Discographer Tom Lord signs off on Joe Marshall in the recording studios in 1989, after 45 years of service to jazz and some 110 sides cut. The drummer may not have flailed his sticks in the '90s, but considering the fact that Marshall's first professional gigs were in the early '30s it is actually some six decades of performing that the man can be proud of, an unusual career that includes historic days on the Chicago jazz scene, international touring with stars such as Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman, and a massive presence on television beginning in the '60s. Marshall adapted to changing public tastes as well as transformations in the actual types of jobs available to a drummer.

Perhaps he never adjusted to being mistaken for the somewhat older Joseph Kaiser Marshall, another drummer who was active with Fletcher Henderson in the '20s and died in the late '40s. Lord marshals his organizational forces by referring to one as Kaiser and the other as Joe; hundreds of liner notes and reviews in the pile-up of print concerning jazz do not pick up on such a simple division of labor. As Lord's figures indicate, nobody needs to fudge up which Marshall was which in order to pad one of their credits. There was plenty of work for either of them, each drummer appearing on more than 100 releases. While some of the styles they played overlap, it was the younger Marshall who was involved in the doo wop and RB music of the '50s, since by then Joe Kaiser Marshall had graduated to the heavenly drum throne.

The younger Marshall, hailing from the so-called "redneck Riviera" of Pensacola but raised in Chicago, had important influences in his piano-playing mother as well as the noted high-school band teachers Major N. Clark Smith and Walter H. Dyett. The latter chaps had a hand in the formal education of many of the Windy City's best jazzmen in the '30s. Marshall was in the thick of it in that era, working with bandleaders such as Erskine Tate, Oett Sam Mallard, and King Kolax. While gigs with these artists were mainly confined to Chicago, in the mid-'30s the drummer spent nearly three years on the road with the Burns Campbell Band. In the '40s he worked with Walter Fuller and Milton Larkins as well as the tenor saxophone giant Hawkins; from 1942 through 1947 he had a solid seat in the Jimmie Lunceford group.

Johnny Hodges used Marshall on drums when that star Duke Ellington soloist decided to try fronting his own combo. Partners in the '50s also included Lucky Millinder, but in a decade when the invention of the television inevitably led to the padlocking of many live music venues, Marshall decided not to fight the trends and found himself employed by the idiot box's talent show host Arthur Godfrey. Television work, combined with Broadway shows and touring with Benny Goodman, made up what seems like a full calendar for the drummer through the '60s. He also worked with Dick Vance in the final year of that decade. Trombonist Tyree Glenn had Marshall in a fine rhythm section during the '70s, but for the most part the drummer's commitments became further wed to the short-term specifications of freelancing. He continued to be featured on television productions and was a natural choice for the pit band in stage productions involving classic jazz, such as +Bubblin' Brown Sugar and +Ain't Misbehavin'. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi