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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.

As a bandleader, Marsalis has earned wide acclaim for his first three albums as a leader: Pontius Pilate’s Decision (1992), Musashi (1997) and Minions Dominion (2006). His January 2011 release Sweet Thunder, his most ambitious project yet, is a modern interpretation of the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn suite Such Sweet Thunder. Rather than merely recreating the classic work, which is comprised of musical depictions of characters from William Shakespeare’s plays, Marsalis took the work as a point of departure for his octet, creating fresh and new music inspired by the original suite.“In some ways Sweet Thunder started for me in the seventh grade when I wrote a paper on my great uncle Wellman Braud, who played with Duke Ellington in the 1920s. While attending the University of Louisville, I wrote a thesis paper on Ellington and Shakespeare. For the project, I went to the Smithsonian and studied the original copies of the music for Such Sweet Thunder. I didn’t want to just play what Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote in 1957, but to imagine what they might have written if they were here today, more than 50 years later. To me this is jazz opera without the vocals, telling a story with the dramatic music.”

In addition to the recording, Delfeayo’s original theatrical jazz production, Sweet Thunder: Duke & Shak, will tour to some 35 American cities and towns beginning in January 2011.

Marsalis has also been long involved in work as an educator. In 2004, he earned an MA in jazz performance at the University of Louisville and was conferred a doctorate by New England College in 2009. He lectured in schools in 1995 on behalf of the Dallas Opera and the Bravo cable network. Marsalis served as director of the Foundation for Artistic and Musical Excellence summer program in Lawrenceville, New Jersey (1998-2002), founded the Uptown Music Theatre in 2000, and implemented its Kidstown After School in three New Orleans grammar schools in 2009. He has composed over 80 songs that help introduce kids to jazz.

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Delfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Uptown on Mardi Gras Day

Read "Uptown on Mardi Gras Day" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 24, 2023

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 ...

Album Review

Delfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Jazz Party

Read "Jazz Party" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
May 17, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Delfeayo Marsalis: Kalamazoo

Read "Kalamazoo" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 2, 2017

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 ...

Multiple Reviews

In Jazz We Trust: On The Politically Inspired Work Of Delfeayo Marsalis and Ted Nash

by Dan Bilawsky
October 2, 2016

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 ...

219

Album Review

Delfeayo Marsalis: Sweet Thunder

Read "Sweet Thunder" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
April 11, 2011

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 ...

411

Album Review

Delfeayo Marsalis: Sweet Thunder

Read "Sweet Thunder" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
January 14, 2011

Acclaimed trombonist and member of the first family of jazz, Delfeayo Marsalis launches Sweet Thunder: Duke & Shak, an original theatrical jazz production culled from live performances in thirty-six locations across the country. The play was born from Marsalis' affinity for the music of Duke Ellington and the poetry of Shakespeare: first brought to the musical stage in the 1957 production of Such Sweet Thunder at the Shakespeare Festival I Stratford, Canada. Both Ellington and Billy Strayhorn were invited to ...

338

Live Review

Delfeayo Marsalis Live at The Blue Note

by Ernest Barteldes
March 31, 2007

Delfeayo Marsalis Quintet The Blue Note New York City, New York January 4, 2007

Tony Bennett quotes Duke Ellington telling him to “sing sweet and put a little dirt in," and that is the best way to describe Delfeayo (pronounced Del- FEE -yo) Marsalis' Quintet set at New York's Blue Note Jazz Club on January 4, which was part of his week-long residence there.

class=MsoNormal>The quintet, which featured Anthony Wansi (piano), ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2019

All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!

Place our Musician of ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2018

All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!

Place our Musician of ...
read more

Performance / Tour

Jazz this week: Sean Jones Quartet, Delfeayo Marsalis & the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, Nutria, a new weekly jam session, and more

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
February 28, 2018

This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis features some top talent on trumpet and trombone, the local debut of an up-and-coming band from New Orleans, a new weekly jam session, and more. Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, February 28 Trumpeter Sean Jones returns with his quartet for the first of four nights at Jazz at the Bistro. Jones (pictured, top left) has been a frequent visitor to St. Louis in recent years, turning up ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2017

All About Jazz is celebrating Delfeayo Marsalis' birthday today!

Place our Musician of ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Delfeayo Marsalis

Source: Michael Ricci
July 28, 2016

Crowdfunding Campaign

B.J. Jansen, Ralph Peterson Jr., Delfeayo Marsalis & Duane Eubanks To Make A Record

Source: Kari-On Productions
July 8, 2016

BJ Jansen has launched an IndieGoGo Crowdsourcing Campaign for his 10th recording project as a leader with a planned release in the Spring of 2017. The recording will feature all original compositions and arrangements. He will be joined on the recording project by: Delfeayo Marsalis- trombone Ralph Peterson – drums Duane Eubanks – trumpet Zaccai Curtis – piano Dezron Douglas – bass Back This Project Praise for B. J. Jansen “A rising ...
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…one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation. —"Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner

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