StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Branford Marsalis Quartet

Today, let's take a look at some videos featuring the Branford Marsalis Quartet, who will be coming to St. Louis to perform starting this coming Tuesday, April 2 through Thursday, April 4 at Jazz St. Louis.

Last seen here in 2017 with singer Kurt Elling, Marsalis and company are on tour in support of a new album, The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, released a month ago.

While the long-running quartet - Marsalis on tenor and soprano saxes, Eric Revis on bass, Joey Calderazzo on piano, and Justin Faulkner on drums - can interpret a wide range of jazz styles and has a deep catalog of tunes from which to draw, chances are they'll be featuring at least some of the music from that new album during their three nights here. 

So, by way of a preview, you can see a performance of one of the tunes from the album up above, in a clip of "Snake Hip Waltz," composed and first recorded back in 1975 by pianist Andrew Hill.

After the jump, there's a video of "Cianna," a composition by Calderazzo that's also included on The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, and then a "making of" promotional video for the album that includes some short musical excerpts plus comments from Marsalis.

Next, you can see some samples of other recent live performances by the quartet, starting with a version of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" from a concert a couple of weeks ago at the Tivoli in Utrecht, Netherlands.

That's followed by two videos of performances recorded last year - "The Mighty Sword," another Calderazzo tune from the group's 2012 release Four MFs Playin' Tunes that was recorded at a show in April at the Barclay Theatre in Irvine, CA; and a version of Duke Ellington's classic "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," exact date and location unlisted.

For more about the Branford Marsalis Quintet and their new album, check out Marsalis' recent interviews with PopMatters.com and Richmond, VA alt-weekly Style Weekly, and his interview from January on the Burning Ambulance podcast.


You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...