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" 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

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" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Wynton Marsalis

" 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

" 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

" Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are. "

Wynton Marsalis

" 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

" 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

" 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 try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement. "

Wynton Marsalis

" 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

" Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures. "

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 dress up a certain way because I respect the music. "

Wynton Marsalis

" Through first-class education, a generation marches down the long uncertain road of the future with confidence. "

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

" 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

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

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

" 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

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

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

" 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 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

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

Wynton Marsalis