The official explanation: the Grammy-winning tenor saxophonist wants to tour, cut albums and spend more time with Reese, his 8-year-old son (by ex-wife Teresa), who recently moved in with him in Los Angeles.
Insiders are betting he won't be back. "Branford will never, ever return," predicts a friend. That seemed clear from a recent interview with the music magazine BAM, in which Marsalis said that he and boss Jay Leno would never achieve "what Dave [Letterman] and [bandleader] Paul [Shaffer] have because I'm not...gonna kiss Jay's ass." The problem is not just a lack of chemistry—as evidenced by what Washington Post critic Tom Shales has called the pair's "painfully forced repartee"—but Tonight's restricted musical repertoire. Marsalis has said that NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield urged him late last spring to play less jazz and no rap. Now, Marsalis told BAM, "we play the music exactly the way they want, but we're laughing the whole time."
Leno, reportedly, isn't laughing. A Tonight Show insider recalls how, last August, the normally amiable Leno was "really pissed off' by Marsalis's chronic public complaints and chastised him in private. Last Monday there was no sign of strain between the two—or much rapport either. "Say, Branford, did you bet on the Foreman fight?" Leno asked after his monologue.
"No, I didn't," said Marsalis. Love that patter. Leno retreated to his desk, and the band played on.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
