Random Abstract

When Kenny Kirkland died suddenly in 1998, a reporter told Branford Marsalis he was 'reconsidering Wynton's band.' Branford cut him off: the pianist had been a name in the small print while alive — and only in death was he worth a second look?

The saxophonist on Art Blakey's 1981 album Album of the Year was an unnamed twenty-year-old: Branford Marsalis. The Marsalis family's later fame didn't exist yet — his career started inside Blakey's band, not the other way around.