Acclaimed saxophonist
Branford Marsalis is one of the most revered instrumentalists of his time. The three-time Grammy Award®-winner has continued to exercise and expand his skills as an instrumentalist, a composer and the head of Marsalis Music, the label he founded in 2002 which has allowed him to produce both his own projects and those of the jazz world’s most promising artists.
Having gained initial acclaim through his work with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and his brother Wynton’s quintet in the early 1980s, Marsalis has also performed and recorded with a who’s-who of jazz giants, including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins. He has collaborated with such diverse artists as Sting, the Grateful Dead and Bruce Hornsby. His expansive interests are further reflected in his explorations in film, radio and television, including his role as the musical director of
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for two years in the early 1990s.
Marsalis leads the Branford Marsalis Quartet, one of the finest jazz quartets today. The group consists of drummer Justin Faulkner, pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and Marsalis on saxophone. They recently released a new album,
Four MFs Playin’ Tunes, which is the tight-knit band’s first recording since Faulkner joined the band three years ago. The Branford Marsalis Quartet has built its reputation by bringing intensity to each and every live and recorded performance.
Says Marsalis, “Even if people don’t know what we’re doing, they’ll
feel what we’re doing.”
Marsalis shares his knowledge of jazz in the classrooms of such universities as Michigan State, San Francisco State, Stanford and North Carolina Central, with his full quartet participating in an innovative extended residency at the NCCU campus. He also educates high school and college students in jazz through Marsalis Jams, an interactive program designed by Marsalis in which leading jazz ensembles present concert/jam sessions in mini-residencies. Marsalis Jams has visited campuses in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Southwest areas of the country, and later established an ongoing Marsalis Berklee Jams series with the Berklee College of Music.
In 2011, the National Endowment for the Arts conferred the prestigious Jazz Masters Fellowship on the Marsalis family, a celebration and acknowledgement of a family described by the
New York Times as “jazz’s most storied living dynasty,” who have made an unforgettable mark, collectively and individually, on the history and the future of America’s art form, jazz.
For tickets to Branford Marsalis November 9 at the Holland, call Ticket Omaha at 402.345.0606 or visit
TicketOmaha.com. Ticket Omaha is the official retailer for performances at the Orpheum Theater and the Holland Performing Arts Center. Tickets purchased from other retailers may not be valid.
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