Quote

If you didn't have the amalgam of Blacks and African-type sensibility and European sensibility, you wouldn't have jazz. Even in the negative and in the positive ways - if there was no slavery and the abolition of slavery, there would be no jazz.

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
Type
Sensibility
Ways
European
Didn
African
Even
Slavery
Way
Jazz
Would
Negative
Amalgam
Positive
Abolition
Wouldn
Blacks

More quotes by Wynton Marsalis

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Milk in a mother's breast-that's cool. Milk in a mouth-that's cool too. But milk in my trumpet? Not so cool. I have to play that thing.
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Trumpet players are just belligerant, and cocky, and you know, just hard-headed.
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What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out.
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I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.
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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.
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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.
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Jazz music celebrates life! Human life the range of it, the absurdity of it, the ignorance of it, the greatness of it, the intelligence of it, the sexuality of it, the profundity of it. And it deals with it. In all of its... It deals with it!
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Ethics are more important than laws.
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A beat is a moment in the life a groove.
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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.
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There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.
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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?
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Who creates a thing is not as important as what the thing is. Who created baseball? Who created basketball? Who created the space program? Who created - we could go on and on. We could argue about who created something. We all are participants in it.
Wynton Marsalis
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Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form that's played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that's been used by rock n' roll. It's related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition.
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Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.
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Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.
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This rebuilding of New Orleans gives us the perfect opportunity to see if we're ready to extend the legacy of Dr. King.
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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.
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Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance.
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Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician
Wynton Marsalis