Leno for LeFonque? Not the Standard Career Trade : Television: Branford Marsalis bids late-night’s ‘Tonight Show’ adieu--for now. His reasons say a lot about the musician and the man.

“The show’s going to take a different direction, probably for the better, with Kevin Eubanks as the bandleader. For one thing, you can see his teeth.”

Branford Marsalis chuckles. Five days before beginning his much-publicized departure from “The Tonight Show,” the saxophonist and bandleader is getting down to cases.

“My top lip is too long. Look.” He pulls back his top lip into something that is more grimace-smile. “See what I mean? My top lip is at least an inch-and-a-half over my teeth. But Kevin, he’s got a real smile. So he’ll do fine.”

Teeth? Is that what this is all about--after a year in which Marsalis has made numerous critical remarks about the show and in which his departure last Friday has been characterized, both by NBC and Marsalis, as temporary? He maintains that the hiatus has been taken to support his current working and recording group, Buckshot LeFonque, an eclectic band that blends hip-hop, reggae and other pop styles. Another chuckle. “Well, there’s another thing,” adds Marsalis. “Kevin’s wit is not nearly as acerbic as mine.”

He’s right about that. Guitarist Eubanks, who already has been named the “Tonight Show’s” temporary music director is a considerably milder and calmer presence. But it remains to be seen whether his interaction with Jay Leno will produce the kind of Carson/Severinson chemistry that was kindled too rarely by Marsalis and Leno.

“Seriously,” says Marsalis, “Kevin’s a completely different person than I am and I really feel the show’s going to take a different direction, and probably for the better.”

One thing’s for sure, Eubanks will probably not be making the kinds of outspoken statements--usually offered with a whimsical smile, toothy or not--that have typified Marsalis’ nearly three-year-long tenure on the show. In print, Marsalis’ comments about the “Tonight Show,” in particular, have sometimes appeared far more hard-edged, intemperate and, yes, acerbic than they sounded in person. And in a business in which criticism, especially from the inside, is considered no better than a necessary evil, it’s hard not to wonder how well Marsalis’ remarks, even granting for press distortions, have been received in the NBC board rooms.

But both NBC and Marsalis persist in describing the parting as an amicable, agreed-upon event. Publicly, at least from NBC’s point of view, it is unrelated to any of Marsalis’ past or present criticisms. His final show last Friday night included a segment highlighting some of his more humorous bits, most notably his appearance (after losing a bet to Eubanks) in a bikini. Leno’s lead-in announced that “This is Branford’s last night with us, for a while,” before concluding with, “he’s leaving to go on tour around the world to make his fortune before (said jokingly) he finally disappears into oblivion.”

For Marsalis, the split is based, he says, solely on his desire to tour with Buckshot LeFonque, rather than as a reaction to the diminished content of jazz on the show. His five-year contract with the network, which runs to 1997, continues, even though he will not be paid while he is away.

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“Why should they pay me?” he says. “I don’t like money so much that I expect to get paid for work I don’t do. The guys at NBC have been straight-shooters, and they never gave me bull, even when we didn’t agree. They were very gracious in allowing me to take this leave to do what I want to do.”

The possibility of Marsalis’ departure has been rumored frequently for the last year and a half, since the show’s initial policy of programming non-mainstream musical acts--chosen largely at his request--was reduced to a more typical guest lineup of familiar musical faces. But he professes to not having been surprised “when the hammer dropped” even further on the presence of almost any kind of jazz on the show.

“I knew it was coming, he says. “I remember once, early on, when (pianist) Geri Allen was playing, and Kevin looked at me and said, ‘Man, you’ll remember this night. This is a great night for TV. It won’t be like this a year from now.’ And he was right. It wasn’t.”

There was no reason to expect anything different, according to Marsalis. He was, from the beginning, aware that the expectation that his association with “The Tonight Show” would somehow result in a renaissance of jazz in late-night television was never more than a blue-sky illusion.

“If jazz can’t sustain itself on television on its own terms,” he says, “why should it think it can count on a commercial entertainment like the ‘Tonight Show?’ Nobody ever promised me that I’d be able to play ‘A Love Supreme’ (the John Coltrane composition) on the ‘Tonight Show.’ They would have been stupid to do that. This is a comedy-driven chat show. And that’s it.”

There doesn’t seem to be, at least from an outsider’s point of view, much possibility of a Marsalis return. When asked to rate that possibility on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being most likely, he laughs for a moment before shrugging and responding with, “a seven.”

Despite this relatively high level of numerical optimism, however, his remarks about the practicality of a return sound considerably more pessimistic.

“You’re dealing with a lot of elements here,” he says. “It kind of reminds me of breaking up with a girlfriend. Oh, they said a lot of things like, ‘Hey, we want you to do some remote broadcasts,’ and ‘Come back soon’ and ‘We want you to stay in touch.’ But you remember what happens when you break up with a girlfriend: ‘Hey, let’s stay in touch, let’s be friends.’ How long does that last--a week, two?

“I mean, time flies like an arrow, man, it moves on. And the show’s supposed to move on. Kevin’s going to be the music director. Kevin brings his own philosophy to the show now. He plays the songs he wants to play. The band adapts to a new personality and the show takes on a new identity.”

Marsalis pauses, thoughtful for a moment before once again smiling the top-teeth-covered smile that is apparently too hip for TV.

“And who’s to say that by my coming back I don’t violate the Star Fleet Prime Directive,” he concludes, “you know, don’t change things. It’s like, with Kevin things will have gotten over here, and so I’m going to go back and try to force a new change to go back over there? I don’t think so. It might not even make sense for me to come back.”

At the moment, working with Buckshot LeFonque clearly seems a lot more fascinating to Marsalis than a continuation of business as usual on “The Tonight Show.”

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“I mean, I’ve had my dance with popular culture,” he says. “Being on the show gave me an opportunity to see firsthand that what a lot of people hold near and dear to their hearts is fame, sex and glory. I’ve had the chance to see Arnold Schwarzenegger on the show, and I’ve had the chance to see Jean-Claude Van Damme, and hear what they have to say, and see what they have to do in order to maintain the level of success that they have. And I now know that whatever I do in the future, the motivation will not be fame.”

The first Buckshot tour will begin this month in Zurich, Switzerland, before returning to the United States and continuing “for as long as we can go. . . .

“We have an album that hasn’t been immediately accepted because it’s so different,” Marsalis says. “Jazz people can’t possibly like it and the pop people--because it’s me--they’re not going to like it. They want to categorize the things I’m doing into this hip-hop jazz category, which I’m not comfortable with. So basically I’m taking the music to the people. It might wind up costing me $30,000 a month to do it--it takes 21 people to keep this tour going--but as long as there’s an audience that wants to hear it, I’m going to play it.”

Although Marsalis is eager to move forward, there are a few aspects of his work with “The Tonight Show” that he recalls with pride.

“I guess I’d have to say that we answered the question of what our band could do that the previous ‘Tonight Show’ band couldn’t do,” he says.

“What was required of us as a band was something that they couldn’t do. Like for today’s show, my band played with Liz Phair, we played a Jimi Hendrix tune, “Who Knows,” and when Geraldo Rivera came out, we played a Latino classic, “Maria Cervantes,” and we played a version of it that no Latin American musician would take offense at, it wasn’t a caricature. And, maybe most important, we got a lot of exposure for a lot of jazz musicians and it was nice while it lasted.”