Marty Ehrlich

Marty Ehrlich is a composer and multi-instrumentalist (clarinets, saxophones, flutes), based in New York City. He has led and played on hundreds of recordings. He began with the Human Arts Ensemble in high school, and later met the Black Artists Group and founder/mentor Julius Hemphill. He later played in Hemphill's big band and sextet. He led the Dark Woods Ensemble on three lauded recordings between 1991 and 1999 including Sojourn. His duo albums with Myra Melford -- 2001's Yet Can Spring and 2007's Spark! -- won global acclaim, as did his celebrated large ensemble recording A Trumpet in the Morning (2013). In 2025 his Trio Exaltation released their second album, This Time. January 2026 saw the release of the archival Circle the Heart with Hemphill; in April, Cartographies of Flight: Lines Set Afloat Towards Hope appeared, and in September, Open Air: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions of Julius Hemphill was released. Ehrlich was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and spent his youth in several cities. He began playing clarinet at seven while living in Louisville, Kentucky. His family was living in University City, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis) where he attended junior high school (and picked up the saxophone playing in the band). He was asked to join the Human Arts Ensemble where he met Charles Bobo Shaw, Oliver Lake, Baikida Carroll, Lester Bowie, and others. He fell under the sway of music from the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Muhal Richard Abrams, and other members of the association for the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Ehrlich made his recorded debut with HAE playing on the album Under the Sun in 1974. In St. Louis, he encountered the Black Artists Group that was founded and led by saxophonist/composer Julius Hemphill; the latter became a primary influence and mentor to Ehrlich. He attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston from 1973-1977. His teachers included George Russell, Jaki Byard, Gunther Schuller, Ran Blake, Joe Maneri, and others. He left school vowing to be a musician, and was willing to play any music to remain one. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, and stayed in saxophonist Tim Berne's spare room for a year -- he encountered Berne in 1976 at a Hemphill/Bowie/Famoudou Don Moye concert. After leaving he roomed with former schoolmate Jerome Harris in Brooklyn. In 1978, Ehrlich won a role with the George Russell Big Band playing at the Village Vanguard for many nights, then touring with Chico Hamilton and with the Anthony Braxton Creative Music Orchestra in Europe. In 1979 he played on Gifts and Heart & Center by guitarist Michael Gregory Jackson for RCA Novus. In addition, he played on albums by the Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra (Sketches from Bamboo) and the Leo Smith Creative Orchestra (The Budding of a Rose). Despite the prestige of those tours, money was tight: Ehrlich supported himself by accompanying modern dance classes during the day, playing weddings and parties, working in the pit of an Off-Broadway downtown theater and the Public Theater, and taught students. In 1982, he and bassist/composer John Lindberg released the album In Duet Unison. He also played with the Creative Improviser's Orchestra on The Sky That Cries the Blues and Russell's New York Big Band album. The following year he played on Leroy Jenkins' Black Saint, Abrams' Rejoicing with the Light, Lindberg's Haunt of the Unresolved, and Russell's In an American Time Spiral. Ehrlich made his leader debut on The Welcome for Sound Aspects in 1984, leading a trio with bassist Anthony Cox and drummer Pheeroan AkLaff. In 1985 he began playing with clarinetist/saxophonist/composer John Carter on 1986's Castles of Ghana, the second volume in his Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music series; he played on the remainder of the volumes, too, including Dance of the Love Ghosts (1987), Fields (1988), and Shadows on a Wall (1990). Ehrlich released the quartet offering Pliant Plaint in 1988 and followed with The Traveler's Tale in 1990. In 1988 he also appeared on Julius Hemphill Big Band. 1991 was prolific for Ehrlich. He released the quintet offering Side by Side and Falling Man in duo with Cox. He joined Hemphill's sextet on Fat Man and the Hard Blues, played on Brazilian singer/songwriter Marisa Monte's Mais, Butch Morris's Dust to Dust, and Bobby Previte's Weather Clear, Track Fast. Emergency Peace, the debut album by his Dark Woods Ensemble, appeared from New World Records. His bandmates included cellist Abdul Wadud, pianist Abrams, and bassist Lindsey Horner. While he played on numerous recordings in 1992, the two standouts include Robin Holcomb's Rockabye and Anthony Davis's award-winning X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, An Opera in Three Acts. The following year he played on Hemphill's Five Chord Stud. In 1995 Dark Woods Ensemble released Just Before the Dawn, and Ehrlich followed it with 1996's New York Child leading a quintet on Hat. In 1997 he released two seminal duo albums: The Open Air Meeting with Abrams and Light at the Crossroads with Ben Goldberg. Two years later, the trio offering Relativity, with drummer Peter Erskine and bassist Michael Formanek, was issued by Enja, as was Sojourn on Tzadik, the final album by Dark Woods Ensemble. In 2000, he released the duo offering The Waiting with pianist Mike Nock. He was part of the New York Jazz Collective in 2001 on Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, and released Yet Can Spring in duo with pianist Myra Melford. Song, another duo offering with bassist Michael Formanek, appeared in 2001. For 2002's widely celebrated The Long View, he assembled a big band. The following year, Ehrlich signed with Palmetto Records and issued three titles. The first, Line on Love, included Formanek, drummer Billy Drummond, and pianist Craig Taborn. 2005's News on the Rail featured a quintet, and 2007's Spark! was the second duo set with Melford. During that first decade of the 21st century, Ehrlich played on a slew of recordings including Zorn's Voices in the Wilderness (2003), the Julius Hemphill Sextet's The Hard Blues: Live in Lisbon (2004), Holly Cole's eponymous set (2006), and Marianne Faithfull's Easy Come, Easy Go (2008). Also in 2008 the Marty Ehrlich Rites Quartet (with AkLaff, cellist Erik Friedlander, and trumpeter James Zollar) released Things Have Got to Change. He kicked off the 2010s with the solo Fables on Tzadik. The following year his Rites Quartet released Frog Leg Logic; he rejoined Monte on her 2011 classic O Que Você Quer Saber De Verdade. In 2013, the Marty Ehrlich Large Ensemble released the internationally acclaimed A Trumpet in the Morning on New World Records. Five years later, after playing on dozens of sessions and touring with a remarkable array of musicians, the saxophonist returned with Trio Exaltation on Clean Feed with bassist John Hebert and drummer Nasheet Waits. In 2021 he served as producer and essayist on the New World Records's seven-disc box set Julius Hemphill: The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony (Archival Recordings (1977-2007). Its 35 compositions included 25 that were never before published or released. In 2023 he joined Michael Bates' Acrobat and the Lutoslawski Quartet on Metamorphosis: Variations on Lutoslawski. In 2025, with Exaltation Trio, he released This Time on Sunnyside. In January 2026, Relative Pitch released Circle the Heart, a previously unreleased 1982 session by Hemphill and Ehrlich. In February, he supervised and wrote the liner essay for a New World Records remastered reissue of Hemphill's classic album Dogon A.D. In April, Chicago's Corbett vs. Dempsey label released the sextet offering Cartographies of Flight: "Lines Set Afloat Towards Hope" that also featured poet Erica Hunt. Ehrlich serves as curator and chief researcher for the Julius Hemphill Archive, housed at New York University's Fales Library. His duties include meticulously cataloging and organizing Hemphill's written compositions, totaling roughly 250 distinct works. Many of his compositions existed only as scattered, unorganized parts or handwritten fragments. Ehrlich partnered with music publisher Subito Music Corporation as the editor of Hemphill's catalog. He gathered loose manuscript pages, systematically reconstructed full performance scores, and assembled critical editions. In September 2026, New World Records released Ehrlich's two-disc OPEN AIR: The Complete Saxophone Quartet Compositions of Julius Hemphill. It contained all 40 of the compositions Hemphill wrote for the World Saxophone Quartet (he was a founding member) between 1978-1989. Among the enlisted players were saxophonists Brian Landrus, Lisa Parrott, Jeff Lederer, and Andy Laster. ~ Thom Jurek