Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 14, 1992 TAG: 9202140250
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LOIS ROMANO THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
JAZZ SAXOPHONIST TIRED OF `DISRESPECT'
Jazz maestro and saxophonist Branford Marsalis would like you to know something:"Jazz musicians in the old days - they were never given an opportunity to control their own destiny," says the New Orleans native. "They were told when to play, what to play, where to play." It was, he says, "a horrible existence."
This outspoken young talent, tapped to be Jay Leno's Doc Severinsen and lead "The Tonight Show" into another generation, isn't finished.
"It's a different kind of disrespect now," complains Marsalis, who's performing here Saturday night. "It's more under the guise of a corporation. . . . I don't think the disrespect comes from the color of your skin anymore. It's management and performer. You're a piece of meat. When you're finished performing, it's "See you.' "
Marsalis is considered one of the most promising - and serious - musicians around. He's recorded nine albums; the most recent, "The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born" (Columbia), was released last fall to good reviews. And while he's hesitant to expound on his new deal (there have been no signatures on the dotted line), he knows Leno's interest is a validation of his work as an entertainer, not only as a jazz musician.
Marsalis grew into jazz by listening to hundreds of records and performing with their creators - Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie and Lionel Hampton. He studied classical music - training, he believes, that is necessary to be a good musician. He also explored other genres, having shared the stage with punker-turned-popster Sting and the Grateful Dead.
He hates, by the way, this whole classifying thing, which he also blames on record executives.
Yet he has his own distinctions. "The pop element is infiltrating jazz," he says over the crackling mobile phone from somewhere in Connecticut, "and a lot of those young musicians don't deserve their record contracts."
Now, don't get him wrong. He readily admits he didn't deserve his contract when he got it, either. Sure, he was experienced - he and his brother, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, had played the Bourbon Street club scene since he was 14.
Chances are he was a bit sassy, too. But, he says mindfully, "there is no such thing as a great jazz musician at 19." It takes time, he says, to develop "depth, maturity."
This said at the ripe old age of 31.