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Straight Talk
Branford Marsalis discusses the musicians and music that helped shape his career.
March 22, 2002
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Photo by Kim Grant |
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Branford Marsalis's question-and-answer session at Berklee last month gave students a chance to ask the versatile artist about everything from reeds to record labels. Check out excerpts from his comments on those subjects and a few others below:
On playing pop music
Sometimes all the song requires is exactly what is there. And if you can't see the beauty in that simplicity, then you shouldn't even be playing that kind of music. The same applies to jazz, too. Just because something is complicated doesn't mean that it's hip, it just means that it's complicated.
On composing "Requiem" in memory of pianist Kenny Kirkland
I started writing it the afternoon of the day I found out that Kenny died. I sat around for a little while and started hearing this melody in my head. One of the things I like to do is write melodies before I write chords, because songs where you write the chords before you write the melody, have a tendency to sound like that. It's like a lot of pop music today, you can tell they have a rhythmic bed that they write from and the melodies are not strong. So I was writing this melody in my head and it took me two hours. I put the chord changes to it the next day.
On piano players and the limitations of sheet music
(Kenny Kirkland) knew when to stop playing. It's a marvelous effect and it's a shame more piano players don't employ it. Because piano players have the entire harmonic structure laid out before them, they have a tendency to box you in. If the paper says G7, then they're gonna clang out G7, and if you try to change that, they say, well that's not what the page says. As if the page were the music. The page is just a guide.
On playing with Art Blakey
The things he said to me to make me a better musician, I still employ those techniques today. Musicially, I try to do 100 percent of what he did, but professionally, I try to do the exact opposite of what he did 100 percent of the time.
On running his new label, Marsalis Music
At a major label, you can have a meeting with a guy in the jazz department—I've had this happen—and he'll pull up a computer screen and look at your sales while he's talking to you. That's where the vibe is, the music is secondary. To a degree, I can understand their point of view. Because you can make the best records in the world, but if they don't sell, they will fire you. So if you want to keep your job, then you have to find music that sells. Even if that means taking music that is not jazz and calling it jazz, which is what's going on all over the place now.
At Marsalis Music, nobody will have a sales requirement, only a musical requirement. If you make three records and all three of your records sound the same, you're going to get the boot. I need to hear growth. A lot of the guys I hear now, the only thing different between albums is the tunes. Their approach to each tune is the same. I don't dig that. I want to hear change.
On his greatest musical inspiration
I don't have one, I have hundreds. Last night before we went on, we were listening to the Isley Brothers, "Fight the Power," which is a song I grew up to. It could be anyone. Aretha Franklin, Gustav Mahler, Sonny Rollins, Led Zepplin, it doesn't matter. I have a lot of music that inspired me. And I definitely could not give all the praise to one person.
On recording with John Lee Hooker
He had gotten away from doing the blues he liked to do in the '50s and '60s and was doing the commercially viable songs that college kids liked, where every blues was a shuffle. So I wanted to get a song that was more like what he used to do. If you listen to him, a lot of time it sounds like he's not synced with the band. So I'm listening back to the tape in the studio and it sounds like he's singing an 11 bar form. So I wrote out an 11-bar form for him and gave it to Kenny (Kirkland). We'd already been in the studio for five hours, so I said "Here's the tune and what ever happens, happens." In the first chorus he sang an 11-bar form, in the second chorus he sang an 11-bar form, the third chorus he sang 9 bars, and the fourth chorus he sang 13, which brought it right back to where it should be. I tried to get Kenny to play on the 11-bar form, but he wouldn't have it, so his solo is in 12-bar form and mine is in 12-bar. It was a great session. The best part was John Lee saying, "I play in E. Ya'll can play whatever key you want to play in. I play in E." It was fun.
On why he left The Tonight Show
I'm a musician at the end of the day, not an entertainer.
Ed Hazell compiled this page. Please read Hazell's feature story on Marsalis's clinic, "The Renaissance Man."
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