Branford Marsalis Quotes (39 Quotes)


    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?

    I suspect that we might actually start selling some records with these artists in about 10 years. Some the people who invested, they're a little tight-because it's a lot of money to start up a company.

    If I were like a lot of other people, then it wouldn't be fun; but since I'm like me, it's okay.

    Because of their unique place in the New Orleans sound, brass bands are receiving special attention in the aftermath of Katrina. For instance, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, one of the musician-brothers of the city's First Family of Jazz, will use a recording company he started three years ago to aid brass band musicians left jobless by the storm. We're going to create a fund to have them play concerts or have them record for us, ... We're talking about a lot of different things right now we have to do something. A lot of the guys I'm talking about include the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the Rebirth Brass Band, the Tuxedo Brass Band. There are all these different groups. It's a matter of finding all these musicians scattered across the South.

    I gave up my base in popular culture when I left the Tonight Show.


    We have more faith in the music than the people at major labels have. I'm always thinking of ways to enhance the music and the way we think about it.

    The whole point is, give me a break with the standards. You go to the average jazz label and suggest a record and they want to know which standards you're going to play. I'm saying let's break the formula.

    The record industry is changing, and sooner or later we had to face the reality that there's not a lot of room at major labels for any kind of creative music -- not just jazz -- that doesn't generate large sales,

    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.

    It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.

    Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.

    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.

    You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

    My dad was a musician, it was just what he did, like another guy's dad drives a meat truck. Our house was normal. We weren't taken with the fact our dad was a musician.

    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.

    The lion's share of what I hear right now are people who, intentional or accidental, have avoided all jazz prior to 1960. And all the musicians who were successful in the '60s spent their entire lives, prior to 1960, listening to all the musicians these people avoid.

    New Orleans is probably the only city in America that has its own culture. There are things you can't find anyplace but there.

    I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

    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.

    If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?

    I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.

    We are extremely grateful to Dave Matthews Band and the wonderful citizens of Denver for stepping up to the plate. The New Orleans Habitat Musicians' Village is the first step in helping to replace what the city has lost. This contribution, and the others it will generate, will help ensure that New Orleans music will always have a home. That's important to me. It's important to my family. And it's a key to the recovery of the city.

    One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.

    Coltrane came to New Orleans one day and he was talking about the jazz scene. And Coltrane mentions that the problem with jazz was that there were too few groups.


    That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

    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.

    Now that we've actually stepped it up to the point where we're playing really sophisticated music, it's very difficult for people to follow.

    Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.

    Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

    There's a certain kind of motion and pacing that our music has, and this just doesn't have that. We just kind of rushed to the conclusion of most of the songs. I just would've preferred to done them over.

    I like to make records sound good. I'm more like a reducer than a producer. If an artist cannot produce themselves, what's the point?

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

    If you're going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If you're going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation that's based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, you're down to about 10 people or so.

    I think that one of the problems that jazz has is that it's so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.

    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.


    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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