Marion Meadows was born on July 24, 1962, in Beckley, West Virginia, and grew up mainly in Stamford, Connecticut. He started on clarinet as a child, taking up classical study at nine according to his own biography, and moved to tenor saxophone in high school and then to soprano, the horn he has played ever since. At Rippowam High School in Stamford he studied jazz with Anthony Truglia. He went on to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he concentrated on arranging and composition, and later attended the State University of New York at Purchase. His official biography names Joe Henderson, Dave Liebman, Eddie Daniels and Sonny Fortune among his mentors.

He worked as a sideman before he led a band. His official biography credits roughly three years in the late 1980s with the drummer and producer Norman Connors, whom he met at Berklee and whose Starship Orchestra he joined. Connors fronted a rotating cast of R&B singers, and Meadows toured behind some of them, among them Jean Carn, Phyllis Hyman, Glenn Jones and Angela Bofill. He is credited as co-producer and orchestrator on Connors's Passion (Capitol, 1988). Around the same time he played in the Aboriginal Music Society, a New York avant-garde group that included James Blood Ulmer and Juma Sultan, a very different room from the R&B stages he worked with Connors. The break into a solo career came through a chance hearing: the television composer Jay Chattaway heard him playing in Grand Central Station and introduced him to Bob James. A recording with James was never released, but a solo project of his reached Steve Backer at RCA.

Novus, RCA's jazz imprint, signed him in 1990. For Lovers Only (1990), produced by the keyboardist Eliot Lewis with Meadows as co-producer, reached the top ten of Billboard's Jazz Albums chart. Keep It Right There (1992) did the same and was supported with a tour; it carries a cover of Janet Jackson's "Come Back to Me" and a vocal feature for Angela Bofill on "Love Was Never." Forbidden Fruit, released in April 1994, rose to No. 7 on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and No. 8 on the Jazz Albums chart. It was a record built from many hands: Don Grusin on piano, the Brazilian guitarist Dori Caymmi, Victor Bailey on bass, Ricky Lawson on drums, Eric Benet singing lead on "You Will Never Know What You're Missing," and Yutaka Yokokura, who played koto on the title track and arranged and produced "Whenever Your Heart Wants to Sing." Norman Connors produced "Save the Best for Last."

In 1993 he was also a founding member of the Fantasy Band, a group with guitarist Chuck Loeb, vibraphonist Dave Samuels and bassist John Lee that began recording for the DMP label that year. Body Rhythm followed in July 1995 on RCA, produced by Meadows together with Bob Baldwin, Yasha Barjona and others. It includes a cover of Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour." After Pleasure (Discovery, 1998), most of whose songs were written by Michael Bearden and which includes a version of Diane Warren's "Un-break My Heart," he settled in Phoenix and signed with Heads Up International. Another Side of Midnight (April 1999) was a night-in-the-city concept record on which Tom Browne played trumpet, Dave Samuels vibraphone, Omar Hakim drums and Marc Antoine guitar. Heads Up released five more of his albums: Next To You (September 2000), In Deep (2002), Player's Club (April 2004), Dressed To Chill (2006) and Secrets (April 2009).

From 2013 his albums came out on Shanachie: Whisper (2013), Soul Traveler (2015), Soul City (2018), Twice As Nice (April 23, 2021) and Just Doing Me (2024). Soul Traveler was billed as the first part of a Soul Trilogy, with Soul City following it. A Christmas album, Christmas With You, appeared in 2019. He received a doctorate in arts and humanities from Wilberforce University in 2016. Away from the saxophone he is a graphic artist, designer and photographer, and his official site presents his art and photography alongside the music. The site lists The Romantica Tour 2026, and he continues to record and perform.

Meadows plays smooth jazz, and the sound of his records is the genre's standard one: a soprano saxophone lead floating over programmed drums, synthesizer pads and a funk or R&B bass line, built for contemporary jazz radio, with hooks that are closer to a pop single than to a head arrangement. His repertoire says as much. He has covered Janet Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Diane Warren, he has recorded duets and features with R&B singers, and his sessions drew on producers and players from the contemporary R&B and smooth jazz scene, among them Eliot Lewis, Bob Baldwin, Michael Bearden and Johnny Britt.

The jazz side is documented rather than incidental. His biography says that hearing Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, Johnny Hodges and Stanley Turrentine is what pushed him toward the saxophone, and the people he lists as teachers came out of the modern jazz tradition. He worked in Norman Connors's band, which sat between jazz and R&B, and in the free-leaning Aboriginal Music Society. He also plays tenor on some tracks of Keep It Right There, Forbidden Fruit and Body Rhythm, and alto on one track of Body Rhythm. Reviewing Another Side of Midnight for AllMusic, Johnathan Widran called his soprano tone velvety and his playing smoky, and the same record alternated dreamy ballads with raw, first-take ensemble funk. That range, a soft-edged soprano voice used for both slow-burning melody and club grooves, is what the records are about.