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

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
Future
Uncertain
Firsts
March
First
Generation
Long
Road
Confidence
Generations
Education
Class
Marches

More quotes by Wynton Marsalis

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I remember when I wrote a piece, Blood on the Fields, it was a while ago, it was about slavery and about two characters, and I studied so much of music, I would always go back to the original documents, and as much as I can get original chants and slave chants and different type of beats and rhythms and ring shout.
Wynton Marsalis
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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
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But you listen to Coltrane and that's something human, something that's about elevation. It's like making love to a woman. It's about something of value, it's not just loud. It doesn't have that violent connotation to it. I wanted to be a jazz musician so bad, but I really couldn't. There was no way I could figure out to learn how to play.
Wynton Marsalis
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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.
Wynton Marsalis
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The first jazz musician was a trumpeter, Buddy Bolden, and the last will be a trumpeter, the archangel Gabriel.
Wynton Marsalis
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Jazz music is the power of now.
Wynton Marsalis
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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.
Wynton Marsalis
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The best way to be, is to do.
Wynton Marsalis
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If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying.
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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It's our job to just do as much as we can to enlighten the people about it and to represent it by playing it with some integrity. That's what I try to do.
Wynton Marsalis
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Grace Kelly plays with intelligence, wit and feeling. She has a great amount of natural ability and the ability to adapt. That is the hallmark of a first-class jazz musician.
Wynton Marsalis
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Everything comes out in blues music: joy , pain , struggle . Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance.
Wynton Marsalis
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For Black people, we're one of the only groups of people that for some reason to express love of yourself, in some ways, is misconstrued as a dislike for someone else.
Wynton Marsalis
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The soul gives us resilience - an essential quality since we constantly have to rebound from hardship.
Wynton Marsalis
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Benny Goodman's band was integrated before baseball. Even before it was physically integrated, music was integrated. Everyone listened to Armstrong and Ellington. The 20s was called the Jazz Age. It's part of being American.
Wynton Marsalis
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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
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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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No particular music makes me feel nostalgic. If it's great, it just keeps me in the present moment. That level of music is like a classic story, like the Iliad-something so perfect it can never be old.
Wynton Marsalis
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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.
Wynton Marsalis