Though Ellis Marsalis gained steady recording opportunities only after his sons Wynton and Branford achieved prominence, he eventually earned the broader acknowledgment long due to him. As the father of six sons, among them Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo, and Jason, Marsalis exerted his greatest influence on jazz through teaching; his students, apart from his own children, encompassed Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, Harry Connick, Jr., Nicholas Payton, and Kent and Marlon Jordan, to name a few.
New Orleans was his birthplace in 1934. He began on tenor saxophone before shifting to piano during high school. Unlike most local players of that period, Marsalis avoided specializing in Dixieland or rhythm & blues. In the late 1950s he performed alongside fellow modernists such as Ed Blackwell in the group AFO, cut sessions with Cannonball and Nat Adderley during the 1960s, appeared with Al Hirt from 1967 to 1970, and maintained a full teaching schedule. Throughout the 1970s he worked as a freelance musician in New Orleans while instructing at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. In 1982 he joined Wynton and Branford on the shared album Father and Sons, which also featured Chico and Von Freeman.
Subsequent recordings appeared on ELM, Spindletop (including a duet date with Eddie Harris), Rounder, Blue Note, and Columbia, the last of which issued Twelve's It in 1998. Duke in Blue arrived the next year. Further releases included Afternoon Session in 2000, Ruminations in New York in 2005, and An Open Letter to Thelonious in 2008. His second holiday collection, New Orleans Christmas Carol, came out in 2011. He collaborated with son Branford and pianist Makoto Ozone on Pure Pleasure for the Piano in 2012, followed by the solo piano set On the First Occasion the year after. In 2014 he appeared on son Delfeayo’s The Last Southern Gentlemen, then teamed with trumpeter Scotty Barnhart and the legacy Count Basie Orchestra for A Very Swingin' Basie Christmas in 2015. Marsalis remained an active performer, touring regularly and returning often as a guest at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He died in New Orleans on April 1, 2020, at the age of 85.
