Marcus Elliot

this interview was conducted in february 2022.

marcus and his wife trista welcomed their first child in april 2021. marcus cradles his young son in his arms.

kenji lee: wow. you are “dad”. you are “dad” to someone now…

marcus elliot: which is nuts. everything has changed. it’s definitely one of those things that you just have to go through. everybody that becomes a parent has their own individual story for how it went down, and their own transformation through it. to be honest, it’s kinda hard to remember what things were like before he was here. that’s how big of a transformation it’s been. it’s hard to remember what i was thinking about before, or what really mattered.

marcus pauses to put his son down.

m.e. : you gotta check this out, man.

he picks up his son’s toy saxophone.

he presses a button and a short (but slick) melody plays.

m.e. : you hear that? he’s already playing changes! that’s what we’ve been doing over here man. working on these changes!

(laughs)

i’ll tell you one thing: in some ways, he has been real medicine for me in terms of falling back in love with the music. i definitely was pretty burnt out with music. well, not with music - but the hustle and the business side of things. trying to rub two pennies together. it really burnt me out, man…and then i had eli.

basically, whenever it was my turn to watch him, we were gonna listen to music. so we would listen to music - and we would listen to whatever: trane, you know, whatever i wanted to listen to. and he really enjoyed it. watching him enjoy it reminded me of how much i enjoyed it. and it made me realize - man this is a really special thing that we get to share with one another. and slowly but surely, it really changed how i thought about things.

at this point, my relationship with my son is very much centered around music. so it’s changed my relationship to the music because of that.

k. l. : wow, how could it not?

m.e. : man, i’ve been teaching at interlochen [fine arts boarding school in northern michigan], and i was up there last week. and they have a “listening class” - like a jazz history class where you listen to records. and the first day, we were listening, and i put on the record, and all these kids weren’t listening. they were doing homework, sleeping, you know, what any of us might do if we were in a high school class where you just listen to a record…

k. l. : right.

m.e.: the next day though, i told them my experience with eli. how it’s a gift to sit down and listen to a record. and how it’s one of our favorite things to do together. he loves listening to music.

sharing that story with the kids put things in a different perspective for them. we were listening to a roy hargrove record, and they were all attentive - for the full hour. they just sat. and listened. they were all like “oh…i don’t ever get an opportunity to just sit down and listen to music”. they’re used to cleaning their room, doing homework, or whatever. but it’s just nice to sit down and listen to music. especially with people who are also listening.

k. l. : this all reminds me of a conversation i just had with trunino [trunino lowe is a rising detroit trumpeter - and coincidentally, marcus’ cousin].

and i don’t know if it’s a DNA thing here, but i asked trunino if he’s always been viscerally affected by music. you and i both know him as one of the most evidently expressive and positively affected music listeners there is. and he said he’s been that way since he was a baby! and has never wavered. he’s always been in love.

m.e. : yes, absolutely.

k. l. : do you remember hearing music as a kid and loving it? did you ever not love music?

m.e. : my earliest memories around age 4 were: “ok, i’m either going to be an astronaut or i’m going to be a musician like michael jackson.”

k. l. : woah.

m.e. : ya that was it. either i’m going to be an astronaut or i’m going to be michael jackson. i got myself a little keyboard and i was making little melodies, and singing all the time, and hitting pots and pans. at a pretty young age, i was like, ya this is what i’m going to do.

k. l. : what about jazz music? was there an initiation period? or did you fall in love immediately. i know personally, my dad was a huge jazz-head, but for that reason, i couldn’t stand it when i was young - like through elementary school. it just reminded me of my dad and other “grown-ups” - and i wanted to be a kid. i always liked music. but it was usually just whatever was popular, like kanye west, or whatever my big brother was into. it took me a few years to get hip to what my dad was into.

m.e. : oh, definitely. i have a very similar story to you. my dad was a huge jazz fan and i remember one time he put on some thelonious monk. we were driving, and i don’t remember what album it was, but it was my first time hearing monk. and i was like: “this is the worst music ever created. there is no way that anybody would enjoy this. it literally sounds like someone’s throwing shoes down a stairwell. this is horrible”.

and i remember telling him specifically: “this doesn’t make any sense - this music makes no sense whatsoever!”. and he told me that one day, when i got older, i was gonna like this. and now here i am. worshipping monk. thelonious monk. and all the rest of the music my dad was checking out.

marcus gestures toward his son

m.e. : and he’ll do the same thing. i’m sure.

k. l. : that’s fascinating. nature vs. nurture, i guess. i’ve always been someone, for better or worse, who preaches the power of these vibrations in the air, and firmly believes anyone can be affected by thelonious monk. and you just have to shed some ego to do that. and that process of initiation might come more organically to some people than others.

m.e. : well, just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you’re not affected by it.

k. l. : true.

m.e. : like i had no clue what listening to thelonious monk with my dad was going to do to me. but obviously it left a mark on me. who knows what would’ve happen if he had never played that.

and i know there’s a part of me too that when i don’t like something, i get really curious about why i don’t like it. whenever something comes up that i don’t like, i get a little bit obsessive about trying to figure out what it is i don’t like about it. and a lot of the time, i end up loving it. and even if i don’t love it, i understand it better, and therefore can relate to it in a much better way than i did before.

…

k. l. : i didn’t realize you were a 4th generation detroiter - and now your son elijah being a fifth. that’s amazing. i’ve talked to you a bit about growing up in milford - which is not detroit by any means. but it’s where you spent your childhood. i’ve only been a handful of times, but anytime i’m there, i think about you immediately.

m.e. : as you should…

(laughs)

k. l. : that being said, i know how different milford is from detroit. but anyone who grows up anywhere - it has to affect them. how was growing up in milford? especially for someone who’s family all grew up in detroit.

m.e. : man, my experience growing up there was very positive. i was basically brought up out in the woods - out in the country. and was around a lot of good families. a lot of people out there were working at GM. my dad was working at Ford and my mom was working out at the post office - she was a postmaster.

i spent a lot of time outside with a lot of friends. there was a lot of space for us to run, and play, and just be kids.

k. l. : did you spend some time in detroit growing up?

m.e. : both my parents’ families are from the city, so we would go to detroit all the time. and that was always great. that was family time. going to shows or going to a tigers game. i spent a lot of time in detroit.

and back at milford, we would be outside, building tree forts, climbing trees, fishing. it was fun.

that all being said, i was definitely the only black kid around. however, it was never really an issue until i was over 18. then, i was no longer marcus from milford. i was a black man going into stores. not a cute little kid. that was definitely interesting.

but as a kid, i had a wonderful childhood.

k. l. : man, i can relate on some level - obviously our experiences are going to be drastically different in a lot of ways, but i remember coming back to my hometown - which is an affluent, all-white, beach town in california - as an adult and feeling very unwelcome.

and it was not only realizing folks were looking at me a certain way, but also being hyperaware that i was different from the majority of the population. i didn’t really have that perspective until i left my hometown. i just didn’t feel like i fit in like i did when i was a kid. maybe i was just blissfully ignorant to those facts growing up, but as a kid, i didn’t mind it nearly as much.

m.e. : ya man, like i can think back on certain situations that were not good. i definitely had - specifically in middle school - certain fights around race. or certain comments being made by certain teachers. but you know, anytime something like that would go down, my community really rallied behind me and supported me. i just had a really good group of friends - and a lot of them.

fortunately enough, my dad was really adamant about making sure i spent time in detroit. he made it a point to make sure i wasn’t just hanging out in milford. i had a whole other group of friends in detroit - we would hang out and play video games.

all that to say, it was cool. like there were definitely challenges, but it was cool. both my parents, and my community did a lot to make sure i was taken care of - like a lot.

and that’s not everybody’s story. it’s not. it’s definitely not - i think i’m actually in the minority here.

…

k. l. : i want to move forward a little bit. i was thinking about how you’ve been one of the few younger people i know who’s had both a 21st century institutional music education (michigan state university, university of michigan, banff international workshop for jazz and creative musicians, stanford jazz workshop) and also a complete professional/street education, apprenticing and working with folks like marcus belgrave and wendell harrison.

i think often about how folks in detroit learned the music back in the day. for instance, in the 50’s and 60’s, all of these musicians would hang out at barry harris’ house and learn how to play, and then head over to the bluebird inn and jam all night. they all learned together that way - communally and organically. can you speak on how a more manufactured educational environment might compare to one that is a little more organic?

m.e. : if it’s about the music, then it doesn’t really matter where it’s at. and people who are about the music, they’ll find one another. because they value the same things. there’s all kinds of people at the university level: some people are there for the paycheck, some people are there for the prestige, some people are there for the hang, some people are there because they don’t know where else to be.

and then there’s some people who are there because they are trying to get that much closer to being the musician they want to be. they are there because they really believe in the music. the venues will change, the institutions will change. hopefully the thing that will never change is that. and, i think that’s kinda what we’re seeing.

i think about all those places that you’ve listed, and it’s not like going to any of them is getting me more work because i’m putting it on my resume. the most valuable thing was that i met other like-minded people. whenever you can be in a place where you’re meeting other like minded people, that’s a really beautiful thing.

k. l. : definitely.

m.e. : i think one of the things you’re also getting at talking about barry harris is tradition. things can get lost when you move things into institutions. there’s just certain things that get lost. the thing that has been made clear to me is that in western culture, there’s this idea that every new generation is better than the next.

but in a lot of other cultures, the idea is that every generation forgets a little bit more from what the last generation had. however, i think specifically with the music, i really see it in that way. when barry harris died, or mccoy tyner, or marcus belgrave. there’s no one else around that has those experiences, that has that knowledge. the people who were around them had it second hand - it’s not their knowledge. so every generation that comes, there’s a little bit more that’s forgotten. and we do what we can to try to remember it.

and you can think about it on a more tangible level. like certain songs, or ways of articulating, or whatever. or you can think about it as - what did it feel like to play on stage, at that level, with certain things going on in the world. those are the things that get lost. the context. we do all that we can to remember those things and pass the knowledge on. knowing that we will never be able to pass it on at the same experiential level.

k. l. : that reminds me of a conversation we had years ago. i had been working on transcribing some late-coltrane thing - maybe interstellar space or something. and i was geeking out on the harmony, and really excited about all the notes that were being played.

and i remember you saying this pointed comment in passing. something along the lines of - “man that’s great, but you can spend a lot of time figuring what coltrane played, but you should spend more of your time figuring out why he played it”.

m. e. : man, i said that?!

k. l. : ya, it was deep!

(laughs)

at the end of our conversation, i asked marcus’ thoughts on three particularly influential figures in the detroit scene.

k. l. : marcus belgrave.

m. e. : ya! i think about him every day, man. i think about just how gracious he was to allow someone like myself to play next him. sounding the way i sounded. the fact that he even allowed me to stand next to him was an amazing thing. ya. i think about him every day.

it’s amazing what he’s done. i just feel so blessed and so grateful that i had a chance to be around him. he gave me more than anybody else has. just allowing me to spend the last 3 or 4 years of his life with him. when he passed, after some time went by, i realized - oh shit - i am the last generation of people that played with marcus belgrave. any younger people who want that information or want to interact with him won’t have the chance.

k. l. : ya, i never did. he passed a few months before i moved to town.

m. e. : it put a lot of things in perspective for me. because it made me think about all the people that i’d never gotten to be around or play with that meant so much to marcus (belgrave).

it’s just crazy what he did, man. playing melodies with him. phrasing. i remember just shedding different melodies with him, man. like we would work on all this horace silver music. he loved horace silver.

k. l. : i’ve heard that from several other musicians.

m. e. : he was crazy about horace silver. we’d just play these melodies, and he’d say “no, you gotta listen to how i’m phrasing this!”. then i’d get it. and he’d go “okay, now harmonize it!”. and i’d try and harmonize it. and then kasan [belgrave - marcus’s son] would be coming around with the clarinet playing all this crazy shit. being a crazy ass kid. it was a crazy experience.

k. l. : i remember kasan telling me that his dad took some musicians to barbados with him. did you go with him?

m. e. : ya - i went. it was me, ian [finkelstein] and kasan.

k. l. : that’s wild.

m. e. : it was so crazy. oh my goodness. that was a crazy trip.

k. l. : did you also teach with him at the young musicians program in berkeley, ca?

m. e. : ya, i did.

k. l. : you were young, right?

m. e. : i was 19. i told him originally that i wasn’t going to do it. i don’t even remember why. and he was like “okay”. and a couple weeks later he was like, “you need to do this”. and i said okay.

and that was an amazing experience. i met samora and elena pinderhughes.

i met brian [juarez]. which is crazy.

(laughs)

the money i made from that trip made it so i was able to fund my first album. i met bennie maupin, who gave me a yusef lateef book.

k. l. : the repository of scales?

m. e. : exactly. we would work on that stuff together. and he was the one who really turned me on to yusef lateef. like i was into yusef, but i didn’t know how deep he was until bennie maupin. he really opened my eyes to that.

…

k.l. : faruq z. bey.

m. e. : woooo!

(laughs)

m. e. : i feel a weird kinship to him. i never met him. never got a chance to meet him. he died no more than 6 months before i moved to detroit after i graduated college - in 2012. i had heard about him, but unfortunately it was always in the light of “oh ya he plays free” or “he’s kinda crazy”. that’s how he was first put to me.

k.l. : and then what happened?

m. e. : i’m trying to remember now. i can’t remember how i got so absorbed. i honestly don’t remember. i remember i was playing a lot with james cornish who spent a lot of time with him. joel peterson over at trinosophes spent a lot of time with him. obviously, skeeter [shelton] did. skeeter would tell me… oh! you know the northwoods improvisers?

k.l. : yup.

m. e. : they came down to cliff bell’s, believe or not…

k.l. : woah.

m. e. : and they played a set, and it was fucking crazy. and skeeter was there and he was playing his ass off. and you know how skeeter is - he was getting up in my face and shit, saying “FARUQ, FARUQ Z BEY, THAT IS THE MUSIC WE ARE PLAYING TODAY”. and he would play some crazy shit on the horn and was like “marcus, you need to check out faruq. if you gonna be here, you gotta listen to faruq!”.

then i started searching around and started listening, and then i found a book of his that a lot of people don’t have. i got it right here.

marcus grabs book from bookshelf

m. e. : it’s called “toward a rational aesthetic”.

k.l. : wow, i’d never heard of that.

m. e. : ya, so i read that, and that really changed the game for me. he’s got one quote in here. it’s literally the last thing in this book:

“the only real and viable form of discipline is self-discpline. all else, no matter what the ostensible justification, is oppression.”

that’s how he played man. there was a level of freedom in what he did that could only come from self discipline. he didn’t start playing the saxophone until his late twenties. he was an artist and a writer.

and the way he started playing - there were two things that happened. it was 1967 - so the rebellion and riots in detroit were happening, and john coltrane had died. so he, and a bunch of other people were listening to trane, and he said that he had such an out of body experience listening to john coltrane that he had to play the saxophone. and then he went on to do what he did. powerful individual.

i think about him a lot. i feel a very strong calling from him. at some point in my career, i hope to do some sort of a tribute to him and to his music.

…

k.l. : michael malis.

m. e. : that’s my brother, man. we have an album coming out. late may/early june. it’s gonna be on vinyl. it’s called “conjure”

i’ve known him since i was 15. i don’t know if you ever had moment where you just were able to start really playing for the first time?

k.l. : absolutely.

m. e. : he was there for that. we were playing “straight no chaser” in high school, and i was trading fours with desean jones. and something happened. it just kinda clicked for me. and i was playing some shit. and michael was there - and he remembers it!

k.l. : wow, that’s great.

m. e. : ya, we have a very special relationship with one another. we live across the street from one another. we’re raising families together. one of the things that i love about what we’re doing is that we’re setting a really beautiful example of what is possible as an artist living in detroit. we both hold that really close and dear. there weren’t any michael malis' or marcus elliots' when we were coming up that we could really look at in that way.

like the age difference between you and i, we didn’t really have that. we had older folks - like marion hayden and sean dobbins and dwight adams. but there’s a very interesting generational gap - about a decade or so of people missing. like when we got out of college, we didn’t see people in their late twenties and early thirties making it work in the city. i see us as, hopefully, a new wave of more people that are able to do that.

k.l. : man, that’s fascinating to hear that you all know that about your generation. because as the generation coming behind you, we are definitely aware of your impact, but it’s a powerful thing when you recognize your impact, and that you’re role models in the community. and it’s not just you and michael, but so many folks. like ian finkelstein and rafael statin and desean jones and sasha kasperko and ben rolston and stephen boegehold and so many more that i can’t even count.

m. e. : i appreciate that, man. but i will say there’s a real reason why there’s no one around 7-10 years above us for us to look up to.

k.l. : right - the recession. the city going bankrupt?

m. e. : ya man, the recession, and just the state of the city as a whole. it just wasn’t feasible, it wasn’t possible. if you really wanted to play at that time, you just had to go to new york. that’s what you had to do.

because the city was doing what it was doing when i was getting ready to move to detroit, and just the amount of money and attention that was being pumped into it at that time, it just made it possible - at least for a brief moment.

and that seems to still be happening. and i was worried about this pandemic. but i think i was wrong. people seem to still be here, and people are down.

k.l. : do you ever worry about things swaying in the opposite direction? the city is building quickly, and there’s all this rapid gentrification. part of me gets worried about this late-stage capitalist plague that’s coming into cities around the country, like seattle, or wherever. and it takes out the clubs and wipes the arts ecosystem. do you see that being a possibility?

m. e. : well, it’s definitely a possibility. no doubt. however, i don’t really worry about it too much. like i said earlier, i genuinely have faith that the people who want it and are serious about it are going to make it work. you just don’t have a choice. but, i don’t know, man. we’ll see. that’s the exciting thing. we’ll see what happens. i’m just glad to have had a part in it in some way, and look forward to continuing to have a part in it.