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" 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

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" As a jazz musician, you have individual power to create the sound. You also have a responsibility to function in the context of other people who have that power also. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

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

" Jazz celebrates older generations and not just the youth movement. When you 'sell' only to people of a certain age, you get cut off from the main body of experience. "

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

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

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

" Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures. "

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 dress up a certain way because I respect the 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

" Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance. "

Wynton Marsalis

" It's important to address young people in the reopening of New Orleans. In rebuilding, let's revisit the potential of American democracy and American glory. "

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

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" 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

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

Wynton Marsalis