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" 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
School
High School
Great
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" 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
Hip-Hop
Band
High
" The heart of a music is its rhythm. The heart of rhythm section music is the rhythm. "
Wynton Marsalis
Music
Rhythm
Section
" Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance. "
Wynton Marsalis
Substance
Succeed
Style
" The first time I ever played the trumpet in public, I played the Marine Hymn. I sounded terrible. "
Wynton Marsalis
First Time
Public
Time
" Thank the good Lord for a job. "
Wynton Marsalis
Lord
Good
Thank
" There's so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz. "
Wynton Marsalis
Jazz
Democracy
Spirit
" When me and my brother would go to see our daddy playing, there'd be 30 people in the audience. I was only 14 or 15, but I realised something was wrong. "
Wynton Marsalis
People
Me
Go
" The bandstand is a sacred place. "
Wynton Marsalis
Bandstand
Place
Sacred
" There is an idea that a mind is wasted on the arts unless it makes you good in math or science. There is some evidence that the arts might help you in math and science. "
Wynton Marsalis
Help
Evidence
Mind
" 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
Time
Past
Art
" 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
Music
Play
Worry
" 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
" 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
" What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out. "
Wynton Marsalis
Head
Imagination
Understanding
" 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
Woman
Man
Struggle
" We looked up to our father. He still is much greater than us. "
Wynton Marsalis
Father
Up
Still
" 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
Father
Time
Talking
" 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
Identity
Love
Run
" 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
Morning
Problems
Wake Up
" I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad. "
Wynton Marsalis
Drums
Bad
Play
" The musicians I respected were much older than me. I expected them to cut my head, and they did. "
Wynton Marsalis
Me
Than
Older
" 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
Watch
Never
TV
" 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
Nation
World
Reason
" 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
Potential
Democracy
American
" 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 wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it. "
Wynton Marsalis
Somebody
Feel
Like
" A musician's whole life is to listen. "
Wynton Marsalis
Life
Listen
Musician
" I grew up in the South, and our way of dealing with each other was teasing, ribbing, making fun and scrapping in the street. Criticism doesn't bother me so much. It actually made me, when I was younger, more aggressive. But you get into middle age, and you lose interest in that stuff. It's not serious. "
Wynton Marsalis
You
Fun
Criticism
" 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
" The rebuilding of New Orleans is an important point in the history of the United States. "
Wynton Marsalis
History
New
New Orleans