MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
How many albums are so good, you wouldn't skip a single track. One of today's greatest ambassadors of jazz, Branford Marsalis, fell in love with an album Keith Jarrett made in 1974 with three Scandinavian side men. It was called "Belonging."
(SOUNDBITE OF KEITH JARRETT, ET AL.'S "SPIRAL DANCE")
MARTIN: Branford Marsalis is taking that appreciation next level. His quartet just released a reinterpretation of every piece from that album.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET'S "SPIRAL DANCE")
BRANFORD MARSALIS: I figured out when I was 14 years old playing in a cover band is that it's amazing how much better your music can be if you spend your time listening to and stealing from people who are better at it than you are.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET'S "SPIRAL DANCE")
MARTIN: I had to chuckle when I read some of the notes that came with the album, where you mentioned how you got into Keith Jarrett's music.
MARSALIS: Yeah.
MARTIN: I had that same kind of eureka feeling that you had, because I remember a friend introduced me to Keith Jarrett, and I was like, wait, wait, wait. How come I don't know about this? Like, what's happening here.
MARSALIS: Yeah.
MARTIN: So could you just tell that story, if you wouldn't mind, about how you got into Keith Jarrett?
MARSALIS: Oh, yeah, he made a record called the "Koln Concerts" (ph) that I wasn't particularly fond of. And my pianist at the time, and my dear friend Kenny Kirkland said, man, you need to check Keith out. At that time in my life, I embraced that stupid adage - first impressions or lasting impressions. And my mind was made up. And then he slipped the headphones on my head on a plane, and I started listening, and I'm like, who is this? Oh, it must be Keith Jarrett 'cause he's been selling it. Man, this is pretty good. And then when he reached to take the headphones back, I covered my hands over the headphones and didn't allow him to.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MARSALIS: He just started to laugh.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MARSALIS: He says, Ben, that's what you get for being stubborn. I told you.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MARSALIS: And, yeah, I bought all of that stuff.
MARTIN: So tell me a bit about how you and the quartet went about it. You clearly didn't sit there and transcribe pieces from the album. No 1, this is jazz, so that's not going to happen. But the tracks...
MARSALIS: Oh, you don't kid yourself. That happens all the time.
MARTIN: Does it? Oh, OK. Well, I stand corrected.
MARSALIS: There's a cottage industry out there with literal solos being worked out and regurgitated and still called improvisation.
MARTIN: Oh, dear.
MARSALIS: But I digress. I'm sorry.
MARTIN: Oh. Oh, dear. OK. But these are not note-for-note, the originals. They are definitely you and the quartet. You're doing your thing.
MARSALIS: Yeah, well, we have a different sonic perspective than those guys would have had in 1974. You know, I grew up in New Orleans and grew up singing songs and clanging pencils on a fence, singing "Two-Way-Pocky-Way." The guys in this band are clearly great musicians, but I'm pretty - I feel comfortable in saying that some Norwegian guys born in the 19 - I think it's the 1940s - weren't in a southern university-type marching band and didn't grow up listening to R&B with the regularity that we did. So we have all these sonic perspectives that we can bring to the music. So we don't have to spend much time trying to alter or change the original songs or the construction of the songs, because how we interpret those songs will be automatically different than the way that they would interpret them.
MARTIN: So let's listen to an example. I'm just going to play one of my favorites - the Keith Jarrett piece, "The Windup." A fun piece. Let's play a little bit of the original.
(SOUNDBITE OF KEITH JARRETT, ET AL.'S "THE WINDUP")
MARTIN: OK. Now let's play some of my new favorite. This is your version of "The Windup."
(SOUNDBITE OF BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET'S "THE WINDUP")
MARTIN: I feel the New Orleans.
MARSALIS: Yeah.
MARTIN: Am I right?
MARSALIS: And the drummer's from Philly. That's what's wild...
MARTIN: OK.
MARSALIS: ...About it.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MARSALIS: But he spent two months in New Orleans working on a film, 'cause he said, oh, man, you're always bragging about your raggedy ass city.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MARSALIS: Well, you go - I'm going to go live down there for two months. And two weeks into it, he's like, this is the most amazing city in the world. And I said, well, in America, for sure. I don't know about the world, but he loved it and he learned a lot of stuff. And when we play certain songs, it does have that kind of New Orleans feel to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET'S "THE WINDUP")
MARSALIS: The piano player, Joey - Joey's from New Rochelle, New York and lives in Durham, North Carolina. Eric Revis is from Fresno, but he lives in Los Angeles, but he did live in New Orleans for two years. So all the little New Orleans cues, I mean, it - those two guys know them for sure. So, like, at towards the end of the song in the middle, we have this song called "The Second Line," and the trumpet player plays this phrase - (vocalizing) and everybody has to go, hey.
MARTIN: Yes (laughter).
MARSALIS: And I played it, and they said it.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE SECOND LINE")
BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET: (Singing) Hey. Hey.
MARSALIS: You know, it wasn't one of those things where I scripted it and said, OK, guys, when I play this lick, you guys say, hey. They - it was instinctive. They just went there.
MARTIN: I love that.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET SONG, "THE SECOND LINE")
MARTIN: Had you ever had a chance to work with Keith Jarrett?
MARSALIS: No, I've never even met Keith.
MARTIN: Oh, wow.
MARSALIS: People say, oh, do you think that's strange? I said, well, I haven't met Thelonious Monk, either...
MARTIN: (Laughter).
MARSALIS: ...Or Charlie Parker or Beethoven or - but I still listen to the music, and I still study things. The songs are hard to play. I will say that. I would - I'm glad I didn't try to do this 15 years ago. I think we would have failed, or it just wouldn't have been very good. We would have succeeded to a degree. But the songs have beautiful melodies and great emotional depth, and you have to be a mature musician to grasp the emotion in each song and tailor the sound of your instruments and of your group to reproduce the emotion that's required. But for us, I mean, we've been dealing with all these different styles and strains of music since this particular iteration of the band started in 2009. So we didn't have to talk it through. We just had to play it.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET'S "LONG AS YOU KNOW YOU'RE LIVING YOURS")
MARTIN: That is Branford Marsalis. His quartet just released a reinterpretation of Keith Jarrett's 1974 album "Belonging." Branford Marsalis, thank you so much for talking with us.
MARSALIS: Thank you, Michel. It was a pleasure to talk with you again.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET'S "LONG AS YOU KNOW YOU'RE LIVING YOURS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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