Jazz pianist, patriarch Ellis Marsalis dead at 85
Pauley Perrette made a deal with God after leaving “NCIS.”
“I told everyone I retired and I wasn’t kidding,” the 50-yearold actress told the Daily News. “But I had a little talk with God and we decided I would take meetings.”
Perrette, who left “NCIS” after 15 years and claimed she was “terrified” of longtime costar Mark Harmon, says she didn’t want to do drama again: No drama, no crime, no procedurals.
Then “Broke” came along. The CBS comedy, which reunites “Jane the Virgin” showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman with star Jaime Camil, features Perrette as single mom Jackie, who lives in her Reseda, Calif., childhood home with her young son. When her estranged sister (Natasha Leggero) and her obscenely rich husband (Camil) show up on her doorstep after being cut off by his family, Jackie’s world is turned upside down.
“Now that the world has gone crazy, if there’s one thing about it that I’m so excited about, this is going to make people smile,” Perrette told The News. “There’s such a sweetness about it and that’s something that we need right now.
“It’s so full of love and full of light.”
Perrette joked the series also met one of her top requirements for returning to TV, comfy shoes after being stuck in Abby Sciuto’s platform boots for 15 years, but she also called “Broke” an “homage to awesome, single moms.”
Urman, who serves as executive producer alongside “Will & Grace’s” Alex Herschlag, said she had been searching for a sitcom for Camil since “Jane the Virgin” ended last summer. The two had originally considered a spinoff with Camil returning as Jane’s father, Rogelio, but instead they went with “Broke,” based on a telenovela.
“It’s about people who have been estranged re-finding each other and reconnecting to each other,” Urman told The News. “The everyday challenges of living without champagne and caviar.”
Camil’s character, the loving, somewhat clueless Javier, “has a beautiful heart,” the 46-yearold told The News.
“He lives in this crazy crazy universe and says these outrageous things ... but for some reason instead of slapping him, you give him a hug,” Camil said. “He has a big big heart. No matter how pretentious he might be, he’s endearing.”
“Broke” tells the story of people being stuck at home together just as the world is social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. Its message about wealth, however, was planned.
“[Javier] is a billionaire in Mexico who’s just starting to realize that his life maybe was a little easier because of money,” Urman told The News. “Money makes life easier and that’s something that we can’t overstate enough, especially in this time.”
Ellis Marsalis, jazz pianist, teacher and patriarch of a New Orleans musical family that includes famed musician sons Wynton and Branford, has died. He was 85.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Marsalis’ death in a news release Wednesday night. She did not specify a cause of death. He had continued to perform regularly in New Orleans until December.
“Ellis Marsalis was a legend. He was the prototype of what we mean when we talk about New Orleans jazz,” Cantrell said in a statement. “He was a teacher, a father, and an icon — and words aren’t sufficient to describe the art, the joy and the wonder he showed the world.”
Because Marsalis (inset) opted to stay in New Orleans for most of his career, his reputation was limited until his sons became famous and brought him the spotlight, along with new recording contracts and headliner performances on television and on tour.
Four of his six sons are musicians: Wynton, the trumpeter, is America’s most prominent jazz spokesman as artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. Branford, the saxophonist, led The Tonight Show band and toured with Sting. Delfeayo, trombonist, is a prominent recording producer and performer. And Jason, the drummer, has made a name for himself with his own band and as an accompanist. Ellis III, who decided music was not his gig, is a photographer-poet in Baltimore.
“He was like the coach of jazz. He put on the sweatshirt, blew the whistle and made these guys work,” said Nick Spitzer, host of public radio’s American Routes and an anthropology professor at Tulane University.
The Marsalis “family band” seldom played together when the boys were younger, but in 2003 toured up East in a spinoff of a family celebration that became a PBS special when the elder Marsalis retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans.
Harry Connick Jr., one of Marsalis’ students at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, was a guest. He is just one of the many now-famous jazz musicians who passed through the Marsalis classrooms; others include trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, saxophonists Donald Harrison and Victor Goines, and bassist Reginald Veal.
Marsalis’ wife, Dolores, died in 2017. He is survived by his sons Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya and Jason.