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A lot of musicians have a tough time hearing what we're doing in a trio format.

Branford Marsalis

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Branford Marsalis
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: August 26
Actor
Composer
Jazz Musician
Saxophonist
New Orleans
Louisiana
Tough
Time
Trio
Trios
Format
Musicians
Hearing
Musician

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If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.
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So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.
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That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.
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The piano is the X factor. People have a tough time following the structures when there's no piano there, spelling it out. It makes it more easily understood, particularly to people who don't know as much about music.
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Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.
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When you're dealing with music without words, titles are more a means of identification than anything else. What's the point of getting lofty?
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One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.
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We played it as long as we could play it on that CD and I think it might be 50 minutes, maybe. What you have to do is play a couple of songs and then get off the stage because everything that trails it sounds stupid.
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The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.
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If I were like a lot of other people, then it wouldn't be fun but since I'm like me, it's okay.
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It's hard to get into Newsweek because, as more of our former intellectual magazines take on a pop focus, if there's no buzz, there's no interest.
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Jazz is so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.
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If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?
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If youre going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If youre going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation thats based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, youre down to about 10 people or so.
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The way to learn the language is to rip off other players. As Benny Golson told me, We all start off sounding like other cats. And gradually, a lick here or there,we start to sound like ourselves. But it takes a long time to do so... That'swhat he told me, and it worked for me.
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It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.
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There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.
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I gave up my base in popular culture when I left the Tonight Show.
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What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.
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We all played bad before we played good.
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