Ellis Marsalis Jr., a jazz pianist from New Orleans, died Wednesday night from complications due to coronavirus, his son, Branford Marsalis, confirmed in a statement to Variety. He was 85.
In addition to having his own prominent music career, Marsalis helped pave the way for four of his sons, Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo and Jason, to enter the music industry. Wynton is a trumpeter and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s managing and artistic director; Branford plays the saxophone; Delfeayo is a trombonist; and Jason plays the drums.
“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. And to quote my friend and Harvard Law professor David Wilkins, who just sent me the following text, ‘We can all marvel at the sheer audacity of a man who believed he could teach his black boys to be excellent in a world that denied that very possibility, and then watch them go on to redefine what excellence means for all time,’” Branford Marsalis said in the statement.
Marsalis counted Ed Blackwell, Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley and Al Hirt among some of his mentors in the ’50s and ’60s. He taught at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts in the ’70s, where some of his students included Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Donald Harrison, Marlon Jordan, Kent Jordan and Nicholas Payton.
In 2008, he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, and the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music in New Orleans was named in his honor a year earlier.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell posted a tribute to the musician on Twitter, calling him “the prototype of what we mean when we talk about New Orleans jazz.”