Warne Marsh

Warne Marion Marsh (26 October 1927 – 17 December 1987) was an American tenor saxophonist born in Los Angeles.

Biography

Marsh came from an affluent background: his father was the cinematographer Oliver T. Marsh (1892–1941), and his mother Elizabeth was a violinist. Mae Marsh, the actress, was his aunt.

He was tutored by Lennie Tristano and, along with Lee Konitz, became one of the pre-eminent saxophonists of the Tristano-inspired "Cool School". Of all of Tristano's students, Marsh came closest to typifying Tristano's ideals of improvised lines, in some respects, even transcending the master himself. Marsh was often recorded in the company of other Cool School musicians, and remained one of the most faithful to the Tristano philosophy of improvisation – the faith in the purity of the long line, the avoidance of licks and emotional chain-pulling, the concentration on endlessly mining the same small body of jazz standards. Nevertheless, his distinctively pure tone without the inflections popular among many other tenor saxophonists at that time such as honks, growls, exaggerated vibrato, slurs and glisses, etc. set Marsh apart from other Lester Young and Ben Webster-influenced saxophonists.

Marsh's rhythmically subtle lines are immediately recognizable. He has been called by Anthony Braxton "the greatest vertical improviser."^[1] In the 1970s he gained renewed exposure as a member of Supersax, a large ensemble which played orchestral arrangements of Charlie Parker solos. Marsh also recorded one of his most celebrated albums, All Music, with the Supersax rhythm section during this period.

Marsh died onstage at the Los Angeles club Donte's in 1987, in the middle of playing the tune "Out of Nowhere".^[2] Though he remains something of a cult figure among jazz fans and musicians, his influence has grown since his death; younger players such as Mark Turner have borrowed from his music as a way of counterbalancing the pervasive influence of John Coltrane. Marsh's discography remains somewhat scattered and elusive, as much of it was done for small labels, but more and more of his work has been issued on compact disc in recent years.

Discography

• Live In Hollywood (1952; Xanadu Records)
• Live at the Half Note (1959) with Lee Konitz & Bill Evans on Verve Records (re-released Jazz Lips)
• Crosscurrents (1977) with Bill Evans, Lee Konitz, Eddie Gomez & Eliot Zigmund on Fantasy

References

Further reading

• Chamberlain, Safford (2000). An Unsung Cat: The Life and Music of Warne Marsh. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-3718-8
• Cook, Richard & Morton, Brian (2003). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (8th edn). Penguin. ISBN 0-141-02327-9
• Cornelius, Marcus M (2002). Out of Nowhere - The musical life of Warne Marsh. Aurora Nova Publishing. ISBN 0-9580264-0-8

External links

• http://www.warnemarsh.info - The Warne Marsh Web Site with a comprehensive discography, etc.
• http://auroranovapublishing.net - Web Site for Aurora Nova Publishing and the works of Marcus M. Cornelius