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Eddie Marshall was born Edwin Marshall on April 13, 1938 in Springfield, Massachusetts and learned to play the drums as a child. He played in his father’s swing group and R&B bands while in high school. He moved to New York City in 1956, developing his percussion style under the influence of Max Roach and Art Blakey.

Two years later he was playing with Charlie Mariano followed by a stint with Toshiko Akiyoshi prior to Army service. He reunited with Akiyoshi in 1965, then worked with the house band at The Dom in New York, and with Stan Getz, Sam Rivers and toured with Dionne Warwick.

In 1967 he was a member of the fusion group The Fourth Way, touring San Francisco during the early Seventies, followed by work with Jon Hendricks and the Pointer Sisters. He would go on to work in Almanac with Bennie Maupin, Cecil McBee and Mike Nock releasing an album in ’77.

In the 1980s he worked in the project Bebop & Beyond, recording tribute albums to Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. Undergoing heart surgery in 1984, temporarily sidelined his career, but he continued to perform on the recorder. He then taught at the San Francisco School of the Arts, issued his second release as a leader in 1999 and in the 2000s worked on the San Francisco Arts Commission. Drummer Eddie Marshall died of a heart attack on Wednesday, September 7, 2011.

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