Wynton Marsalis

Full Wynton MarsalisWynton MarsalisWynton Marsalis · 1982 Septet concert from July 1993, recorded by Dutch TV during the 'In This House, On This Morning' period.

In 1982, when Wynton asked his brother Branford who he knew for a new band, the answer was: call Kenny Kirkland, and put Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums. Watts was an unknown Berklee student at the time; that single recommendation set the entire rhythm section of Wynton's 1980s quartet and put both men on the map.

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?

In 1963, Miles Davis hired 17-year-old Tony Williams as the drummer for his new quintet. Bassist Ron Carter later recalled that Williams opened up a rhythmic vocabulary on drums that nobody had thought possible.

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.

Wynton Marsalis's 1985 album Black Codes (From the Underground) is known for its tight ensemble unison, but Branford Marsalis later recalled that only Wynton actually rehearsed — the band itself barely ran through the material together.

In 1984, Wynton Marsalis — already a rising star — called his quintet's pianist Kenny Kirkland and drummer Jeff 'Tain' Watts the best young players on the scene, yet completely unrecognized. The spotlight stayed on the leader; the sidemen he rated above himself remained unknown.

In the early 1980s, Wynton Marsalis said his quintet's arrangements weren't dictated by the bandleader: whatever chord Kenny Kirkland played became the chord of the tune, and whatever beat Jeff 'Tain' Watts played became its meter.

Kenny Kirkland played on a long list of records, among them Black Codes (From the Underground) in 1985, yet he put out exactly one album under his own name: Kenny Kirkland, in 1991. The drummer on it was Jeff "Tain" Watts, who had been sitting next to him on Black Codes six years earlier.

In 1981, bassist Charles Fambrough stood next to a still-unknown teenage trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis, in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. After Album of the Year and Keystone 3, Fambrough was called back for Marsalis's own debut as a leader, Wynton Marsalis (1982).