Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I'm not afraid of you being yourself. That's America. "

Wynton Marsalis

Related Quotes:

" I generally work right up to when I have to do something - I'm always doing a lot. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

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

" I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad. "

Wynton Marsalis

" The heart of a music is its rhythm. The heart of rhythm section music is the rhythm. "

Wynton Marsalis

" I grew up in the South, in New Orleans, where guys torture you all the time. So I didn't really grow up on the self-esteem campaign. When you were lousy at something, they told you you were lousy, and they told you how to fix it. "

Wynton Marsalis

" This rebuilding of New Orleans gives us the perfect opportunity to see if we're ready to extend the legacy of Dr. King. "

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 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

" 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

" 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

" Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches. "

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

" Only a few act - the rest of us reap the benefits of their risk. "

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

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

Wynton Marsalis

" 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. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

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 rebuilding of New Orleans is an important point in the history of the United States. "

Wynton Marsalis

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

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

" I almost never watch TV, except for '60 Minutes' and pro football. I love Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and the Steelers' linebackers. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change? "

Wynton Marsalis

" Jazz music is America's past and its potential, summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. The music can connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves-to-come. It can remind us of where we fit on the time line of human achievement, an ultimate value of art. "

Wynton Marsalis

" When people dress well, they play well. "

Wynton Marsalis