Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" A musician's whole life is to listen. "

Wynton Marsalis

Related Quotes:

" Swing is extreme coordination. It's a maintaining balance, equilibrium. It's about executing very difficult rhythms with a panache and a feeling in the context of very strict time. So, everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" My daddy expected that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He had lived in an America of continual social progress. "

Wynton Marsalis

" In the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra we play such a diversity of music, with 10 arrangers in the band, we don't really worry about whether it's contemporary or not. "

Wynton Marsalis

" I never minded giving my opinions. They are just opinions, and I had studied music and I had strong feelings. I was happy for my opinions to join all the other opinions. But you have to be prepared for what comes back, especially if you don't agree with the dominant mythology. "

Wynton Marsalis

" My father is a jazz musician, so I grew up hearing jazz. My parents loved it, but I didn't like it. It went on for too long. Yes, I had certain teachers that really inspired me, like Danny Barker, and John Longo. And I had no idea that I would have any impact on jazz. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" My mother always took my brothers and me to music lessons. There were six children. Our parents attended our concerts and encouraged us to study and enjoy many different types of music. "

Wynton Marsalis

" The best way to be, is to do. "

Wynton Marsalis

" If you are serious about American culture and you are serious about Afro-American culture, you are in a lot of pain. You are not - you are not smiling about it. "

Wynton Marsalis

" 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. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" There's always the cliche of the choir shouting and clapping. OK, you have to do that, but there's also introspective parts, parts where you just follow someone that's preaching. There's lots of different emotions and moods that a service requires. "

Wynton Marsalis

" I feel that for years of teaching in the country and reading criticism in books, I feel like the things most needed in our culture are the understanding of the meanings of our music. We haven't done that good of job teaching our kids what our music means or how we developed our taste in music that reminds us and teaches us who we are. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form that's played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that's been used by rock n' roll. It's related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures. "

Wynton Marsalis

" My daddy thought - no, he expected - that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He was correct in his belief because he had lived in an America of continual social progress, depression followed by prosperity, segregation by integration, and so on. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Musicians like to converse. There's always interesting conversation with musicians - with classical musicians, with jazz musicians, musicians in general. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Many a revolution started with the actions of a few. Only 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. A few hanging together can lead a nation to change. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that. "

Wynton Marsalis

" I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown men. We never knew what he was talking about half the time. "

Wynton Marsalis

" People have taken time out of their day and spent their money to come sit down at a concert. And it's jazz music-it's not easy for them to get to it. I don't want them ever to feel that I'm taking their presence lightly. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Everything comes out in blues music: joy, pain, struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance. It's about a man and a woman. So the pain and the struggle in the blues is that universal pain that comes from having your heart broken. Most blues songs are not about social statements. "

Wynton Marsalis

" I had to figure out how to survive in New York, and most of my time was occupied in getting an apartment and getting money. A lot of older jazz guys looked out for me and found me gigs and places to stay. "

Wynton Marsalis

" 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. "

Wynton Marsalis

" I became a man in New York. New York made me the musician that I am and the person that I am, so it's impossible for me to say I regret having lived there. "

Wynton Marsalis

" There really have only ever been a few people in each generation who step out, are willing to put themselves on the line, and risk everything for their beliefs. "

Wynton Marsalis