Talk:Branford Marsalis
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Wasn't Branford Marsalis also a sideman for the Grateful Dead? _Eyes of the World_ from the live album _Without a Net_? Awesome job, too.
The album The Marsalis Family: A Jazz Celebration was not published under Branford's name and is therefore not part of his discography.
Grammar and POV:
This sentence needs some work:
"He is the oldest of the six Marsalis brothers, four of whom are jazz musicians, as is their father Ellis Marsalis. He is most prominently known in jazz as a tenor and soprano saxophonist and a most talented brilliant musical innovator among his brothers."
I'm anything but a Wynton Marsalis partisan, but it's hard to say categorically that Branford is more talented than Wynton, or even more innovative. They both have a lot of accomplishments under their belts. Branford is obviously less polarizing than Wynton, and comes accross as a likeable, regular guy in a way that Wynton doesn't. For many serious jazz fans, Wynton was long seen as a reactionary and somewhat undeserving of his role as jazz's ambassador to the non-jazz-loving masses. But Wynton once upon a time had the good taste and leadship ability to hire a killer post-bop band (Kirkland, Watts, Hurst, Branford) that really did deserve to make recordings and get national press, despite being in their early twenties. And Wynton has tried to reinvigorate some of the pre-bop jazz language (New Orleans sounds in particular) that isn't touched much by his contemporaries, whether they are "Young Lions" or "Downtowner". To sum up, neither Wynton nor Branford have really concerned themselves with musical innovation at the expense of all else; they both mix up their own compositions and language with jazz traditions.
