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Funding for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program NEA Jazz Master interview was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. BRANFORD MARSALIS NEA Jazz Master (2011) Interviewee: Branford Marsalis (August 26, 1960 - ) Interviewer: Dr. Anthony Brown, engineered by Ken Kimery Date: May 24-25, 2012 Repository: Archives Center, National Museum of American History Description: Transcript, pp. 160 AB: Today is May 24, 2012 and this is the Smithsonian Oral History Interview with saxophonist, composer, bandleader, educator, radio and TV personality and erstwhile thespian, or actor, NEA Jazz Master Branford Marsalis in his home in Durham, North Carolina. Good morning Mr. Marsalis, how are you doing? BM: Good morning, Mr. Brown. How are you? AB: OK. If we can go ahead and forgo the formalities if I may call you Branford, you can call me whatever you want. BM: Un-huh. For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] AB: OK. So since this is the NEA Jazz Masters interview conducted by Anthony Brown, assisted by Ken Kimery. Let’s go ahead and start from the beginning and get the…. (beeping noise in background) We might have to deal with that. BM: I’ll turn this off. AB: OK. Go ahead…. Today is May 24, 2012 and this is the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Interview with saxophonist, composer, bandleader, educator, radio and TV personality, and erstwhile thespian, or actor, NEA Jazz Master, Branford Marsalis, conducted in his home in Durham, North Carolina. Good Morning, how are you doing? BM: Good morning, Mr. Brown. AB: Seems like we’ve done this before. (laughs) BM: Yeah, right? What are the odds of that? AB: Yeah. So if we could start from the very beginning and if you could give us your birth name, birthplace and birth date? BM: Branford Marsalis, born at Flint Goodrich Hospital on October [August] 26, 1960 in New Orleans. AB: And is that your complete name? BM: Iweanya, “i-w-e-a-n-y-a,” is my middle name. AB: What does that mean? For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] BM: My father’s friend. My father had a friend from, I think, Kenya. Kenya, no. Yeah, Kenya. And he honored him. AB: I noticed that many of your brothers have, should I say, unorthodox names…not, unusual names, so maybe we’ll talk a little bit more about that. BM: Sure. AB: What part of New Orleans did you live, or did your parents live at that time? BM: I don’t know, I was an infant. But my first recollections of life, we weren’t living in New Orleans, we were living in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, where my father was a band director at Booker T. Washington High School in Breaux Bridge. Then he finally left Breaux Bridge and moved to a small place called Hanson City, which is outside of Kenner, which is outside of New Orleans where it was like the woods. We were living in Hanson City and from Hanson City we moved to Kenner and then we moved into New Orleans proper, I think, I might have been thirteen, or fourteen. AB: That’s when you finally moved back into New Orleans. BM: Yeah. AB: Now when you were growing up and going to school, were you going to school in these places like Kenner and…? BM: I was going to school…in Kenner I went to Benjamin Banneker Elementary School. And my mother moved me to a Catholic school, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, when I was in the For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] fourth grade. I was one of, I think, five black kids in the whole school. And then from there I graduated from Oil P. H. and went to De La Salle High School from my freshman, sophomore, and half of my junior years. And then for the rest of my junior year and all of my senior year, I transferred to Illinois McMahon High School, which allowed me to go to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. AB: When did you first become interested in music, or when did you first show an aptitude towards music? BM: I was always…. We played since we were little. I played piano. I didn’t like the piano very much, so when I was in first grade I had my out I wanted to join the school band, of course, there’s no…. AB: In the first grade you wanted to join…. BM: Well it was just to get the hell off of the piano, so. Wynton got a trumpet, you know, and maybe it was the sec…. No, it wasn’t the first grade. It was the…. Yeah, I think it was. First, or second grade. Second grade, because Wynton got a trumpet and I said, “Well, can I get something so I can join the band?” The whole idea was “I gotta get off this piano, I’m not feeling the piano.” So I got a clarinet. My dad got Wynton’s trumpet from Al Hirt, who was a very successful New Orleans trumpeter and his clarinetist name was, Pee Wee Spitelera. So Pee Wee gave a clarinet to my dad for me to play. AB: And when you say you wanted to get away from the piano, is it because the lessons, or was it you just didn’t want…. BM: I just didn’t…. I wasn’t feeling the piano. For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] AB: But what were you doing? Were you taking lessons? BM: Taking lessons. AB: Were you learning to read? BM: Yeah. AB: Were you learning repertoire, or were you just learning scales? BM: I was six, or five, so there’s not much repertoire that a six-year old can learn, unless he’s prodigious, and prodigious I was not, so. I was in a couple of concerts. I did a duet once. I just didn’t like to practice a lot. And I did a duet once with a young lady named Barbara Krauss. I think we were both seven at the time, or eight. My mother was saying, you know, “You’re gonna mess this piece up, because you don’t practice.” So, to lodge a protest, that’s what she said, but I know it’s because of her nerves. But to lodge a protest, when I went on stage to play, she got up and she walked out of the building, because I hadn’t practiced. And that just pissed me off, so then I looked up and I saw her looking through the window like that, you know. There’s the little windows in the door. And I nailed the piece. I just nailed it. Me and Barbara, we played great. And when it was over I was looking at her like, “Un-huh, who’s gonna mess the piece up?” And that made her mad. (laughs) But I didn’t like to practice. I think I was a really social person, even then. And playing the piano is a very solitary endeavor and I just wasn’t feeling the lack of camaraderie that, as a young person playing the piano, you know, it’s very solitary. Your friends are in bands, you’re not, so I wanted to be in the band. AB: Now did you have playmates, or other friends who were also involved in music? For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] BM: Not involved in music, but, unlike most cities in America, being a musician is cool in New Orleans and the surrounding area. Or, as we say down there, “Oh yeah Bruh, you play that music, huh?” I mean they…. It’s like there’s this whole thing that I saw in movies and had other conversations with…. Like the term “band fag,” I mean I didn’t even know what that was. Some guy, when I was in college, said, “Oh, you know, I was a band fag.” I said, “What’s a band fag?” You know? He said, “Aw, you know, that’s what they call the bands.” Not in New Orleans. That’s not what they call the musicians ‘cause a lot of the musicians in New Orleans were thugs, tough guys. [So…] And this has been…. You can read Jelly Roll Morton’s book. I mean you can hear his oral history and you can read a…. AB: Mr. Jelly Roll, or Pops Foster. BM: Pops Foster’s book and he talks about how a lot of musicians were cut throats and thugs. So there was a tradition of that in New Orleans and it’s carried over. So the idea of musicians being effeminate, that wasn’t part of my experience growing up. So I didn’t have the same peer pressure that kids from other parts of the country would have had, cause it was cool to play music. AB: Now, when you picked up the clarinet, did you take to it immediately? BM: Yeah. I loved the sound of it. I loved it. I loved it. Still didn’t practice. I didn’t have to. The music we were playing…. We were playing band music, so I guess in a way, I did have an aptitude, but it was incredibly easy music. And then when I was in Youth Orchestra, Mr.