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Roberts has performed only sporadically.
“In Berlin, it was a big, huge success, and
many orchestras in Europe were [initially] interested,”
Ozawa said. “But I don’t know why any
real [European] engagements didn’t happen.
Maybe it’s my fault, because they think I have to
conduct. It’s not true. I thought this was going to
be a big thing for the future, but, unfortunately,
there is not another Marcus Roberts who can do
this kind of thing.”
Still, Roberts and the trio will play the
“Concerto In F” with Ozawa at the Tanglewood
Festival, the summer home of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, in 2010. Ozawa hopes to
record the concerto and the “Rhapsody” with
Roberts and an American ensemble. It could
make a spectacular release.
Even so, there’s a sense in jazz—at least
among Roberts’ more ardent admirers—that the
music world has yet to acknowledge, or even
understand, Roberts’ gifts. The eight-year
recording hiatus has done nothing to help.
Yet consider what Roberts has accomplished.
Having begun noodling on a toy piano at age 3
in Jacksonville, Fla., Roberts had an instrument
of his own at 8 and discovered jazz at 13.
Though born with sight, he lost it after cataract
surgery at age 5. Still, he studied with a student
of the great Russian pedagogue Rosina
Lhévinne at Florida State University; won the
piano competition at the convention of the
International Association of Jazz Educators in
Chicago, in 1982, where he met Ellis Marsalis;
replaced Kenny Kirkland in Wynton Marsalis’
band in 1985; won the 1987 Thelonious Monk
Piano Competition; and proceeded to release
such major recordings as Alone With Three
Giants and Deep In The Shed on RCA/Novus.
Further recordings, such as The Joy Of
Joplin, Blues For The New Millennium,
Gershwin For Lovers and Portraits In Blue
(Sony/Columbia), attest to the man’s creative
outpouring in the 1990s. And though it’s little
known, even in jazz circles, Roberts has been
instrumental in launching several major careers.
“He is responsible for me being the musician
I am,” said trumpeter Marcus Printup, who plays
in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and was
coached by Roberts starting in 1991, when
Printup was studying at the University of North
Florida. “He taught me how to be mature
through music. He taught me how to not just
float through the [chord] changes. He helped me
have a thorough knowledge of this music.”
Others share the sentiment.
“Marcus is my mentor, the man who brought
me out on the scene—that started in 1991 with a
rehearsal band down in Tallahassee,” said trombonist
Ron Westray, who used to play in the
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and now teaches
at the University of Texas, at Austin. “We
would sit in awe at the comprehensive nature of
how Marcus deals with music. Everybody was
astounded with the music and conception that he
had studied and had in his brain, and the technical
facility to boot.”
Whether Roberts’ prowess as improviser,
composer, pianist and jazz conceptualizer
receive their due remains to be seen. By releasing
the new CD as a download via TuneCore
and via CD on his web site, he’s operating within
the current directions of music distribution,
but also somewhere outside the jazz mainstream.
Still, Roberts feels optimistic about the
future, eager to release the music that has been
pent up for nearly a decade and to compose
more. Innovations in assistive technology for the
blind make it easier for him to write and orchestrate,
leading him to imagine penning his own
jazz piano concerto. In addition, he’s contemplating
a jazz version of Maurice Ravel’s “Piano
Concerto For The Left Hand,” a jazz-tinged
piece that seems ripe for development.
But will the world listen
“I don’t think people do know about him, but
it was the same thing with Monk,” Printup said.
Roberts, meanwhile, pushes forward.
“I want to put out a lot of the stuff we’ve
worked on, and I want to expand on my ability
to collaborate with people who have talent, who
can provide inspiration,” he said. “That’s the
theme for me for the rest of my career.” DB
June 2009 DOWNBEAT 39