PORT ANGELES — Ellis Marsalis, father of the first family of New Orleans jazz, will make a pair of appearances at Peninsula College this Thursday.
First comes a free lunchtime talk, as Marsalis is the Studium Generale speaker at 12:35 p.m. in the Little Theater on the campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
This hour-long interlude is a rare thing, in light of Marsalis’ stature.
The 75-year-old pianist and professor accepted the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival Lifetime Achievement Award last year at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. And on that same night in June, he presided over a sold-out concert titled “Celebrating a Jazz Master,” featuring Harry Connick Jr. and Billy Taylor.
Oh, and four Marsalis sons played in the tribute: Branford on tenor and soprano saxophones, Wynton on trumpet, Delfeayo on trombone and Jason on drums and vibes.
The elder Marsalis, who plays most Friday nights at Snug Harbor in New Orleans, recently received another major prize: the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters Award.
On Thursday night in Port Angeles, a Crescent City-style party will overtake the Little Theater, as Marsalis is the guest of honor for the college’s 13th annual American Conversations program.
New Orleans-style dinner
The signature fundraising event for the Peninsula College Foundation features a dinner of Big Easy delicacies, including muffaletta sandwiches, Mardi gras shrimp, crawfish purses, oysters, andouille sausage and New Orleans-inspired appetizers.
“Ellis Marsalis: A Night in New Orleans” will get under way at 6 p.m. in the college’s PUB, with beverages and hors d’oeuvres; seating for dinner will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Marsalis will play the piano and speak about his life, and guests will have the opportunity to talk with him after dinner, said Mary Hunchberger, the foundation’s executive director.
Tickets to the benefit are $125 per person, and available online at www.pcfoundation.ctc.edu or by phoning 360-417-6264.
After earning a bachelor’s in music education from Dillard University in New Orleans in 1955, Marsalis joined the U.S. Marine Corps, and while stationed in Southern California played piano on a television show titled “Dress Blues” and a radio program called “Leatherneck Songbook.” After his stint in the Marines, he returned to Louisiana and married Dolores Ferdinand, a New Orleanian; they have six sons, Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Miboya and Jason.
In 1964, the family moved to rural Breaux Bridge, La., where Marsalis was Carver High School’s band and choral director. Two years later, he was performing at nightclubs in New Orleans, and then became an adjunct professor at Xavier University there.
He went on to teach at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, a magnet high school, and later became director of jazz studies at the University of New Orleans.
Peninsula College players
David Jones, a bandleader and jazz educator at Peninsula College, is in a state of keen anticipation.
Marsalis “is brilliant,” he said. “He’s the patriarch of a jazz dynasty.”
Jones has put together seven players from the Peninsula College Jazz Ensemble — four horns and a rhythm section — to perform during the cocktail-hour portion of Thursday evening.
Jones himself plays clarinet and piano, like Marsalis.
“I’ll be playing piano,” Thursday, “and I’ll be nervous,” he admitted.
But “we have a really good band. I feel proud to put them out there; it’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.”
Marsalis was chosen this year, Hunchberger added, to highlight Maier Hall, the college’s new arts and humanities building to be finished next year. The three-story, $31.9 million edifice will have music studios, classrooms and a performance hall to seat 131.
Proceeds from the American Conversations evening, she noted, support the college’s programs as well as the scholarships provided yearly by the Peninsula College Foundation.