Joe Marsala

Who was Joe Marsala?

Joe Marsala was an Italian-American jazz clarinetist and songwriter, born and initially based in Chicago, Marsala moved to New York City in 1933 at the request of Wingy Manone. It was in NYC that Joe found his greatest success as the leader of the 1936 band that entered the Hickory House on 52nd Street. He remained there as leader for ten years.

Primarily self-taught, Joe and his brother Marty hung out in the early 1920s behind the clubs on the south side of Chicago listening to and absorbing the music called jazz. He was active during the big band era though he preferred the smaller combos of six or seven in which each member could really swing. Marsala is notable as one of the early employers of drummers Buddy Rich and Shelly Manne, jazz harpist Adele Girard whom he later married,guitarist Charlie Byrd, pianist Gene DiNovi and trumpeter Neal Hefti. Other early band members were trumpeter brother Marty, pianist Joe Bushkin, guitarists Eddie Condon, Jack Lemaire, Carmen Mastren, and bassist Artie Shapiro. Jazz critic and pianistLeonard Feather, among others, gives him a good deal of credit for breaking down race segregation in jazz when he hired trumpeter Henry,"Red" Allen in 1936. In the early 1940s Marsala invited many fine African American musicians to sit in on his Sunday jam sessions at the Hickory House, trumpeter Clarence"Hot Lips"Page, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, drummer Zutty Singleton, and pianist Fats Waller were a few. Marsala's earliest friendships in Chicago from neighbors to the back alleys of the south side to his earliest recording sessions were peopled with African Americans whom he respected as the first and finest of jazz musicians. Hiring and inviting these musicians to display their talents with his band was just something that came naturally to Joe, it wasn't done for effect or to impress.