Ellis Marsalis, Jr. papers

This collection from New Orleans pianist and composer Ellis Marsalis Jr. contains correspondence, certificates, contracts, sheet music, sound recordings, photographs, and ephemera that encompass Mr. Marsalis’s six-decade career as a musician and music instructor.

Correspondence dating from 1959 to 2013, is related to Marsalis' teaching and lecturing, performance dates, and letters of recommendation on behalf of his students at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). It also contains letters of thanks from educational, government, and community leaders for participating in musical events.

Of note includes a 1963 letter to the editor of the States-Item in reply to an article titled “Quotations from Abe Lincoln,” where Marsalis addresses the long history of segregationist ideals in United States policy dating back to the Civil War and comments on the continuing issue of segregation in the workforce. The correspondence also includes an exchange Marsalis had in 2010 with a screenwriter from Georgia in who mailed him a manuscript in the hopes that he could pass it along to Wynton Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., or Sandra Bullock.

Photographs range from 1944 to 2013, and includes images of Marsalis as an adolescent, his family, and of Marsalis instructing young musicians in various settings. There are also photographs of fellow musicians such as Sarah Vaughn, Louis Armstrong, Harold Battiste, Cab Calloway, Betty Carter, Bill Basie, Hank Jones, and Nancy Wilson—some of which are autographed with an inscription.

Ephemera of note includes a retrospective report on the newly-created Jazz Studies department at the University of New Orleans from 1989-1992, of which Marsalis was the chair. Also included is an official commemorative envelope from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in honor of Marsalis.

This collection also contains Marsalis's own published writings which include an article in Data Magazine on the life of pianist Roger Dickerson and a paper entitled "BLUES," which was presented at the 1986 Modern Language Association convention in Chicago.

Sound recordings include approximately forty audio cassette tapes for the radio program Milestones in Jazz which was broadcast on WWNO in New Orleans from 1983-1985.

Other notable items include degrees and honorary degrees earned by Marsalis from institutions such as the University of New Orleans, Julliard School, Virginia Commonwealth University; certificates awarded to Ellis Marsalis, his wife, and his sons; and gold records awarded for Marsalis Standard Time Vol. 1, Hot, House Flowers, andVol. 5: The Resolution of Romance.

Other materials include descendent and genealogical charts, posters advertising performances, artwork, and an oversized card for Marsalis’s eightieth birthday with signatures from well-wishers.