Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" The best way to be, is to do. "
Wynton Marsalis
Way
Best Way
Best
Related Quotes:
" 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
Men
Change
Lead
" 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
" When people dress well, they play well. "
Wynton Marsalis
Dress
People
Play
" 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
" Whenever you face a man who's playing your instrument, there's a competition. "
Wynton Marsalis
Face
Competition
You
" I'm just lucky to have the type of friends and musicians and people dedicated to my music that I do. "
Wynton Marsalis
People
Musicians
Music
" I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad. "
Wynton Marsalis
Drums
Bad
Play
" Only a few act - the rest of us reap the benefits of their risk. "
Wynton Marsalis
Reap
Act
Rest
" 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
Easy
Time
People
" Duke Ellington always had a style: original, clean with interesting color combinations. He had an artist's eye. "
Wynton Marsalis
Style
Color
Eye
" We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation. "
Wynton Marsalis
Hear
Responsibility
Democracy
" 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
" The first time I ever played the trumpet in public, I played the Marine Hymn. I sounded terrible. "
Wynton Marsalis
First Time
Public
Time
" Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress. "
Wynton Marsalis
Maybe
Technological
Human
" It was Dr. King's tireless activism that fostered our modern way of relating to one another. "
Wynton Marsalis
Our
Modern
King
" 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
Yourself
Swing
How
" 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
One Thing
Second
Violin
" When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change? "
Wynton Marsalis
Our
Ability
Lose
" 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 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
Self-Esteem
Grow Up
Grow
" 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
More
Year
Jazz
" My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians. "
Wynton Marsalis
Myself
Brother
Together
" The young very seldom lead anything in our country today. It's been quite some time since a younger generation pushed an older one to a higher standard. "
Wynton Marsalis
Country
Generation
Young
" 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
" 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
You
Culture
Pain
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I have friends who will critique me much harder than any review. "
Wynton Marsalis
Friends
Will
Who
" The nerves are a problem on trumpet, because when you mess up everyone can hear it. Just remember most people are too polite to say anything about it. That should calm your nerves. "
Wynton Marsalis
Calm
You
Remember