Marty Marsala

Marty Marsala with Bud Freeman (right), 1940s. Photo William P. Gottlieb .

Mario Salvatore "Marty" Marsala (born April 2, 1909 in Chicago , Illinois , † April 27, 1975 ibid) was an American musician of traditional jazz (trumpet, drums).

Live and act

The brother of the band leader Joe Marsala first played (influenced by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings ) as a drummer with Red Feilen and Joe Bananas in his hometown. He switched to the trumpet in the late 1920s before moving to New York City in 1936 to play with Will Hudson and Miff Mole , and to join his brother's band. Until 1946 he occasionally led his own groups and was a member of the Chico Marx Orchestra from 1942 to 1943 before doing his military service. From the mid-1940s he played with his own Dixieland band, but also with groups of other musicians, such as Earl Hines , on the west coast, in 1954 and 1955 in Chicago. In 1956 he settled in San Francisco and only performed occasionally in Chicago and also recorded an album under his own name before he retired from music in the 1960s due to illness.

He also recorded with Eddie Condon , Tempo King (1936-37), Bob Howard (1937) and Kid Ory .

Discographic notes

• Marty Marsala: Jazz from the San Francisco Waterfront (1957)
• Earl Hines At Club Hangover (1955, Storyville Records)
• Joe Marsala Joe Marsala Classics (1936–1942)

Lexigraphic entries

• Carlo Bohländer , Karl Heinz Holler: Reclams Jazzführer (= Reclams Universal Library. No. 10185/10196). Reclam, Stuttgart 1970, ISBN 3-15-010185-9 .
• Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz music. 1700 artists and bands from the beginning until today. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-476-01584-X .
• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
• John Jörgensen, Erik Wiedemann : Jazzlexikon , Munich, Mosaik, 1967

Web links

• Short biography by Scott Yanow (English)