Branford Marsalis, the Grammy, Emmy and Tony award-winning musician, composer and educator, is the 2024 recipient of the Alvin Batiste Hall of Distinction Award.
A member of New Orleans’ famous Marsalis family of jazz artists, he’ll accept the honor Wednesday at the "Blue Note Records 85th Anniversary Tour" concert at the Manship Theatre.
The Alvin Batiste award is presented by the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge and River City Jazz Coalition. Marsalis studied with Batiste at Southern University’s Jazz Institute in Baton Rouge.
Batiste, a virtuoso modern jazz clarinetist who dedicated much of his life to teaching, was a beloved mentor to generations of students at Southern and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. In addition to Marsalis, his notable students include Herlin Riley, Donald Harrison Jr., Randy Jackson, Henry Butler, Herman Jackson, Roland Guerin, Roderick Paulin, Joe Dyson, Troy Davis and Mike Esneault.
Concurrent with his establishment of a home in New Orleans again, Marsalis has accepted the position of artistic director at the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.
As a teacher, Batiste was always genuine and unconventional, Marsalis said from New Orleans.
“He’d give you a lesson and say, ‘Maybe this will work for you. If it doesn’t, don’t worry about it. We’ll find something else,’ ” he said.
Disarming informality was another of Batiste’s traits.
“Everybody called him Alvin or Bat,” Marsalis said. “At Black schools, that’s a big deal. Everybody is doctor this or doctor that, Mrs. This and Dr. That. But Alvin was like, ‘Just call me Bat.’ You’re a 19-year-old kid, saying, ‘Hey, what’s happening, Bat?’ It a camaraderie that’s hard to explain.”
Despite being on a first-name basis with Batiste, his students always respected him, Marsalis added.
“Everybody was reverential toward him, but you didn’t have to be so formal in the delivery.”
In the 1960s, Batiste and Marsalis’ late father, pianist Ellis Marsalis, were members of the American Jazz Quintet, torchbearers for modern jazz in tradition-minded New Orleans. Both of them influenced Branford Marsalis’ saxophone playing and teaching. Batiste’s pedagogy was more conceptual, while the practical elder Marsalis’ priorities included nuts and bolts.
Branford Marsalis applied the pragmatism he learned from his father when he produced Batiste’s final recording, 2007’s “Marsalis Music Honors Series: Alvin Batiste.” In the studio, he explained, there was no time for ruminating about what a special occasion it was.
“We had a day to make a record,” Branford Marsalis said. “I had to listen to the band and make sure everything was succinct and together. Getting sentimental in the middle of a session, that screws you up. You can’t be fanboying during a session.”
Released by Branford Marsalis’ own Marsalis Music record label, Batiste’s studio swan song was the ideal project for him. The Marsalis Music Honors Series of albums paired musicians older than 60 with musicians under 30.
“That was a perfect fit, because of his teaching experience and his excellence as a musician and conceptualist,” Branford Marsalis said. “And I thought it would be great for him to record with some young musicians in New York, who were from different parts of the world, who would bring a different approach to his music. I think he was really moved by that.”
In November 2006, Batiste told The Advocate that he’d be debuting music from the album Branford Marsalis produced on May 6 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The debut became an emotional memorial after the 74-year-old Batiste died in his sleep early that morning.
Despite their shock and grief, Branford Marsalis and his friend, Harry Connick Jr., Ed Perkins, Batiste’s student group, the Jazztronauts, and others performed during his scheduled time slot at the festival’s Jazz Tent.
“I was in Atlanta the night before,” Branford Marsalis remembered. “We were at the airport at 4:45 in the morning when my dad called and said Alvin had just died. And I was just done. I don’t remember the gig at all. I really wasn’t there. I was just going through the motions. But I guess Alvin was happy. He felt he could move on.”
Next year will be Branford Marsalis’ 20th year of teaching at North Carolina Central University in Durham. Meanwhile, concurrent with his establishment of a home in New Orleans again, he’s accepted the position of artistic director at the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music. It’s the same position his father held from 2012 until his death in 2020.
“I love the energy here,” Branford Marsalis said of the hometown he’s wanted to move back to since the early 2000s. “I love the vibe. I love the people here. People who you don’t know stop you on the street and just start talking to you like they know you. That doesn’t happen in other places without somebody saying: ‘Excuse me? Do you know me?’ Sure, it happens in other places in the South, but New Orleans is just a very special place.”