Melissa Harris-Perry: You listening to The Takeaway and I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Now, during Mother's Day weekend, the Crew of Perry was finally able to use some tickets we bought more than two years ago when we attended Jazz Fest in my husband's hometown of New Orleans. It was the kind of outdoor unmasked extravaganza of food and music that we've avoided for years, even though the music was one of the most important tools we used to get through the early isolating days of pandemic quarantine. Being back in New Orleans inspired me to reach out to the city's first family of jazz and joining me now is the drummer and youngest son, Jason Marsalis. Welcome to the show, Jason.

Jason Marsalis: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be on this show.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Jason, in the early days of the pandemic, you lost your father, the musical giant, Ellis Marsalis. How's your family coping without him?

Jason Marsalis: We miss him a lot. We're moving forward. I think that there's a lot that we learned from him and I think it was one, I consider myself very lucky to have him for as long as I did. It always hurts to lose a loved one like that, but we're doing okay. I think this week has been in some ways a bit draining especially for my wife and daughters because they had a really close relationship for him. It's been a little draining because there were a lot of tributes to him like my own set.

I even paid tribute to him and I even brought up my oldest daughter to play one of his songs on piano and there was a tribute to him a week before. I think that the good thing about that is it shows how much of an impact that he had on music and on New Orleans in general.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yes. In fact, because I'm down here in New Orleans, even though I know that you actually ended up flying back the other direction up north, I did catch you this past weekend at the Fest. What was it like for you to be playing in front of such a robust crowd again?

Jason Marsalis: It's been great to play in front of people again. I will say that the pandemic taught me just not to take music for granted and just not to-- Because it can be easy to do that if you do that a lot, like playing in front of people. You have some musicians that sometimes don't even want to do it or may not want to be bothered with the crowd afterward, but when you don't have that, when there are no shows to perform or when you do perform shows, it's in front of a computer it can be I think it made you realize the importance of music and an importance of having an exchange with people. It was great to play in front of that crowd and also for the people to receive the music.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I want you to give me one more a bit on that. When you're talking about the importance of that give and take with the crowd, as not a musician, I only feel the part that's happening in the crowd, the way that we're looking up at you, the way we are hearing and receiving, and expressing with each other, but what are you experiencing there on stage?

Jason Marsalis: The first thing I'm experiencing is one, the interplay between the musicians, that's the very first thing. The music is really great when there's this great interplay when everybody's really listening to each other and they're creating these phrases and melodies that are memorable and these memorable moments that are great. The first thing is the interaction amongst the musicians. The second thing is when the audience really touches on to that and the audience really loves the music and the audience is reacting to the music. That's the second thing that I'm experiencing.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, talk to me about that in the context of the pandemic. I mean, obviously, a group of musicians is smaller than simply having the big crowd. At what point did you feel like you were comfortable enough to be with other musicians, at least performing, even if you were performing for much smaller crowds or as you said for the computer.

Jason Marsalis: I was always comfortable with a smaller group, whether it was three people. It wasn't until a few months after the pandemic. I think maybe even six months where I started to play with four people or five people. That did take some time, but I will say it was definitely a crazy experience having to be isolated. I even did a project with pianist Marcus Roberts, where he was commissioned to write a piece for the American Symphony Orchestra that's located in New York.

That was a crazy process because we were all in different studios, some were from their homes. You had this music there. I think the String Orchestra was together slightly, meaning it's a group of them, but of course, they have to cap distance amongst themselves. I was in the studio. There was a lot of overdubbing that happened. I'm in the studio, I think Marcus was in the studio playing this part, and all the home players were in their homes and there was all these separate parts that had to come together. That was a crazy experience.

Slowly as time went on and things got a little better with the pandemic and say advances like having a vaccine started to happen, then you start to become more comfortable with not only playing with a group of musicians but playing in front of crowds.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I want to talk as we are here at nearly 1 million Americans lost to COVID and so many things in our lives simply changed as a result of the pandemic. I want to talk about something that New Orleans has a particular approach to, and that is funerals, death, and homegoings. The ways that we might think about celebrating and relate to the question of death and the vibrations of life.

Can you talk to us about what the whole country might be able to learn from jazz funerals, from second-line parades, and from the ways that we think about loss, death, and the sustaining of life?

Jason Marsalis: There's a couple of things that can be learned. One, as far as the jazz funeral in itself, I think that when you really look into it, it can put people in touch with traditions and history because the jazz funeral really comes out of an African tradition because there's a way that Africans celebrate funerals that is similar to the jazz funeral. I think that when you understand that you have a better understanding of people as a whole because it can be very easy to divide folks, but when you realize all of the things that we have in common there's a lot to be learned there.

Also, I think that when you celebrate one's life, it's appreciating what it is that they've done while they were here even. Even though they're no longer with us you celebrate the things that they've done, the things that they've accomplished, and what have they done to make the world a better place. I think that it also helps enforce to you what is it that I'm doing to make the world a better place? I think those are the things that you can learn from jazz funerals and the way that people are celebrated is not only appreciating that person but also appreciating one's culture because the jazz funeral is a certain culture with the brass bands that play the music that mourns the person's death to the upbeat music that celebrates the person's life.

I think that it gets you in touch with, I think us as a people and what we can do while we're here and also the traditions that make us who we are.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Jason, where can folks catch you over the course of the next few months if they want to come and hear that drumming, hear that vibraphone?

Jason Marsalis: I do have a few shows at Snug Harbor in New Orleans. I'm also doing a performance with Marcus Roberts here in Toronto for the Beethoven Festival. I will also be doing a performance with him in Santa Barbara, California with the Santa Barbara Symphony later this month in May. Those are some performances that I'll be doing that people can go out and see

Melissa Harris-Perry: Jason Marsalis. Thank you for joining The Takeaway today.

Jason Marsalis: Thank you very much.

[00:08:44] [END OF AUDIO]

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