Happy endings don’t happen often during a novel coronavirus pandemic. Marsalis, eighty-five, died in New Orleans of complications from the virus on April 1. But when the crying is over and Marsalis gets the jazz funeral he deserves, even the most sober study of his contributions to music might begin with a celebratory cork popping from a bottle of champagne. Jazz spoke to him early, in a way that no music had before, and in its service, his character was revealed. – Oxford American