Ever creatively restless, he branched out, playing with Sting, Bela Fleck, Bruce Hornsby, as well as his own genre-bending side-project Buckshot LeFonque. Until recently, he seemed doomed to spend his life known chiefly as ''Wynton Marsalis` brother.''

Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American virtuoso trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Branford Marsalis. Marsalis enjoyed playing with Sting but did not let the association cause him to forget his musical priorities.
Fresh Air celebrates Ellis Marsalis, who died April 1 of COVID-19, by listening back to interviews with two of his sons. Initially emerging in the 1980s to widespread acclaim alongside his brother trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Marsalis drew early comparisons to idols Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins. Wynton Marsalis, like Sting, is a pretentious ideologue—in the liner notes you will find him ranting about junk food, illiteracy and “anything that pushes your taste down to an obvious, animal level”—but when it comes to the music, he has the distinct advantage of closing his mouth and blowing. In 1985, when he left Wynton to join Sting's pop/rock group, it caused a major (if temporary) rift with his brother that made headlines. The move brought wider recognition to Marsalis, who appeared on Sting's 1984 album, Dream of the Blue Turtles and … Branford spoke of his father in 2002; Wynton's interview is from 1994. However, Marsalis left the group in 1985 to play in former Police singer Sting's band, which at the time was heavily influenced by jazz, funk, and fusion. Marsalis, who lives in Durham, N.C., is in New York on this snowy winter day for a club date with his acclaimed Branford Marsalis Quartet. Marsalis has won at least nine Grammy Awards, and his Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Anderson, Eric Ryan (Photographer) B ranford Marsalis is an internationally famous saxophonist and musician known mainly for his jazz recordings and concerts with his own group and his brother Wynton’s band.