A link in the chain

ON'T CALL BRANFORD MARSALIS' latest disc, "Eternal," a digression.
Even though it's a ballad album, which is a first for Marsalis, the disc is not a detour or a whimsical creation. It's been planned for decades but Marsalis just wasn't ready.
"I was confident to do it back then, I just wasn't good enough," Marsalis said calling from his North Carolina home. "It's different. You just have to grow as a person and one of the things as an instrumentalist, you have to understand that it is possible to move people emotionally through sound. 'Eternal' is just another link in the chain, part of the continuation of what it is we're trying to do. It's not a diversion at all."
It wasn't until Marsalis and his quartet embraced John Coltrane's "Love Supreme" for his 2002 disc "Footsteps of our Father" that he finally felt competent enough to tackle a ballad album. Methodical and economical are two descriptions of arguably today's brightest jazz player, who comes from the highly regarded Marsalis family of New Orleans, which includes father Ellis and brother Wynton.
Exposure unwanted
While many recognize the last name as jazz royalty, the mainstream familiarity is based mostly on the accomplishments of Branford Marsalis. This includes a stint with a solo Sting in the mid-'80s and as Jay Leno's musical director in the early '90s. In terms of exposure and experience, Marsalis found plenty. Ultimately, it just wasn't what he had in mind.
"It's not about want, it's about opportunities coming into your lap and you either take them or you don't," Marsalis said. "Because there was no time with the situation with Sting or Jay that I lobbied for that gig. Those people came to me. And that's pretty much how I've lived my life. I just choose to live and prepare and then when opportunities present themselves, I'm prepared to deal with them. But as I had those opportunities, I just realized that jazz as an artistic music was more my focus. It was something that I wanted to do more than I wanted to do those other things."
If Marsalis separated himself from the mainstream a decade ago, he recently cut the remaining ties by leaving behind not only the Big Apple for North Carolina but also walking away from his longtime record label Columbia to start up his own label, Marsalis Music.
Show at YSU
A musician's musician, who tours and records when the spirit is right, Marsalis and his quartet come through Youngstown on Wednesday for a show at Youngstown State University Theatre. As for the future, he said his next album will be a return to his quintessential more aggressive tone, but there is no time line for its release. Marsalis feels you can't plan for magic. It just happens.
"I'll continue to write songs if the songs come to me," Marsalis said. "But, I don't really believe you should write everyday. I think it's really kind of dumb simply because the mind is a mystery to us all and the creative process is even more mysterious and the idea of trying to write everyday is almost like the idea that you see the trend in pop culture and in jazz as well, where people think they can legislate genius. Like basically you can say you're a genius and if you can get three people to corroborate that then voila, you're a genius. It's kind of amusing."