Branford Marsalis Quotes

We all played bad before we played good.

If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?

When you're dealing with music without words, titles are more a means of identification than anything else. What's the point of getting lofty?

I gave up my base in popular culture when I left the Tonight Show.

There is not a sentence in the world that could respectfully do justice to the life and music of Jerry Garcia.

So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.

A lot of musicians have a tough time hearing what we're doing in a trio format.

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.

I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

I think that one of the problems that jazz has is that it's so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

You don't know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.

We have something that is unique. We have our craft. We have our art. We have our desire.

If I were like a lot of other people, then it wouldn't be fun; but since I'm like me, it's okay.

You know, being America, being the land of "number ones", everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.

My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

It's hard to get into Newsweek because, as more of our former intellectual magazines take on a pop focus, if there's no buzz, there's no interest.

Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.

It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.

I like to make records sound good. I'm more like a reducer than a producer. If an artist cannot produce themselves, what's the point?