Branford Marsalis Quartet coming to Cedar Rapids

Few musicians are more malleable than saxophonist Branford Marsalis.

The jazz virtuoso has won Grammys with his own quartet and with brother Wynton Marsalis' quintet.

Branford Marsalis, 62, left his brother's group to work with pop-rock icon Sting, who was at the height of his powers in 1985, for the English singer and bass player’s first solo album, “The Dream of the Blue Turtles.”

The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby and a number of other legendary recording artists have tabbed Marsalis to sit in. And he has scored soundtracks for Spike Lee; led the eclectic jazz-funk-rock band Buckshot LeFonque; and even was the music director of “The Tonight Show.”

The New Orleans native will perform with his longtime quartet Saturday night at the Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids. It’s a stop on his jazz tour, so while Marsalis won’t be performing with Orchestra Iowa, as he has in the past, the orchestra is presenting the concert as the finale to its centennial season celebration.

“I play music and I always hear that I’m a genre buster,” Marsalis said while calling from Warsaw, where he was preparing to perform with Poland’s Warsaw Orchestra on May 26 and 27. “But there’s no such thing as genres. It’s something people create because it gives them comfort in order to explain something.

“I come from a jazz city. Jazz was born there, but there are few jazz fans in New Orleans. There are so many recording artists who aren’t jazz musicians who come out of New Orleans, such as The Meters. A number of rock bands have come out of New Orleans. There is so much to New Orleans,” he said.

Marsalis, who resides in North Carolina, was consumed with music while coming of age in the Big Easy in a creative family.

“What was great about growing up there is that I could play in the youth orchestra and then play in the jazz band and nobody said, ‘What are you doing playing with us? You’re in the jazz band.’ Same goes for the R&B band. The response was like, ‘You can play R&B? Wow, you can play everything. That's great!’ ”

Marsalis was primarily attracted to rock ’n’ roll and R&B through his teen years.

“But when I turned 20, jazz grabbed my ear,” he said. “I didn’t really like jazz when I was a kid, but playing jazz has helped me immeasurably as a musician.”

Side gigs

Unlike so many jazz greats, Marsalis easily assimilates when playing with established bands, because of his experience and ear. That's why he fit so well when he performed with the Grateful Dead.

“I played with a lot of bands in New Orleans that were like the Grateful Dead, but were not as good as the Grateful Dead,” Marsalis said. “I figured out how to play in those situations before I sat in with the Dead. I didn’t impose my jazz sensibility on top of their music.

“I would bring something else to the table. What I would contribute is something different than a saxophonist who played rock ’n’ roll his whole life. That saxophonist would take it to a predictable place."

Few imagined that Marsalis would become Sting’s right-hand man a year after the Police peaked with its greatest album, 1983's “Synchronicity.” It’s no surprise that Marsalis and Sting, who has an exceptional ear and is both a terrific musician and instrumentalist, were simpatico. Marsalis has performed on nine of Sting’s studio releases.

“Sting is one of the greatest songwriters ever, and he plays the crap out of the bass,” Marsalis said. “Sting has great musical instincts.”

However, Sting has gotten a bum rap for being pretentious.

“Sting had the audacity to read (Vladimir) Nabokov and write about it in song (“Don't Stand so Close to Me“), but some people felt like he was a snob for doing that,” Marsalis said. “That's ridiculous. So what, Sting read ‘Lolita’ and made a reference to it in song.

“Sting is incredible. He’s 70 but sings like he’s 30 because he takes care of himself. I can see why people are envious of him. Look at ‘Every Breath You Take.’ It’s essentially blues with a bridge, and it’s brilliant. Tell people to write blues with a bridge and their (music) would suck.”

Marsalis accepted a gig as the music director for “The Tonight Show” in 1992. It was a lucrative post, but he left host Jay Leno after two years.

“After a year on ‘The Tonight Show,’ I noticed that my musical instincts were slipping away,” Marsalis said. “I’m used to playing music at a high level. I was not reacting to music like I was, and I knew what it would be like if I stayed on that show for five years. Were the trappings and money enough for me to lose my music? If I stayed at ‘The Tonight Show,’ I wouldn’t be here in Warsaw preparing for the show tonight.”

Marsalis has focused on his quartet — which also includes bassist Eric Revis, pianist Joey Calderazzo and drummer Justin Faulkner — teaching music and an array of other projects.

“I don’t really do anything for fun,” Marsalis. “I’ve played golf three times in the last 14 months. I work. It can be tedious preparing for a classical show, but once the show happens, it’s satisfying. It’s been a fascinating journey."

It’s been 37 years since Marsalis formed his quartet.

“It’s something I still go back to,” he said. “If I didn’t love it, I would be doing something else.”