Jazz Trumpet Professor Marcus Belgrave Honored with Benny Golson Jazz Master Award by Marci Janas '91
			Photo by Fred Irby III Visiting Professor of Jazz Trumpet Marcus Belgrave received the 2002 Benny Golson Jazz Master Award from the Howard University Jazz Ensemble (HUJE) in a tribute held on Howard's campus November 21. Belgrave was so honored, says Howard University professor and director of HUJE Fred Irby III, "because of his legendary work as an artist and because of his mentoring young musicians who have gone to become great artists." Congressman John Conyers Jr. of Michigan presented him with the award. Belgrave was a featured performer in several songs with the HUJE during the event. A composer, arranger, recording artist, and producer, Belgrave first earned recognition at the age of 18, when his extensive collaborations with Ray Charles included a solo on "Alexander's Ragtime Band" on the album The Genius of Ray Charles. A versatile performer who plays avant-garde and traditional New Orleans jazz, blues, and ragtime, Belgrave has also performed with Max Roach, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dizzy Gillespie. A prominent recording musician with Motown Records, Belgrave is heard on many of the label's hits, including "Dancing in the Street," "The Way You Do the Things You Do," and "My Girl." Writer Allan Slutsky interviewed Belgrave for his book, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, the basis for Paul Justman's film of the same name. Belgrave appears in the film, which is currently playing in theaters, performing with the Funk Brothers, the previously unheralded Motown musicians - called "the soul behind the sound" - who are the subjects of the film. He is an original member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and he has toured with the group since 1988. Among his recordings is the critically acclaimed Marcus Belgrave with Detroit's Jazz Piano Legacy (vol. 1) with Tommy Flanagan and Geri Allen. Belgrave cofounded the jazz studies program at the Detroit Metro Arts Complex and also founded that city's Jazz Development Workshop. He was an original faculty member of the Oakland University jazz studies program. Belgrave joined Oberlin's faculty in 2001, and since then he has had "some great students," he says, noting that he emphasizes improvisation in his work with them. This year he is teaching two combos and four studio students. "What is surprising to me is the quality of their musicianship and their awareness of jazz," Belgrave says of his Oberlin students. "The desire to perform and play this music is uppermost in their minds." Belgrave was profiled in the May 2002 issue of Jazztimes.
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