Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" 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
Impossible
I Am
Man
Related Quotes:
" The best way to be, is to do. "
Wynton Marsalis
Way
Best Way
Best
" It was Dr. King's tireless activism that fostered our modern way of relating to one another. "
Wynton Marsalis
Our
Modern
King
" I believed in studying just because I knew education was a privilege. It was the discipline of study, to get into the habit of doing something that you don't want to do. "
Wynton Marsalis
Discipline
Habit
Education
" I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues. "
Wynton Marsalis
Rock
Song
Think
" Even in these times, there are still neighbors that will turn their backs on neighbors. "
Wynton Marsalis
Turn
Neighbors
Even
" I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy. "
Wynton Marsalis
Democracy
Complacency
Corruption
" I have friends who will critique me much harder than any review. "
Wynton Marsalis
Friends
Will
Who
" Musicians like to converse. There's always interesting conversation with musicians - with classical musicians, with jazz musicians, musicians in general. "
Wynton Marsalis
Musicians
Interesting
Conversation
" 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
Good Times
History
Bad
" A musician's whole life is to listen. "
Wynton Marsalis
Life
Listen
Musician
" There are forces all around you who wish to exploit division, rob you of your freedom, and tell you what to think. But young folks can rekindle the weary spirit of a slumbering nation. "
Wynton Marsalis
Freedom
You
Spirit
" 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
Stars
End Of The Day
End
" 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
See
Ready
Like
" 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
Us
Parents
Mother
" What I've learned how to do as I've gotten older is to take all of the information that I have, and push it aside, and try to distill each song into an emotional theme. The hardest thing that I've ever had to learn how to do in playing music is use the sound of my instrument to create an emotional effect. "
Wynton Marsalis
Information
Create
Song
" 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
Balance
You
Way
" 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
New York
Kind
Thought
" The musicians I respected were much older than me. I expected them to cut my head, and they did. "
Wynton Marsalis
Me
Than
Older
" 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
Progress
World
Depression
" 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
American
Jazz
Music
" My thing is, once you start to put a backbeat on your music or something that has a machine in it, you have popularity, but you lose the flexibility. And you lose a richness. "
Wynton Marsalis
Start
You
Flexibility
" The majority of the high schools and the public schools in N.Y.C. don't even have band programs. Hip-hop in a lot of ways is an outgrowth of a lack of instruments and a desire to play music, so we can't really fault the kids for that. "
Wynton Marsalis
Hip-Hop
Band
High
" What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out. "
Wynton Marsalis
Head
Imagination
Understanding
" Don't wish for someone else to do later what you can do now. "
Wynton Marsalis
Someone
Now
Later
" Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures. "
Wynton Marsalis
Figures
Jazz
Phenomenal
" I sounded like myself. People be saying I sound like Miles or Clifford Brown. "
Wynton Marsalis
Sound
Saying
People
" When people dress well, they play well. "
Wynton Marsalis
Dress
People
Play
" I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play. "
Wynton Marsalis
Believe
You
Opportunity
" 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
Reading
Culture
Feel
" Generally, when I wake up in the morning I set out a series of problems for myself and I write them down, and when I'm sleeping, my mind solves the problems. When I wake up in the morning, I have more clarity on the issue. "
Wynton Marsalis
Morning
Problems
Wake Up