Branford Marsalis Archives

The 30 Best Sly & The Family Stone Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 9:00 am No Responses »

Jun 272025

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

Sly Stone died on June 9 at the age of 82. Two days later, Brian Wilson died, also 82. It was a rough week for eccentric musical geniuses years ahead of their time. We paid tribute to Wilson here, and a couple years ago did a full Best Beach Boys Covers Ever list that now serves as a de facto tribute too. After all, he wrote just about all of those songs.)

So today, the great Sly Stone gets the same treatment. Thirty covers of all the hits, and a few deeper cuts too. Hot fun begins on the next page. (And once you’re done with this, check out our new Five Good Covers piece on “Family Affair.”)

Branford Marsalis Covers Entire Keith Jarrett Album

Posted by Luke Poling at 9:00 am No Responses »

Apr 072025

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his quartet is paying the ultimate tribute in his newest album. In it, Marsalis and his quartet cover Keith Jarrett’s 1974 album, Belongings in its entirety.

The decision to cover this album by this artist is fascinating, since Jarrett is so regarded for his spontaneous recording style, which leaves the cover-er trying to make something clearly very studied sound tossed off. Keith Jarrett’s original recording is the very epitome of spontaneity, with producer Manfred Eicher claiming that he told the quartet that he would only record one version of each song.

On the album, Marsalis is joined by Joey Calderazzo on piano, Eric Revis on bass and Justin Faulkner on drums. This isn’t Marsalis’ first attempt at a project like this; in the early 2000s, he played the entirety of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.

You can hear The Branford Marsalis Quartet’s take on the title track below.

Branford Marsalis Joins Kurt Elling for Thunderous Jazz Dylan Cover

Posted by Curtis Zimmermann at 11:11 am 1 Response »

Apr 092018

In the opening minute of Kurt Elling’s cover of Bob Dylan’s anthem “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” the jazz singer turns the lyrics into a spoken-word sermon. Without any accompaniment, he fully enunciates each line, then pauses, allowing time to process each haunting phrase of Dylan’s prose. He also reconfigures the order of the song, combining the first verse with the fourth, jumping from “I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,” straight to, “I met a young child beside a dead pony.”