Branford Marsalis | News | Infotext Branford Marsalis Quartet: Belonging (VÖ: 28.03.2025)

1. Spiral Dance 8:21
2. Blossom 11:01
3. ‘Long As You Know You’re Living Yours 8:55
4. Belonging 7:35
5. The Windup 12:40
6. Solstice 14:19 

All tracks written by Keith Jarrett
Arranged by Branford Marsalis

Branford Marsalis: Saxophones
Joey Calderazzo: Piano
Eric Revis: Bass
Justin Faulkner: Drums

 Produced by Branford Marsalis
Recorded by Rob “Wacko” Hunter at the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, New Orleans, LA on March 25–29, 2024

 
Saxofonist Branford Marsalis, einer der bedeutendsten Jazzkünstler unserer Zeit und seit mehr als vier Jahrzehnten eine maßgebende kreative Kraft in der amerikanischen Musikszene, gibt sein Blue-Note-Debüt mit „Belonging“, einer vollständigen Neuinterpretation von Keith Jarretts gleichnamigem ECM-Album von 1974, dem Debüt seines European Quartet. „Belonging“ ist Marsalis‘ erste Neuveröffentlichung seit 2019 mit seinem gefeierten, langjährigen Quartett mit Pianist Joey Calderazzo, Bassist Eric Revis und Schlagzeuger Justin Faulkner.

Das Branford Marsalis Quartet hat in der Vergangenheit schon Jazz von Charles Mingus, dem Modern Jazz Quartet, John Coltrane und anderen interpretiert – stets weder mit sklavischer Treue zu den Originalen noch mit extremen Dekonstruktionen. Branford Marsalis gibt zu, dass er sich eigentlich für andere Musik interessierte, als Keith Jarretts „Belonging“ 1974 veröffentlicht wurde. „Ich war ein Neuling in der High School und hörte R&B“, erinnert er sich. „Ich wusste nicht, dass das Album überhaupt existiert.“ Das änderte sich, als er seinen Fokus auf Jazz verlagerte, obwohl er nur mit Keith Jarretts Soloklaviermusik vertraut war, bis der Pianist Kenny Kirkland ihn mit Jarretts European Quartet mit dem Saxofonisten Jan Garbarek, dem Bassisten Palle Danielsson und dem Schlagzeuger Jon Christensen bekannt machte. „Irgendwann in den Achtzigern saßen wir in einem Flugzeug und Kenny setzte mir seine Kopfhörer auf die Ohren und spielte [Jarretts 1979er Album] ‚My Song‘.“ Als er nach fünf Minuten die Kopfhörer zurückhaben wollte, schlug ich seine Hand weg; und als wir in der nächsten Stadt ankamen, ging ich los und kaufte jede Aufnahme dieser Band.“

Branford Marsalis und sein Quartett beweisen mit „Belonging“, wie die liebevolle Auseinandersetzung mit einem bewunderten Werk und die Freiheit des Jazz ein neues, ebenso eindrucksvolles Werk schaffen können.

Branford Marsalis, one of the world’s most preeminent saxophonists, is now being recognized as a musician whose talent knows no boundaries. A peerless instrumentalist and bandleader in the jazz world, recent years have found him performing as a classical soloist with symphony orchestras, composing scores for major motion pictures and Broadway shows, composing a symphony for a full classical orchestra, teaching at universities, and providing artistic leadership at the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Along the way his work has garnered Grammy Awards, an EMMY nomination, Tony nominations, a Drama Desk Award and a citation by the National Endowment for the Arts as Jazz Master.

Marsalis’ longstanding quartet—featuring pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Justin Faulkner—remains at what he calls “the top of the food chain,” a description that also applies to the band’s place among contemporary ensembles. Over the course of its life, no other group has matched the Marsalis Quartet’s ability to offer listeners both vibrant original music and creative interpretations of historic masterpieces. For its debut recording for Blue Note Records, Marsalis has chosen to present the band’s interpretation of Belonging, the 1974 album that introduced pianist Keith Jarrett’s European Quartet of saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen.

Marsalis admits that he was into other music when Belonging was released in 1974. “I was a freshman in high school, listening to R&B,” he recalls. “I didn’t know Belonging existed.” That changed once he shifted his focus to jazz, although he was only familiar with Jarrett’s solo piano music until pianist Kenny Kirkland introduced him to the Jarrett Quartet. “We were sitting on a plane sometime in the eighties and Kenny put his headphones on my ears and played [Jarrett’s 1979 album] My Song. When he tried to take the headphones back after five minutes I slapped his hand away; and when we got to the next city, I went out and bought every recording by that band.”

A similar discovery occurred when Marsalis decided to include “The Windup” from Belonging on his band’s most recent album, 2019’s The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul. “We were all listening to “The Windup” for the last record, and Revis said that we should just record Belonging, the whole album is so great and we could do things with it. We all liked the idea, and then the pandemic came. When the pandemic ended, we all still felt that yeah, we should do this.”

The quartet applied Marsalis’ previous approach to classics by Charles Mingus, the Modern Jazz Quartet, John Coltrane, and others – neither slavish fealty to the originals nor extreme deconstructions. “On the composition ‘Belonging,’ I clearly played things that Jan played on the record,” Marsalis points out. “I didn’t try to reject the idea when it occurred, but at no point did we plan to consciously pay tribute. I’m always listening to the whole record, not just the saxophone solos, and the most impressive thing about Belonging for me is how it all fits together.”

Unlike Jarrett’s band, which convened for the first time when it recorded Belonging and would only later become one of the signature groups of the 1970s, the Marsalis Quartet can call upon a rare history as a band. Revis joined in 1996, Calderazzo in 1999, and Faulkner in 2009, and their ability to hear and react to each other is unparalleled. Of equal importance to Marsalis is the lessons time has imparted. “The biggest benefit we have is 50 years of information that Keith’s band didn’t have, and our ability to process that shared experience. For one example, when we were about to record ‘Long as You Know You’re Living Yours,’ Justin asked me what our approach would be. I said two words to him, ‘James Gadson,’ and he took it from there. It’s not just knowing the reference, it’s having spent enough time, as Justin has, incorporating different styles of playing. Revis knew what the groove was. When we play it, we bring it more in the spirit of Donny Hathaway Live.”

The knack for respecting sources while producing performances that are completely personal is a hallmark of Marsalis and his band’s approach to all of the music they play. “Learning music is like learning languages in school,” he offers. “Learning in school can just be an academic exercise, which you realize when you go abroad and can’t speak the language. I tell students that the delivery mechanism in music is the simplest system in the world: There are only 12 notes, 12 pieces of data. Miles Davis at any given point in his career was using the same system as Beethoven. It’s not the notes that make music unique, it’s how it sounds.”

Belonging is loaded with inspired performances, from Calderazzo’s opening piano improvisation on “Spiral Dance” through the title track featuring soprano saxophone to the collective rise and fall of the closing “Solstice.” There is also one more “Windup,” this time with vocal punctuation. “We were going to do the whole album and had to include ‘The Windup’ again, so we said ‘one take and that’s it.’  When I quoted the traditional New Orleans parade song ‘The Second Line’ the band shouted ‘yeah,’ which is the proper response.”

Marsalis notes that “The whole purpose of this group is to be more like a chamber group than a jazz group,” and in the process he has taken listeners along without compromising his approach. “All that any audience for any music wants is a great melody and a great accompanying beat” he explains. “It doesn’t really matter where our journey goes, as long as we keep the dance going.”

While such recent efforts as his score for the Bayard Rustin biopic, Rustin, his work on the film adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and the Broadway musical A Wonderful World: A Louis Armstrong Musical have drawn growing attention, the Branford Marsalis Quartet remains the saxophonist’s priority. “That’s what I do the most” he says, “and   when I do other things, I’m always drawn back to it. Everybody in the band shares a musical ideology, and when you have that you have the potential to develop. But to really develop you also have to play a lot.  Everybody in the band is on board with the idea that we are actually trying to improvise, and not show off what we practiced last week. Each of us does other things, but when we do we can’t wait to start hitting again.”

The addition of the Branford Marsalis Quartet to the Blue Note roster could not be more fitting. A significant part of the label’s preeminence has been built on classic recordings featuring tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums by the likes of Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, Dexter Gordon, Wayne Shorter, and Joe Henderson. Branford Marsalis, and the quartet he leads, clearly belong.

 

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