Wynton Marsalis Quotes
Top 89 wise famous quotes and sayings by Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Wynton Marsalis on Wise Famous Quotes.
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.
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?
I almost never watch TV, except for '60 Minutes' and pro football. I love Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and the Steelers' linebackers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The soul gives us resilience - an essential quality since we constantly have to rebound from hardship.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.
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.
Through first-class education, a generation marches down the long uncertain road of the future with confidence.
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.
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.
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.
Trumpet players see each other, and it's like we're getting ready to square off or get into a fight or something.
When I first came to New York everybody on the scene would treat me like I could play, but I couldn't.
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.