Timeline

  • 2009
    March

    Branford Marsalis Quartet celebrates 10 years as a working band, releases Metamorphosen

    Following their European tour in the summer of 2008, the Branford Marsalis Quartet headed into the studio to record. The results of that visit to the studio which they set up in Durham, North Carolina’s Hayti Heritage Center, Metamorphosen, is another milestone from an ensemble that continues to set the pace regarding jazz creativity.

  • 2009
    February

    Branford Marsalis and the members of his quartet join the North Carolina Symphony for American Spectrum, released by Sweden's BIS Records. The album showcases Marsalis and the orchestra performing a range of American music by Michael Daugherty, John Williams, Ned Rorem and Christopher Rouse, while being conducted by Grant Llewellyn.

  • 2008
    October

    Branford Marsalis joins with The Philharmonia Brasileira in “Marsalis Brasilianos: A Celebration of the Music of Heitor Villa-Lobos”

    Under the direction of conductor Gil Jardim, Branford Marsalis and members of the Philharmonia Brasileira toured the United States in the fall of 2008, performing works by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, arranged for solo saxophone and orchestra. This project commemorated the 50th Anniversary of the revered Brazilian composer’s death.

  • 2008
    February

    Branford Marsalis & Harry Connick, Jr. Headline NBA All-Star Weekend

    Branford Marsalis along with Harry Connick Jr. and several other top New Orleans-based musicians performed at the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday, Feb. 17. Sharing game-time duties, Branford served as musical director for the player introductions as well as performed the national anthem, while Connick directed and performed a halftime show devoted to the city's legendary pianists.

  • 2007
    October

    Drummer Justin Faulkner performs with the BMQ for the first time as a sub

    Drummer Justin Faulkner subbed for the Branford Marsalis Quartet’s longtime drummer, Jeff “Tain” Watts, on a one-off gig in 2007 when he was only sixteen years old. When Watts left the quartet in early 2009, after twenty-five remarkable years, he left a hole that not many artists could fill. Faulkner was invited to step in. He was eighteen years old.

  • 2006
    November

    Branford is appointed to the faculty of North Carolina Central University

    Branford Marsalis begins as an artist-in-residence at North Carolina Central University where, as part of his position, he teaches students, presents lectures, and coaches and performs with the jazz ensembles.

  • 2006
    September

    Branford Marsalis Quartet releases Braggtown

    Over the course of its life – and most particularly on its previous Marsalis Music discs – the Branford Marsalis Quartet has revealed an ability to express every kind of emotion, including an informed sense of history (on the label-launching Footsteps of Our Fathers in 2002 and the 2004 DVD Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ Live in Amsterdam), a sensitivity to other artistic disciplines (Romare Bearden Revealed from 2003) and a profound sense of intimacy that stretched the concept of a “ballads album” (2004’s Eternal). In September 2006, the Quartet’s released Braggtown, which addresses all of these areas and more.

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