Marcus Belgrave, an accomplished trumpet player and former faculty member at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Ohio, died late last month. He was 78 years old.
A native of Philadelphia, Belgrave spent most of his professional life in Detroit. Beginning in 1962, he worked as a studio musician for Motown Records. When Motown Records moved its operations to California, Belgrave stayed in Detroit and established his own label, Tribe Records.
Belgrave taught at Oberlin from 2001 to 2010. Earlier he taught at several colleges and universities in the Detroit area and established the jazz program at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
