Wynton Marsalis Quotes (86 Quotes)

The best way to be, is to do.

Most of you have returned at a time when many would have stayed away.

This is one of the great cultural cities of the world. Through the music, New Orleans spoke to the soul of the nation. That's why this is a national crisis.

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.

We really turned it into a jazz work, ... We did a lot of playing with - and off - the orchestra. But we were watching the conductor the whole time. We weren't just out there. We worked everything out in advance. ... We're very pleased with the way it turned out.

There really have only ever been a few people in each generation who step out, are willing to put themselves on the line, and risk everything for their beliefs.

I didn't get into classical music till I was in high school. I met a guy on a streetcar who gave me a recording of Maurice Andr playing classical trumpet concerti. Until then I'd only been interested in Clifford Brown and Miles, but I started liked that, so I got some more of his albums, and when I was 14, I won a competition to play the Haydn trumpet concerto at high school. Yeah, I got better quickly.

The culture of this city is essential to its well-being. The culture of New Orleans is its identity.

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.

We're asking for government money - 80 billion has been promised to New Orleans, and we're asking less than 1 percent.

It was Dr. King's tireless activism that fostered our modern way of relating to one another.

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.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.

Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress.

He was an exponent of the music and a defender of it for 50 years on the road, all over the world. He created a body of music that's unequalled, really, with the exception of Bach, in the history of music.

If you know drum and base players, that is the hardest thing in the world. To swing, these instruments must get together and stay together. It's harder than a man and a woman.

It was an awkward feeling watching it from that far away, ... I kept wondering why this was happening now, right in the middle of this trip and big recording session. ... But I learned a long time ago to separate music from personal issues. When you're playing music, that's where all your focus should be.

This girl, about 14, came to see me and I said, 'What are you doing out so late'

Many a revolution started with the actions of a few. Only 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. A few hanging together can lead a nation to change.

I dress up a certain way because I respect the music.

You need a team. You need people to push you. You need opponents.

Your life is valuable and worth something, and look at this contribution that we are bringing to this country.

The musicians I respected were much older than me. I expected them to cut my head, and they did.

Swing is about people, it's not about numerical relationships.

You miss your family and your kids, ... There are long drives everyday concerts finish at 1030 and then you sign autographs until maybe 2 or 3 o'clock you leave maybe at 7, and you do that 5 or 6 days in a row.

Even in these times, there are still neighbors that will turn their backs on neighbors.

I got my first trumpet when I was six years old, from Al Hirt. My father was playing in Al Hirt's band at that time.

My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians.

Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.

When I first came to New York everybody on the scene would treat me like I could play, but I couldn't.

When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

No way in the world that it's going to turn New Orleans into that.

This rebuilding of New Orleans gives us the perfect opportunity to see if we're ready to extend the legacy of Dr. King.

You had the good-time people right next to a lot of real church people.

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra did a lot of concerts of Afro-Latin music and we discovered that the music would be much better served by getting an orchestra of musicians who were really trained in that tradition. We felt it was important to pay the proper respect to that music and that legacy.

There's the tradition in jazz of having the Battle of the Bands, and you do not want to get your head cut when you're playing.

The rebuilding of New Orleans is an important point in the history of the United States.

The only justification for looking down on anyone is that you're going to stop and pick them up.

On behalf of my city, it's such a great honor to be here because I'm from New Orleans and I love New Orleans so much, but I also love New York very deeply. So it's like a double honor for me.

Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis says it's very painful ... New Orleans is like the soul of our country.

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.

I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.

We have a lot that we've offered this country. It's our art form. It's America's art form.

The nerves are a problem on trumpet, because when you mess up everyone can hear it. Just remember most people are too polite to say anything about it. That should calm your nerves.

Let's get them working because they will stimulate the economy. They'll give people something to come back and see.

I knew Christian when he was still a kid and he stood out even then. I never see him that much now, but he was already a phenomenal musician then. He was unbelievable As a boy, he could play the piano as well as the bass. I was like a band director for him and he could play everything great.

I sounded like myself. People be saying I sound like Miles or Clifford Brown.

The young very seldom lead anything in our country today. It's been quite some time since a younger generation pushed an older one to a higher standard.

What, other than injustice, could be the reason that the displaced citizens of New Orleans cannot be accommodated by the richest nation in the world?