Wynton Marsalis quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Wynton Marsalis on Wise Famous Quotes.

Even in these times, there are still neighbors that will turn their backs on neighbors.

I always like to play very contemporary concepts of swing right next to New Orleans music because it highlights continuum.

Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.

Let the critics criticize and let the doers do.

This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave.

When people dress well, they play well.

What, other than injustice, could be the reason that the displaced citizens of New Orleans cannot be accommodated by the richest nation in the world?

The heart of a music is its rhythm. The heart of rhythm section music is the rhythm.

I almost never watch TV, except for '60 Minutes' and pro football. I love Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and the Steelers' linebackers.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.

There's the tradition in jazz of having the Battle of the Bands, and you do not want to get your head cut when you're playing.

My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians.

We looked up to our father. He still is much greater than us.

New Orleans - the real New Orleans - is the soul of the country.

What is deeper than respect and love? That's what we felt: veneration.

The reason why the music [jazz] is important is because it's an art form-an ancient art form-that takes in the mythology of our people.

The first time I ever played the trumpet in public, I played the Marine Hymn. I sounded terrible.

Milk in a mother's breast-that's cool. Milk in a mouth-that's cool too. But milk in my trumpet? Not so cool. I have to play that thing.

Commercialism that has absolutely no relationship to quality whatsoever, only quantitative assessment of a thing.

It was Dr. King's tireless activism that fostered our modern way of relating to one another.

The first jazz musician was a trumpeter, Buddy Bolden, and the last will be a trumpeter, the archangel Gabriel.

Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress.

There's so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz.

So when we spend all of our time trying to separate that which is already joined, it's a waste of time.

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.

I'm not afraid of you being yourself. That's America.

This music heals people because music is vibration, and the proper vibration heals.

You need a team. You need people to push you. You need opponents.

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

When you create change with your point of view, you have to be ready for what comes with that.

it ain't as hard as picking cotton

The soul gives us resilience - an essential quality since we constantly have to rebound from hardship.

If you want to be different, do something different.

Young kids are always singing and painting. When you get to that second and third grade level, you're supposed to put all that aside.

I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play.

The Duke and Swing represent affirmation in the face of adversity.

A musician's whole life is to listen.

I think that when the education system started to be dismantled during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, we didn't recover from that.

I dress up a certain way because I respect the music.

There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out.

We're blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last word.

Jazz is democracy in music.

Blues is like the roux in a gumbo. People ask me if jazz always has the blues in it. I say, if it sounds good it does.

Only a few act - the rest of us reap the benefits of their risk.

Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.

I have friends who will critique me much harder than any review.

A beat is a moment in the life a groove.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying.

The bandstand is a sacred place.

Humility is the doorway 2 truth & clarity of objectives ... it's the doorway 2 learning.

My schedule is always tight. But I like to have the pressure of having to finish doing something; it gives me an added edge.

I'm just lucky to have the type of friends and musicians and people dedicated to my music that I do.

Don't wish for someone else to do later what you can do now.

Through first-class education, a generation marches down the long uncertain road of the future with confidence.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change?

If you looked around, you'd be glad you couldn't see.

This rebuilding of New Orleans gives us the perfect opportunity to see if we're ready to extend the legacy of Dr. King.

Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are.

Trumpet players are just belligerant, and cocky, and you know, just hard-headed.

Don't bullshit' just play.

Love is the spiritual essence of what we do. Technique is the manifestation of the preparation and investment as a result of the love.

I think that virtuosity is the first sign of morality in a musician. It means you're serious enough to practice.

Jazz music is the power of now.

Flexibility is an essential part of Jazz. It's what gives Jazz music the ability to combine with all other types of music and not lose its identity.

And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer it.

I got my first trumpet when I was six years old, from Al Hirt. My father was playing in Al Hirt's band at that time.

Duke Ellington always had a style: original, clean with interesting color combinations. He had an artist's eye.

Whenever you face a man who's playing your instrument, there's a competition.

Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz.

I generally work right up to when I have to do something - I'm always doing a lot.

I sounded like myself. People be saying I sound like Miles or Clifford Brown.

The only justification for looking down on anyone is that you're going to stop and pick them up.

Trumpet players see each other, and it's like we're getting ready to square off or get into a fight or something.

Louis Armstrong is jazz. He represents what the music is all about.

Ethics are more important than laws.

The musicians I respected were much older than me. I expected them to cut my head, and they did.

Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance.

The best way to be, is to do.

When I first came to New York everybody on the scene would treat me like I could play, but I couldn't.

We no longer want to be a melting pot, because we don't understand what is already melted.

I try to put a lot of our music in my music - by that I mean of American music.

Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician

I didn't want to get that ring around my lips from practicing the trumpet, because I thought the girls wouldn't like me. So I never practiced.

Those who play for applause ... Tha t's all they get.

The best musicians know this music isn't about "schools" at all. Like my father says, "There's only one school, the school of 'Can you play?

Thank the good Lord for a job.

I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad.