Marcus Roberts
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Roberts is without sight; he attended a school for the blind near his childhood home of Jacksonville, FL. He began playing piano in his youth, and studied the instrument at Florida State University in the mid-80s. Roberts replaced Kenny Kirkland as Marsaliss pianist in 1985. He recorded as a sideman with the trumpeter through the rest of the decade and into the 90s, while at the same time making records under his own name for Columbia. Roberts became Marsaliss aide de camp at Jazz at Lincoln Center, writing and arranging extensively for the house big band, and participating in most of the cultural centers activities variously as a composer, performer, or teacher. Roberts is an outspoken proponent of jazz traditionalism; he has little patience for styles of jazz that lie outside the narrow parameters set down by his mentors. His lack of interest in expanding jazzs creative possibilities causes his music to have a hermetic quality, which is unfortunate, because one gets the feeling by listening to his recent compositions that, were Roberts to broaden his horizons a bit, he might be capable of doing excellent work.
