Ellis Marsalis has died

[Josephine]

Sorry for any confusion on this post - as Nou made clear it is indeed the SENIOR Ellis, father to the pianist Ellis.

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Jazz family patriarch Marsalis dies

Ellis Marsalis Sr. grandfather to Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo


NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (Reuters) -- Ellis Marsalis Sr., patriarch of the family of jazz greats that includes his grandsons Wynton and Branford, died over the weekend at the age of 96, a New Orleans funeral home said Wednesday.

Marsalis, who took an active role in the civil rights movement, died at an area hospital Sunday, the funeral home said.

Marsalis was a poultry farmer who in 1943 converted a barn into a motel along the Mississippi River. The 40-room motel catered to blacks, who were not allowed to stay in New Orleans hotels because of racial discrimination.

The Marsalis Motel quickly became famous for its well-appointed rooms, fancy restaurant and shaded gardens. Its clients included civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

The motel was known for its great food and great jazz. It attracted some of the best musicians in the United States, who helped foster a love of jazz among the members of the Marsalis family, including his son Ellis Marsalis Jr., a jazz pianist of note.

The longer the senior Marsalis ran the business, the more active he became in the civil rights struggle and supporting minorities in New Orleans.

"He was such a meek and humble person, a soft, soft personality, but stern in his beliefs," said the Rev. Marie Galatas, a New Orleans minister and lifelong civil rights activist who knew Marsalis.

"He took on the Jim Crow, the segregation, and the racism, but he never held the hate," Galatas said.

The motel saw its fortunes turn for the worse in the 1960s when civil rights legislation allowed blacks to stay at New Orleans hotels that formerly catered only to whites. In 1986 the facility closed and was later demolished.

A funeral is scheduled for Thursday in New Orleans.

[Nou Dadoun]

Not wanting to diminish the loss here, it should be noted that this is a little misleading. When I first saw the subject, I thought that the jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis had died; as noted within the copied article this is actually Ellis Marsalis' father, an important figure in the civil rights community but (other than his parentage) not otherwise known in the jazz community.