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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Wynton Marsalis
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: October 18
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Trumpeter
New Orleans
Louisiana
Wynton Learson Marsalis
Would
Negative
Amalgam
Positive
Abolition
Wouldn
Blacks
Type
Sensibility
Ways
European
Didn
African
Even
Slavery
Way
Jazz

More quotes by Wynton Marsalis

Image
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
Image
Sustained intensity equals ecstacy.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
This rebuilding of New Orleans gives us the perfect opportunity to see if we're ready to extend the legacy of Dr. King.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
When me and my brother would go to see our daddy playing, there'd be 30 people in the audience. I was only 14 or 15, but I realised something was wrong.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
I'll write down and catalogue all the different devices that are Americana to me, and I try to have a historic depth and breadth and also the things that we do in our time, the type of vamps and chants, things that are available to us.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
It's really not a stretch. The checks and balances are the same. The drums are the executive branch. The jazz orchestra is the legislative branch. Logic and reason are like jazz solos. The bass player is the judicial branch. One our greatest ever is Milt Hinton, and his nickname is The Judge.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
The black hole in democracy is integrity. The great unspoken is integrity. When integrity is not first and foremost, it's quite palpable but not visible. It's always there. Jazz highlights it because musicians and jazz always represented a high level of integrity.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
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
Image
When I say our, I definitely mean all of America. It's not less pertinent for you because it comes from a Black person, just like a great achievement by an Anglo American is less important.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician
Wynton Marsalis
Image
We learn a language through its song, and even if you don't have music you have the song of people you love's voice, and you'll notice that song in their voice.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
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
Image
Humility is the doorway 2 truth & clarity of objectives... it's the doorway 2 learning.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
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
Image
It's important to address young people in the reopening of New Orleans. In rebuilding, let's revisit the potential of American democracy and American glory.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
We no longer want to be a melting pot, because we don't understand what is already melted.
Wynton Marsalis
Image
We're blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last word.
Wynton Marsalis