Jazz legend Ellis Marsalis Jr. died this month from complications of coronavirus. Marsalis was the patriarch of what’s considered to be the first family of jazz.
His son, Wynton Marsalis, who is also an acclaimed musician and the managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, told “CBS This Morning” co-host Anthony Mason Wednesday that his last conversation with his dad, days before he died, was “normal.”
“Just teasing him and messing with him,” he said. “I went through his history for some reason of all the gigs I had seen and people he played with. … I got a couple of people’s names wrong, and he was correcting me. It was upbeat.”
Marsalis said his dad had “hundreds of students” who were “like a big extended family.” “We all loved him the same,” he said.
Jazz at Lincoln Center is hosting a virtual concert Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. ET.
“You’re going to see some of the greatest musicians in the world, from their culture, and they did all these tapes specially for us,” Marsalis said. “It’s going to be very, very personal and touching.”
An emergency fund for jazz musicians in the New York area who have lost income due to coronavirus-related closures has been set up by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.
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