Marcus Roberts

Marthaniel "Marcus" Roberts (born August 7, 1963) is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and teacher.

Early life

Roberts was born in Jacksonville, Florida. Blind since the age of five due to glaucoma and cataracts, he attended the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, Florida, the alma mater of blind pianist Ray Charles. Roberts began teaching himself to play piano at an early age, had his first lesson at age 12, and then studied the instrument with pianist Leonidas Lipovetsky while attending Florida State University.

Career

In the 1980s, Roberts replaced pianist Kenny Kirkland in Wynton Marsalis's band. Like Marsalis's, his music is rooted in the traditional jazz of the past. His style has been influenced more by Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller than McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans, with an emphasis on ragtime and stride piano rather than bebop. His album New Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol. 1 (2009) covers music by Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, Morton, and Waller.

He was commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Savannah Music Festival to write his first piano concerto, Spirit of the Blues: Piano Concerto in C-Minor. He has performed as a soloist in symphony orchestras with Marin Alsop (1992) and Seiji Ozawa. He returned to Japan in September 2014 to share the stage with Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra.

In 2012 he founded the band The Modern Jazz Generation, which released its first album in October 2014. This band has 12 musicians ranging in age from early 20s to 50s. He served as Associate Artistic Director for the Savannah Music Festival as well as the Director of the annual Swing Central high school band competition. He is on the faculty at Florida State.

In 2014, Roberts was profiled on the television show 60 Minutes.

Discography

As leader

• The Truth Is Spoken Here (Novus, 1988)

• Deep in the Shed (Novus/Sony, 1989)

• Alone with Three Giants (Novus, 1990)

• Prayer for Peace (Novus, 1991)

• As Serenity Approaches (Novus, 1991)

• If I Could Be with You (Novus, 1993)

• Gershwin for Lovers (Columbia, 1994)

• Portraits in Blue (Columbia/Sony, 1995)

• Time and Circumstance (Columbia/Sony, 1996)

• Blues for the New Millennium (Columbia, 1997)

• The Joy of Joplin (Sony, 1998)

• In Honor of Duke (Columbia, 1999)

• Cole after Midnight (Columbia/Sony, 2001)

• A Gershwin Night (2003)

• Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F (Philips Classics, 2006)

• New Orleans Meets Harlem, Volume 1 (J-Master, 2009)

• Celebrating Christmas (2011)

• Deep in the Shed: A Blues Suite (2012)

• From Rags to Rhythm (2013)

• Together Again: In the Studio with Wynton Marsalis (2013)

• Together Again: Live in Concert with Wynton Marsalis (2013)

• Romance, Swing, and the Blues (2014)

• The Race for the White House (2016)

• Trio Crescent: Celebrating Coltrane (2017)

As sideman

With Wynton Marsalis

• 1986 J Mood

• 1987 Marsalis Standard Time, Vol. I

• 1988 Live at Blues Alley

• 1989 The Majesty of the Blues

• 1989 Crescent City Christmas Card

• 1990 Standard Time, Vol. 2: Intimacy Calling

• 1991 Thick in the South: Soul Gestures in Southern Blue, Vol. 1

• 1991 Uptown Ruler: Soul Gestures in Southern Blue, Vol. 2

• 1991 Levee Low Moan: Soul Gestures in Southern Blue, Vol. 3

• 1992 Blue Interlude

• 1992 Citi Movement

• 1994 Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents: The Fire of the Fundamentals Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra

• 1994 Jazz at Lincoln Center: They Came to Swing Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra

• 1999 Live at the Village Vanguard

• 2011 Swinging into the 21st

• 2012 The Music of America

With others

• 1990 The Marksman, Mark Whitfield

• 1996 Bone Structure, Wycliffe Gordon/Ron Westray

• 1996 Unveiled, Marcus Printup

• 2012 Across the Imaginary Divide, Béla Fleck

• 2016 Heirs of the Crescent City, Jason Marsalis

• 2017 The Musician, Chick Corea