The Marques Carroll Quintet concerts

About The Marques Carroll Quintet

The Marques Carroll Quintet is a Chicago-based jazz group led by St. Louis-born trumpeter and composer Marques Carroll. Its calling card is a run of 2024 live recordings made inside four cornerstone Chicago rooms: Andy’s Jazz Club, Winter’s Jazz Club, the Jazz Showcase, and the Green Mill. The first issued volume pairs original music with arrangements and gives Carroll’s band a documented club-scale setting, complete with long-form performances.

A working Chicago quintet

A public formation year remains unlisted in the available artist and presenter material, though Carroll’s self-led quintet anchors both of his first two albums. The documented 2025 lineup placed Carroll on trumpet with Greg Artry on drums, Julius Tucker on piano, Christian Dillingham on bass, and Marvin Truong on alto saxophone. Carroll came to Chicago for jazz studies at DePaul University after growing up in St. Louis, where his grandfather’s connection with Clark Terry became an early musical link. The Quintet’s first release was Carroll’s debut, The Ancestors’ Call, issued through JMarq Records in 2021.

Records built as linked chapters

The Ancestors’ Call (2021, JMarq Records) introduced the quintet through eight Carroll compositions, including “Generational Response,” “Beyond the Battle,” and the title sequence. Carroll frames the project around ancestry and the African diaspora, giving its material a thematic through-line alongside the post-bop instrumentation. Black Grooves, quoted on Carroll’s site, located the record in Chicago’s trumpet lineage; for a listener, the practical takeaway is music built around composed themes that open into improvisation.

Records built as linked chapters

Foundations (2022, JMarq Records) continued that first statement as a companion project. Carroll wrote the set during the pandemic period and recorded it alongside the debut, calling the pair a two-part series. Its eleven tracks center family, teachers, and supporters, with “On Green Dolphin Street” the sole standard amid originals such as “Sunrise,” “Larry Sings,” “Brother Payton,” and “Thank You Roy.” “Larry Sings” and “Brother Payton (BAM)” later appeared in season one of The Bear, extending the record’s audience beyond jazz-radio channels.

Records built as linked chapters

Live at Winter’s Jazz Club and Andy’s Jazz Club (2026, JMarq Records) shifts the emphasis from studio statements to two venue-specific programs recorded in spring 2024. The Winter’s disc leans on pieces associated with trumpeters and composers including Claudio Roditi, Dizzy Gillespie, and Roy Hargrove; the Andy’s disc contains five Carroll originals alongside a Joe Henderson arrangement. Track lengths, from seven minutes to nearly nineteen, make the release a clear guide to the concert format: written material serves as a launch point for a full band conversation.

Beyond the leader date

Carroll co-founded JMarq Records, the imprint behind the quintet albums, and leads the brass-focused Trumpet Summit; that group recorded In Stride We Keep Steppin’ live at Andy’s after eight years of weekly tribute performances there. He also co-leads the Chicago Soul Jazz Collective, whose catalog includes three JMarq studio albums, and holds a permanent substitute role with the Count Basie Orchestra. These parallel projects explain the repertoire’s overlap between originals, trumpet-history tributes, and standards.

What the club record shows

This is a group shaped by Chicago residency work. The 2024 recordings capture Andy’s on April 5–6 and Winter’s on May 17, using two quintet configurations: Carroll and Tucker alongside alternating bassists Micah Collier and Christian Dillingham, plus drummers Ernie Adams and Greg Artry; Brent Griffin plays alto saxophone. Jazz Journal heard the Andy’s program as five originals, while Winter’s balanced covers with two originals. At Andy’s, audiences book one room-clearing show at a time, with regular set times of 6:00, 8:15, and 10:30 p.m.; capacity figures are absent from the venue material reviewed. Carroll had already returned to Andy’s for four dated engagements between February 13 and March 3, 2026, a useful indicator of his place in that club’s recurring calendar.

Sources

1. About — Marques Carroll — Marques Carroll
2. Music — Marques Carroll — Marques Carroll
3. Marques Carroll Quintet — Jazz St. Louis
4. Reviewed: Marques Carroll | Quentin Lourties | Whitney Ross-Barris — Jazz Journal
5. Live Stream — Andy's Jazz Club
6. Marques Carroll concert — Chicago, Andy's Jazz Club, Sep. 15, 2026 — Shazam