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" The bandstand is a sacred place. "

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

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 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

" 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 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

" 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

" 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 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

" 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

" There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising. "

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

" I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play. "

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

" 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 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

" Thank the good Lord for a job. "

Wynton Marsalis

" 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

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

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

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

Wynton Marsalis

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

Wynton Marsalis

" My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians. "

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

" The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel. "

Wynton Marsalis