, ‘We’re just going to play the pretty stuff, man. We can’t play all that busy stuff here. It will just get lost.’ And it would have been against the spirit of what we were there for in the first place.”
If you missed the live performance in Durham by Marsalis/Calderazzo, don’t despair. The inspirational ballads on Belonging possess a similar essence. It is the sound of hope and redemption, a musical salve to calm frayed nerves.
It’s true: jazz is often about the virtuosity of musicians, but not always. Marsalis, for one, doesn’t underestimate the power of pretty music played from the heart.
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