Wynton Marsalis Quotes

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.
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.
I have friends who will critique me much harder than any review.
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.
I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad.
I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues.
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.
I'm just lucky to have the type of friends and musicians and people dedicated to my music that I do.
I'm not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique references. I look at abstraction like I look at condiments. Give me some Tabasco sauce, some ketchup, some mayonnaise. I love all of that. Put it on a trumpet. I've just got to have the ketchup and Tabasco sauce. That's my attitude about musical philosophy.
I'm not afraid of you being yourself. That's America.
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.
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.
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.
Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are.
Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.
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.
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.
Musicians like to converse. There's always interesting conversation with musicians - with classical musicians, with jazz musicians, musicians in general.
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.
My father is a jazz musician, so I grew up hearing jazz. My parents loved it, but I didn't like it. It went on for too long. Yes, I had certain teachers that really inspired me, like Danny Barker, and John Longo. And I had no idea that I would have any impact on jazz.
«first‹previous12345next›last»
Total Records : 98

Related Books

Author Profile

Votes :
Rating :
AuthorName
Wynton Marsalis
Profession
Musician
BirthDate
18 October, 1961
View Profile

Share to your friends..

Related Author

A Boogie wit da Hoodie A. J. McLean Aaliyah Aaron Carter Aaron Diehl Aaron Neville Abbey Lincoln Abigail Washburn Ace Frehley Ace Young Action Bronson Adam Duritz Adam Jones Adam Lambert Adam Levine Adam Schlesinger Adam Yauch Adrian Belew Adrian Younge Adrienne Bailon
view more

Popular Topics

Attitude Death Inspirational Life Love Motivational Nature Positive