Chinese Food and Pinball With Branford Marsalis

I don’t know much about jazz. I know I am ‘supposed’ to like jazz and seek to understand jazz and intellectualise about jazz and talk about jazz late at night in coffee shops and play jazz at grown up dinner parties. I know I’m supposed to deeply respect Miles Davis, Charlie Parker,  Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane and other jazz giants whose names presently escape me.

But for some reason I just don’t get it.

Call me a heathen if you must.

My affliction regarding jazz  has been a long term situation and in my early years as a writer it would have never crossed my mind to have interviewed a jazz artist.

Thus I was a little surprised when I got the call from Kaz Cooke, the then editor of the The Age  Weekender – the precursor to what is now known as EG,  asking me if I wanted to interview a jazz saxophonist named Branford Marsalis. Actually it was more like begging than asking. Apparently the interview had had a chequered history and The Age had been guilty of messing up the arrangements for the interview on more than one occasion. Apparently the papers regular jazz writer had come down with a major virus and had blown out the interview at the last minute. The Age didn’t have a reserve jazz writer sitting on the bench and in what really must have been a case of scraping the bottom of the barrel, Caz had turned to me – the snotty nosed indie rock writer – to fill the breach.

I was a lowly paid articled clerk at the time and the fee I received for every story I had published in The Age just about matched my weekly salary and for that reason alone I was willing to take just about any assignment thrown at me. But this throw was a definite curve ball. I was deeply unequipped to do the interview and to make matters worse I had only an hour or so to prepare. But Caz was clearly in a tight corner and she was my editor and thus the gate keeper of my journalistic ambitions. I took the assignment.

Reading through the one page bio that Caz faxed over I realised that I had one reference point that I could relate too. Branford was part of the band that Sting had assembled to make his Dream of The Blue Turtles album. As a fan of the punky reggae sound of  the early albums of The Police I was less enthused by his foray into jazz-pop but at least it gave me a few questions to ask Marsalis. Beyond this I quickly gleaned that he was regarded with mixed feelings by the jazz community – some saw him as a young prodigy who was going to take jazz into a new and exciting era whereas others thought he was an overly derivative upstart who was  leading the genre into dangerous, dare we say it “commercial” waters. It sounded to me like a juxtaposition of arguments that occurred just about every time a new young and exciting player arrived on the scene but again it provided me with a bunch of questions (which I assumed Marsalis had probably been asked many times before but that wasn’t going to stop me asking again!). Branford had a brother Wynton who was equally highly regarded

The interview was conducted on the phone and it went smoothly enough. Branford was friendly and easy to talk to and if he felt like my questions were a little uneducated he certainly didn’t let me know it. Essentially I was satisfied with the job I did on short notice and I felt I had plenty of  material to use to write my article.

I wrote the article that afternoon (when I probably should have been attending to some small legal matters) and submitted it to Caz immediately. It appeared in the paper the very next day. I looked like everyone was happy.

I was a little surprised then when early the next week the long suffering  receptionist at the law firm buzzed me to say I had a call from “some guy named Bradford Marsala (sic)” My immediate thought was “how did I offend him”. I needn’t have worried. Branford had arrived in Melbourne and had been given a copy of  the Age article and was calling to complement me and thank me for my work. This was the first time that this had actually happened to me and my first reaction was to think that these jazz guys had a lot more class than the rockers I had been exposed to!

We had a pleasant chat about Melbourne and all the normal things that touring musicians had to content with – hotels, schedules and where to got good food in the new town. Branford concluded that the best idea would be for me to select a restaurant and call by his hotel that evening and we would grab a quick bite prior to his show with Sting at Festival Hall.

That sounded like fun to me so at around six o’clock I arrived in the lobby of the hotel in Exhibition St. Realizing that time was tight we quickly adjourned to nearby Chinatown and selected a restaurant from the myriad of chooses available. I realized that we were definitely on a deadline when Branford actually bought his saxaphone to the restaurant.  Conversation was easy – we chatted like two old friends mainly about his home and family and his tour with Sting and the reaction it was getting from the jazz purists. I think he actually appreciated the fact that I wasn’t a hard core jazz enthusiast and that he wasn’t obliged to either defend or dissect his musical journey to me.

Time was getting away from us and I suggested that maybe we should head back to the hotel so that Branford could meet up with the band and make his way to the venue. However he had other ideas. Leaving the restaurant Branford headed straight into one of those old pinball parlours that used to feature in that area. I was a bit of a pinball nut myself so I didn’t object but I have to admit I thought it was a little surreal to be hanging out in a sleazy pinball parlour with one of the worlds rising jazz stars when it was fast approaching showtime for his gig with Sting – at that time one of the biggest artists in the world.

We knocked off a few quick games and I noticed how focussed Branford was on the game. Like me he found playing pinball a very focussing and concentrated activity and it turns out it was an ideal way for him to get his game face on for the gig. So focussed was he that he almost forgot to pick up his sax case from the floor next to the pinball machine. I imagine that would have been a hard one to explain to Sting if we hadn’t realised we were missing something prior to getting in the cab to our way across town to Festival Hall. “You see Mr Sting, we left the sax players saxaphone in a pinball parlour on Exhibition St. I don’t suppose you could delay the show while we go back and look for it?”

Arriving at the old House of Stouch, I directed Branford to the stage door and it was only a matter of minutes later when he was on stage with Sting and I was located in the prime position on side of stage behind the monitor engineer.

I know people that would have killed for my position. I have to admit it was a very impressive show and I was more interested in my new friends skill than the proximity of the frontman.

At the conclusion of the show I expected to say a quick farewell to Branford and make my way home. Again he had other plans. My jazz education was about to take a quantum leap. Apparently Branford and another member of Stings band, pianist Kenny Kirkland had arranged with a couple of Melbourne’s best jazz players to do a real jazz show at a small Melbourne jazz club late that night. Apparently Melbourne’s jazz crowd was abuzz with the news – in those circles it was almost like the equivalent of Mick Jaggers ‘secret” show at The Corner or Princes show at The Palace.

Again I played ‘sax roadie’ and away we went again in another cab to the next gig.

The room was packed and Branford and his fellow jazz players played long into the night to a rapturous response.  I must admit I really started to appreciate the sheer brilliance of the musicianship on display. Eventually the show finished and after a quick chat to thank Branford on a great night I made my way home. Some of us (well one of us) had to go and be a good little lawyer the next day!

I stayed in touch with Branford for a few years after that. He returned to Australia a couple of times and we did a couple more interviews. I’ve got a couple of his signed albums at home still – and although they don’t get played a lot I’m proud to have them in my collection. I never really did take my appreciation of jazz too much further than that night at the small jazz club but time allowed me to appreciate how fortunate I had been to spend that night in the company of Branford.

It probably hit home a couple of years later when I was at a party in Sydney and found myself talking to a serious young jazz fan. I mentioned that I had met, interviewed and dined with Branford Marsalis and the reaction was almost bizarre. This guy actually wanted to shake my hand just so he could touch a hand that had shaken that of the jazz icon. I had never had that occur before and I found it quite strange and slightly disturbing.

I haven’t seen Branford in more than a decade now and I never told him that story but I think he would have found it a little disturbing too.