Ellis Marsalis, Father of Family Jazz Legacy, Comes to Portland

This weekend, the Soul’d Out Music Festival will conclude with a performance by pianist and jazz master Ellis Marsalis, the man responsible for the Marsalis family jazz legacy that includes sons Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason. Last week, The Skanner News spoke with the pianist from his home in New Orleans.

Ellis, now retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans, still plays a weekly show in New Orleans, but says that his performances during this tour will likely be his last away from Louisiana. This year, the Marsalis family received the first NEA Jazz Masters group award for their accomplishments in the genre. Ellis is also serving as a consultant to the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, which features performance halls and education spaces for residents at Musicians Village and others in the neighborhood.

Marsalis will play this Saturday with his son Jason at the Aladdin Theatre in Portland, with an opening set by the Devin Phillips Quartet.

The Soul’d Out Music Festival continues all this week with performances from a number of national soul, jazz and hip hop acts including Das Racist, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Tinie Tempah, Rusko, Trentemoller, Breakestra, Mos Def and more. Check www.souldoutfestival.com for a full schedule of events 

TSN: You’re about to embark on a multi-city tour going from Portland to San Francisco coming up here in the next…

Ellis Marsalis: I wouldn’t exactly call it a tour going from Portland Oregon to San Francisco … I don’t really do touring per se, it’s not something I can really do. In fact, in February, my wife broke her hip and I was close to having to cancel the little bit of something I had to be at home trying to help her with her rehab. As it is, I did cancel the workshop I was going to do the following day because as it is, it’s taking me out of town for too many days.

TSN: Do you tend to still play a lot of live shows in your home of New Orleans?

EM: I do once a week at a club called Snug Harbor.

TSN: Do you still enjoy playing live shows?

EM: Oh I still enjoy playing, I definitely enjoy playing. And you know, there are some young guys I get a chance to play with, which is even better.

Complete on: http://www.theskanner.com/article/2011/04/12/Ellis-Marsalis-Father-of-Family-Jazz-Legacy-Comes-to-Portland

Ellis Marsalis Recording Released as Jazz LP on iTunes

Nu Jazz Entertainment issues pianist's An Open Letter to Thelonioius, the first jazz LP on iTunes

By Jason Rabin

Where you can you get an “LP” of the latest release from Ellis Marsalis? Try iTunes. It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but true to its moniker, Nu Jazz Entertainment is embracing the new with its release this month of Ellis Marsalis’ An Open Letter to Thelonious as “the first jazz “LP” on iTunes.”

Ellis Marsalis: An Open Letter to Thelonious album cover

iTunes launched its LP format in 2009 in an attempt to revive some of the visual experiences that came with buying records—the cover art, liner notes and inserts. Downloads with this label include digital versions of these items as well as video content. Marsalis’ Open Letter to Thelonious will be the first traditional jazz album to get the treatment.

The album download will include all 11 of the Monk compositions from the original 2008 release with Ellis at the piano, Jason Marsalis on drums, Derek Douget on tenor and soprano saxophone and Jason Stewart on bass. Added to the package are three bonus audio tracks, 10 photographs from the Milton J. Hinton Collection and the Marsalis Family Archives, liner notes in visual and audio formats, song etymologies from the award-winning book Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of An American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley and four high definition documentary videos exploring the Marsalis family. The videos offer narration from Ellis, interviews with his sons, and photographs capturing their earliest years as musicians.

The LP download resembles a cross between a DVD menu and a web site. Links to 8 content pages are splayed across a home page, which also hosts a simple “play album button” to trigger the 11 core audio tracks. Pages are laid out intuitively with scroll bars, and users can navigate back home from any of the successive pages with one click.

“The new iTunes “LP” format was the ideal vehicle for releasing this project says Nu Jazz Entertainment president, Jerald Miller in a press release. “In association with Elm Records, we were able to go in and create some extremely unique material which not only gives great insight into the first family of musicians to be named 'Jazz Masters' by the National Endowment of the Arts, but creates an exciting interactive program that every music lover can truly enjoy.”

From: http://jazztimes.com/sections/news/articles/27089-ellis-marsalis-recording-released-as-jazz-lp-on-itunes