Marzette Watts (March 9, 1938,

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

– March 2, 1998,

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and t ...

) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

tenor and soprano saxophonist. He performed and recorded on bass clarinet as well. He had a brief career in music and is revered for his 1966 self-titled

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians dur ...

release. He was known also as a sound engineer. Watts played piano early in his life; he did not play music regularly in his teens. He studied at Alabama State College, where he was a founding member of

SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segreg ...

; this association led to his being forced to leave the state at the behest of the

governor of Alabama A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

. He moved to New York, where he lived in a loft building on Cooper Square which also had as a tenant Leroi Jones (later

Amiri Baraka Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

), with whom he participated in the

Organization of Young Men An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

. Watts returned to college in New York, completing his studies in 1962; he then moved to Paris to study painting at the Sorbonne and began playing saxophone for extra money. Returning to New York in 1963, Watts studied under Don Cherry and played in his loft and around the city with Jiunie Booth, Henry Grimes, J.C. Moses, and others. He also continued painting, producing work strongly influenced by

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter ...

. Watts's loft attracted many established and up-and-coming musicians who would hang out there and play at parties, including

Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Col ...

Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex ...

, Don Cherry,

Archie Shepp Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but ...

, and

Pharoah Sanders Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of " sheets of sound", S ...

. In 1965 he decided to devote himself to music more fully, and moved to

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establishe ...

for further study. When he returned to New York in 1966, he recorded an album for ESP-Disk with the assistance of composer Clifford Thornton, and recorded a second album for Savoy Records in 1968. He wrote film scores and did production work for his own films, eventually abandoning music to work in film and

record production A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

. Watts moved back and forth between Europe and New York; he taught briefly at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the c ...

, assisting Sam Rivers and Clifford Thornton. Late in his life he moved to

Santa Cruz, California Santa Cruz ( Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a pop ...

. He died of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, ...

in 1998.

Discography

*'' Marzette Watts and Company'' ( ESP-Disk, 1966) *'' The Marzette Watts Ensemble'' ( Savoy Records, 1968)

References

* *Gary W. Kennedy, "Marzette Watts". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'' online. {{DEFAULTSORT:Watts, Marzette 1938 births 1998 deaths American jazz saxophonists American male saxophonists Alabama State University alumni University of Paris alumni Wesleyan University faculty Savoy Records artists ESP-Disk artists 20th-century American saxophonists Jazz musicians from Alabama 20th-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians