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I think that virtuosity is the first sign of morality in a musician. It means you're serious enough to practice.

Wynton Marsalis

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Wynton Marsalis
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: October 18
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Trumpeter
New Orleans
Louisiana
Wynton Learson Marsalis
Thinking
Serious
Practice
Means
Firsts
Virtuosity
First
Sign
Enough
Jazz
Mean
Morality
Think
Musician

More quotes by Wynton Marsalis

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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
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We created the spirituals. We created so much great music, jazz chief amongst our innovations, teaching us how to prize ourselves and how to speak to one another, that our kids don't know that achievement, there's no way in the world that could be good for us.
Wynton Marsalis
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I always like to play very contemporary concepts of swing right next to New Orleans music because it highlights continuum.
Wynton Marsalis
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Jazz music is the power of now.
Wynton Marsalis
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When I did the Abyssinian mass, I went through the whole history of the church music and the gospel music, even with the Anglo American hymns, the Afro American hymns, the spirituals and how it developed, up to Thomas Dorsey and the Dixie Hummingbirds, going through the history of the music, jazz musicians.
Wynton Marsalis
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For me as a person who's in the arts and as someone who understands the magnitude of our contributions and the price that was paid to contribute to that, that we just have not gotten that together. I will do all that I can to get in front of our kids, to try to teach them, but at a certain point the people have to want it and come towards it.
Wynton Marsalis
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I feel like a lot of the fundamental material, I've assimilated. So now the question is: Am I going to really get into my spiritual inheritance of music and really develop my abilities?
Wynton Marsalis
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Jazz is democracy in music.
Wynton Marsalis
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Only a few act - the rest of us reap the benefits of their risk.
Wynton Marsalis
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Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is still in print. They're debating right now over Mark Twain. He's still available. Winslow Homer can still be seen. Our arts are - they're there. We got to go get them and understand that this is an important legacy for our country.
Wynton Marsalis
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A beat is a moment in the life a groove.
Wynton Marsalis
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Love is the spiritual essence of what we do. Technique is the manifestation of the preparation and investment as a result of the love.
Wynton Marsalis
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To say that the Afro American created jazz doesn't mean anything bad about Anglo Americans, and I always teach my younger jazz musicians that at this point the entirety of the American tradition is your heritage, and you need to know it.
Wynton Marsalis
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The first time I ever played the trumpet in public, I played the Marine Hymn. I sounded terrible.
Wynton Marsalis
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I didn't want to get that ring around my lips from practicing the trumpet, because I thought the girls wouldn't like me. So I never practiced.
Wynton Marsalis
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We all teach from that same frame of reference. We're like neighborhood - the people who have had the opportunity through this music to gain a platform and spread the message of this music, which is basically love in a form of communication that's honest and truthful.
Wynton Marsalis
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I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.
Wynton Marsalis
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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
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How great musicians demonstrate a mutual respect and trust on the bandstand can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life, understanding what it means to be a global citizen in the most modern sense.
Wynton Marsalis
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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