One of the most important jazz percussionists of her generation, Marilyn Marie Douglas Mazur was born in New York (USA) on January 18, 1955, to parents of Polish and African-American descent. Her family moved to Denmark when she was six, where she grew up and took an early interest in music. She began her musical studies with classical piano and ballet at the age of 9, then joined Creative Dance Theater as a dancer in 1971, taking part in international tours. At 19, the dancer turned to percussion and drums. She studied classical percussion at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, while at the same time developing an experimental approach to instruments from around the world (drums, gongs, bells, udu, kalimba, waterphone). In 1973, Marilyn Mazur formed the group Zirenes as pianist/composer, while playing drums and percussion in various ensembles, notably Six Winds with Alex Riel. The women's project Primi Band, which she founded in 1978, combines music and theater. Her participation in the sessions for Palle Mikkelborg's album Aura, a tribute to Miles Davis, caught the attention of the trumpeter, who hired her in his band from 1985 to 1988. From then on, Marilyn Mazur's collaborations with Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Jan Garbarek and other musicians went hand in hand with her varied personal projects, including the albums Future Songs (1992), Circular Chant (1995), Small Labyrinths (1997), All the Birds: Reflecting + Adventurous (2002), Celestial Circle (2011), Flamingo Sky (2014) and Shamania (2019). She works with John Tchicai, Lindsay Cooper, Pierre Dørge, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Arild Andersen, Makiko Hirabayashi, Marilyn Crispell and Eberhard Weber, among others. Awarded several prizes, including the Ben Webster Award (1983) and the Jazzpar Prize (2001), Marilyn Mazur died on December 12, 2025 at the age of 70.
