As a jazz and salsa trombonist in New York City, Katz became known for his unique use of the plunger
mute. Katz performed as a featured soloist with
Mon Rivera and recorded with the
Lebron Brothers and
Carlos Barbería y su Orquesta Kubavana. In 1978, he was nominated “Trombonist of the Year” by
Latin NY magazine for his recording work with the Alegre All-Stars director
Charlie Palmieri. Writing in
Herencia Latina, the music critic Jairo Grijalba Ruiz noted that "The Heavyweight" by Palmieri included "a solo with mute by Marco Katz, which is truly extraordinary and at the same time brief demonstration of his style." In 1994, he recorded "Tubby the Tuba Meets a Jazz Band" for
Tubby the Tuba and Friends, an
Angel Records release with narrations by
Paul Tripp and performances by
Bob Stewart on tuba,
Jimmy Owens on trumpet,
Paquito D'Rivera on clarinet, Katz on trombone,
Chuck Folds on piano, John Thomas on percussion and
Oliver Jackson on drums. This track was re-released as part of
Tubby the Tuba Presents Play it Happy, on the Koch Records, now
E1 Music, catalog with
Meredith Vieira as narrator. Katz's score for ''Zoey's Zoo
(Oh Yeah! Cartoons on the Nickelodeon channel) helped the Nickelodeon production win first place at the 31st Annual International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) East Animation Festival on May 7, 2000. Katz’s compositions have been performed by the New York All-City High School band at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, his "Love Songs Theme" was broadcast nationally on VH1, and his arrangement of "Good Old Mountain Dew" was performed by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. In 2013, Centaur Records released his song cycle for voice and piano based on Piedras del cielo'' by
Pablo Neruda. Katz's arrangements and compositions are published by
Bourne Co. Music Publishers,
International Music Co. and
Carl Fischer Music. The arrangements for the International Music Company often employ classical compositions in settings for trombones and brass quintets. Although some of these works, especially the trombone trios and quartets, have been well received by educators, a reviewer in the
International Trumpet Guild Journal finds fault with Katz's brass quintet arrangements of music by
Juan Morel Campos. The reviewer objects to Katz's positing of Morel Campos as an important composer, noting "he does not merit a mention in
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians." As for the works themselves, the reviewer finds them "rhythmically interesting but rather simple melodically." Katz earned a Performing-Artists-in-the-Schools certification from
Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1987. Five years later, he studied
gamelan music in
Bali. From 2001 to 2002, he lived in
Spain and studied art, politics and literature at the
Complutense University of Madrid, textual training that helped him formulate critical views on the place of musicians in contemporary society. He later earned his BA and MA at
Humboldt State University and a PhD at the
University of Alberta. Following those studies, he began to perform music and teach literature at
MacEwan University. In the twenty-first century, Katz has turned to writing on music and other cultural topics.
Palgrave Macmillan published his academic study of novels,
Music and Identity in Twentieth Century Literature from Our America: Noteworthy Protagonists, a book that considers links between music and literature in works by
Gabriel García Márquez,
Alejo Carpentier,
Zora Neale Hurston,
John Okada,
Joy Kogawa, and
Tomson Highway. His article on "Popular Music Genres" appears in
A Companion to Popular Culture, published in 2016 by
Wiley-Blackwell. Katz's English and Spanish language articles appear in the
Routledge journal
Popular Music and Society,
Comparative American Studies,
Atlantic Studies,
Espéculo (
Complutense University of Madrid),
La Guagua, and
Culturas Populares Revista Electrónica 5 (
University of Alcalá) (July–December 2007). His article, "José Watanabe y el huso de la palabra" appears in
Kaikan, a publication of the
Asociación Peruano Japonesa in Lima, Peru that recognizes Katz's work on Peruvian Nikkei. An interview in
Discover Nikkei, published by the
Japanese American National Museum, further explores Katz's work in this area. His essay on Peruvian Dekasegi, “Whose Diaspora is This Anyway?: Peruvians, Japanese Perhaps, and Dekasegi, appears in
Narratives of Citizenship: Indigenous and Diasporic Communities Unsettle the Nation-State (
University of Alberta Press). Katz has also presented papers on music and literature at conferences of JALLA [Jornadas Andinas de Literatura Latino Americana], the National Association for Ethnic Studies, the
Society for Ethnomusicology, the
Modern Language Association, the
Latin American Studies Association, and the American Comparative Literature Association. Katz is the son of thespians Kip Gaylor (Sheldon F. Katz) and Ginny Gaylor (Virginia Montiel), the latter known as the "Lost Star of Vintage Paperbacks." In addition to appearing on the covers of numerous
Vintage Books, his mother also modeled for early television commercials, magazine advertisements, and vinyl record albums. Fans of
Duke Ellington have seen Ginny Gaylor on the cover of
A Drum Is a Woman. His father, Kip Gaylor, acted as an extra in films and had speaking roles in early television shows, including
Mister Peepers, with
Wally Cox and
Tony Randall. Katz is married to art historian M. Elizabeth "Betsy" Boone. ==Published works of fiction==