Jazz Musician Ellis Marsalis Jr. Dies At 85 From Coronavirus Complications

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More sad news from New Orleans. The patriarch of one of Louisiana’s great jazz families, Ellis Marsalis Jr. died Wednesday, April 1st at the age of 85. His son Branford Marsalis released a statement about his father’s death Wednesday, revealing that complications from coronavirus were the cause.

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“It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of my father, Ellis Marsalis Jr., as a result of complications from the Coronavirus. He was admitted to the hospital on Saturday and died peacefully this evening.

My dad was a giant of a musician and teacher, but an even greater father. He poured everything he had into making us the best of what we could be.”

His son Wynton also posted several photos in memory of his father.

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Ellis Louis Marsalis was born on Nov. 14, 1934 in New Orleans, the New York Times reports. His mother, Florence Robertson, was a homemaker and his father, Ellis Marsalis Sr., who died in 2004, owned the Marsalis Motel. Marsalis Sr. was a social activist who became involved in the civil rights movement, and guests of the Marsalis Motel included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. from New York, the future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Ray Charles.

According to People, Marsalis Jr. began his musical career playing the clarinet and saxophone before switching to the piano in high school. Ellis Marsalis Jr. received a bachelor’s degree in music education from Dillard University in 1955, the NYT reports, and he taught at Xavier University Preparatory School before enlisting in the Marine Corps in the late 1950s. He became a member of a quartet of Marines that performed jazz on television and radio to aid in recruitment called The Corps Four. After leaving the Marines, he eventually moved back to New Orleans with his wife Dolores and their four sons to work at the family hotel and performing at night.

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Marsalis Jr. performed and recorded throughout the 1960’s and ’70s with a number of jazz musicians, including drummer Ed Blackwell and Cannonball and Nat Adderly. He went on to earn his master’s degree in music education from Loyola University and began teaching at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, where he’d lead the jazz studies program. In addition to his son Wynton who became the founding artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1997, son Branford, a three-time Grammy winning world-renowned saxophonist and bandleader, bandleader and trombonist son Delfeayo, and bandleader, drummer and vibraphonist son Jason, Marsalis Jr. also taught musicians Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison Jr., Harry Connick Jr. and Nicholas Payton — who were part of the movement referred to as the Young Lions. Marsalis Jr. also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, Xavier University and the University of New Orleans, where he served for 12 years as the founding director of its jazz studies department.

In 2008, Marsalis Jr. was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. For decades he continued to perform a weekly gig at one of New Orleans’ premier jazz clubs, Snug Harbor, and had only stopped this past December.

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Marsalis Jr. is survived by sons Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, MBoya and Jason, his sister Yvette and 13 grandchildren. His wife, Dolores, passed away in 2017.

We send our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends and all those who loved his music.