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

Wynton Marsalis

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" Thank the good Lord for a job. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Through improvisation, jazz teaches you about yourself. And through swing, it teaches you that other people are individuals too. It teaches you how to coordinate with them. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we've come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we'd know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad. "

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

" Ethics are more important than laws. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

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

" 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

" I'm not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique references. I look at abstraction like I look at condiments. Give me some Tabasco sauce, some ketchup, some mayonnaise. I love all of that. Put it on a trumpet. I've just got to have the ketchup and Tabasco sauce. That's my attitude about musical philosophy. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" The bandstand is a sacred place. "

Wynton Marsalis

" 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. "

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 grew up in the South, and our way of dealing with each other was teasing, ribbing, making fun and scrapping in the street. Criticism doesn't bother me so much. It actually made me, when I was younger, more aggressive. But you get into middle age, and you lose interest in that stuff. It's not serious. "

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

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

Wynton Marsalis

" 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? "

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

" When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?' "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" I feel like a lot of the fundamental material, I've assimilated. So now the question is: Am I going to really get into my spiritual inheritance of music and really develop my abilities? "

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

" I didn't have a philosophical understanding of music until I came to New York. I didn't understand how it applied to my kind and my generation. I thought it was just old people talking. "

Wynton Marsalis