Jason Marsalis

[mrjazzman]

Saw Jason Marsalis's tribute to Lionel Hampton last week at Yoshi's Oakland. I have a two word critique.  Lackluster and bland. I'd bet he's the youngest of the brothers because his personality is kind of goofy/silly.  Gives Cannonball Adderely sermons inbetween songs. Milt Jackson tribute would've been better imho.

[Rabshakeh]

Is Jason the one who keeps flying the New Orleans flag in particular? 

I think he runs with a clique of impressively bland musicians. Those Los Hombres Calientes records might as well be written by AI. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I've never seen Jason as a leader. I think he was the drummer for his dad's last tour and I saw him then. He seemed like a decent drummer. I've seen better and I've seen worse. From his discography, it looks like he's been touring with the Lionel Hampton Big Band for a few years now. Is that what you saw? I've never seen him play vibes so I can't comment on that.

[bertrand]

Sounds boring, but I find everything I have heard by the Marsalis clan boring.

 

[kh1958]

Au contraire, Jason is an excellent vibes player, a fine drummer, and plays in his groups with quality New Orleans musicians like Oscar Rossignoli, Derek Douget and Ashlin Parker, none of whom are boring. Jason is not "goofy"; he is scholarly and personable.

 

 

Here's a good example of Jason Marsalis--he and Warren Wolf alternate on vibes in this set, with Oscar Rossignoli on piano.:

https://www.munck-music.com/collections/2023-new-orleans-jazz-heritage-festival/products/jason-marsalis-with-warren-wolf-live-at-2023-new-orleans-jazz-heritage-festival

 

[mrjazzman]

On 5/16/2025 at 6:03 AM, bertrand said:

Sounds boring, but I find everything I have heard by the Marsalis clan boring.

 

Wow, you said it not me, but upon thought, I have to agree

On 5/16/2025 at 6:30 AM, kh1958 said:

Au contraire, Jason is an excellent vibes player, a fine drummer, and plays in his groups with quality New Orleans musicians like Oscar Rossignoli, Derek Douget and Ashlin Parker, none of whom are boring. Jason is not "goofy"; he is scholarly and personable.

 

 

Here's a good example of Jason Marsalis--he and Warren Wolf alternate on vibes in this set, with Oscar Rossignoli on piano.:

https://www.munck-music.com/collections/2023-new-orleans-jazz-heritage-festival/products/jason-marsalis-with-warren-wolf-live-at-2023-new-orleans-jazz-heritage-festival

 

You have your ears and I have mine. I disagree with your assesment. 

[mikeweil]

Jason Marsalis' drumming in the Marcus Roberts Trio was oustanding!

And Los Hombres Calientes was a cooperative band, so blame Bill Summers and Irwin Mayfiled, too. That said, I love the band. Perfect fusion of a number of styles in typical New Orleans fashiom.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

This is such a divisive topic... I would rather we don't have to weather another one of these threads. They suck. He sucks. They're great. He's great. This place is so much more enjoyable when this particular topic doesn't crop up.

It's almost as bad as politics or religion. Maybe we can have Jim A modify the rules to include a ban on Marsalis threads?

[Peter Friedman]

Come on Kevin, there is nothing wrong with people expressing their opinions on a musicians live performance or recording. 

I don't recall and lengthy thread discussing Jason Marsalis. 

Edited yesterday at 03:13 PM by Peter Friedman

[Kevin Bresnahan]

7 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

Come on Kevin, there is nothing wrong with people expressing their opinions on a musicians live performance or recording. 

I don't recall and lengthy thread discussing Jason Marsalis. 

I have no problem discussing specific artists, except when it comes to Wynton Marsalis, which is where this thread is headed when someone posts:

On 5/16/2025 at 9:03 AM, bertrand said:

Sounds boring, but I find everything I have heard by the Marsalis clan boring.

and it's followed up with:

23 hours ago, mrjazzman said:

Wow, you said it not me, but upon thought, I have to agree

This looks like the beginning of a "Wynton Marsalis sucks" sidebar, which will probably digress into a all-out food fight.

As someone who enjoys some of Wynton's musical output and a lot of Branford's, I hate when these Marsalis-bashing threads bust out here.

[JSngry]

On 5/16/2025 at 8:03 AM, bertrand said:

Sounds boring, but I find everything I have heard by the Marsalis clan boring.

 

I like Ellis' duet record with Eddie Harris.

So there's that 

[jazzbo]

I like a LOT of the Marsalis family recordings. They're jazz. 

Edited 22 hours ago by jazzbo

[Kevin Bresnahan]

14 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I like Ellis' duet record with Eddie Harris.

So there's that 

I have several of Ellis' recordings but not that one. His last one, initially only available via pledgemusic, is pretty good.

As is his trio recording "Heart of Gold" & his solo piano date, "Piano in E".

[JSngry]

Jazz can be boring. It often is!

No different than anything else.

1 minute ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I have several of Ellis' recordings but not that one. His last one, initially only available via pledgemusic, is pretty good.

As is his trio recording "Heart of Gold" & his solo piano date, "Piano in E".

Sure, ok. But that duet album with Harris is actually interesting. Eddie is throwing curves and Ellis is seeing them.

And it gets out a few times as well. Unexpected treat!

[Rabshakeh]

I have no particular objection to Wynton or Branford. Wynton has in my view done a handful of very good records, some very poor longer compositions, and he now seems to have matured into a musician with stronger Louis Armstrong influence whose playing I find striking. Branford has a solid back catalogue of decent records and leaving that aside, has done a major service in elevating jazz' standing with the hip hop crowd, which is still bearing fruit.

But I have always found the clique of younger New Orleans-based jazz musicians nurtured by Ellis, among whom is Jason Marsalis, to be a particular disappointment. To my ears, their output is solid but very tepidly by the book retro stuff. I have no problem whatsoever with retro bop etc., but I find that their work lacks freshness and excitement. And it always comes wrapped up in this package of New Orleans heritage, references to Mardi Gras and gumbo, and a certain sense of superiority, which I find to be undeserved given their output.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

There are several videos of Jason Marsalis playing Lionel Hampton's music - everything from a quartet to a big band. I don't get "New Orleans" from either of these videos. The big band is clearly a swing band.

I will say that the video of the quartet date, which highlights Jason's vibes playing, shows him to be a rather sedate soloist, which may be why the initial poster said it was bland. But just like his drumming, I've seen better vibes soloists & much worse.

[Ken Dryden]

13 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I have several of Ellis' recordings but not that one. His last one, initially only available via pledgemusic, is pretty good.

As is his trio recording "Heart of Gold" & his solo piano date, "Piano in E".

I wrote the liner notes for the 80th Birthday limited edition 2 LP set. Supposedly the label was only going to press the number of copies that were purchased in advance. I was sent two bonus tracks that were to be included, but only one ended up being included.

I am not a fan of bashing the Marsalis family, although I think the patriarch’s compositions stick in mind more than any of his sons’s songs. I have seen both Branford and Wynton in concert and they played diverse, enjoyable sets.

[JSngry]

On 5/16/2025 at 8:03 AM, bertrand said:

Sounds boring, but I find everything I have heard by the Marsalis clan boring.

 

This one is interesting:

[Rabshakeh]

30 minutes ago, JSngry said:

This one is interesting:

That's interesting. I know the Gulf Coast Jazz record and the 1990s one, which are both pretty good and worth checking out.

Having snuffled around Discogs it looks like this is one of four LPs released in a box set of NOLA bop in the 1970s. 

[JSngry]

The OG AJQ was late 50s- early 60s iirc?

And then there's this one:

Down-home!!!!!!!!

[Rabshakeh]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

And then there's this one:

Down-home!!!!!!!!

I often wonder why they chose James Black, given that Marsalis was playing with Ed Blackwell at the time. 

Edit: Or maybe he wasn't. He was with Ornette already it looks like.

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

The OG AJQ was late 50s- early 60s iirc?

Recorded Feb 59. A good record. Almost a split LP between Marsalis and Batiste. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Rabshakeh

[Niko]

I read somewhere that Wynton himself thought that James Black was the greatest among all of his dad's sidemen and associates

[JSngry]

A drummer friend of mine goes to the mat for James Black with Yusef!

[Rabshakeh]

That's very interesting. Psychicemotus is an album with which I never quite gelled. I wasn't mad on Black on that Nat record either. But where I like him more is that split family record with the Von Freemans. Black is very sophisticated there, and perhaps it really wowed the young Marsalis brothers? 

Edit: By "sophisticated" here I just mean that he could have played with Miles Davis or someone who would have appealed to a young Wynton. I don't mean to suggest that Ed Blackwell is not sophisticated. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

It's a subtle thing, but once this dude took me to school on it, I appreciated it.

New Orleans drummers...yeah!