My thing is, once you start to put a backbeat on your music or something that has a machine in it, you have popularity, but you lose the flexibility. And you lose a richness. Wynton Marsalis More Quotes by Wynton Marsalis More Quotes From Wynton Marsalis 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. Wynton Marsalis three play years 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. Wynton Marsalis lips girl want People have taken time out of their day and spent their money to come sit down at a concert. And it's jazz music-it's not easy for them to get to it. I don't want them ever to feel that I'm taking their presence lightly. Wynton Marsalis taken want people Jazz is democracy in music. Wynton Marsalis democracy inspirational life Certain music, jazz in particular, has the ability to make you a better citizen of the world. It helps you expand your world view and gives you more confidence in your cultural achievements. Improvisational jazz teaches you about yourself while the swing in jazz teaches you how to work with others Wynton Marsalis swings views giving 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 groups black people Art is a luxury. It's not necessary for you to - you can work your job and you can make some money and never know who Walt Whitman was, and never read a poem. Wynton Marsalis luxury jobs art 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 balance player judging The musicians, Duke Ellington, his thing was not about separating himself from the rest of America. Louis Armstrong - go to the forefathers of our music - Jelly Roll Morton - they're not preaching a separatist agenda. They're not taking their music and saying, "This is for me." Wynton Marsalis jelly musician america Thank the good Lord for a job. Wynton Marsalis lord jobs I try to put a lot of our music in my music - by that I mean of American music. Wynton Marsalis american-music trying mean Jazz music is the power of now. Wynton Marsalis power-of-now jazz music When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year. Wynton Marsalis jazz listening years Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is still in print. They're debating right now over Mark Twain. He's still available. Winslow Homer can still be seen. Our arts are - they're there. We got to go get them and understand that this is an important legacy for our country. Wynton Marsalis important country art I worry more about the marketing that's taken hold since the 70s. The Jazz era, the Swing era, those were huge. Entire decades were named for music. In the 1940s - after World War II - changes in taxation, ballrooms closing, people moving to the suburbs, and the onset of target marketing and the confusion of commerce with art caused some things to happen as a result that have taken us away from jazz and what jazz offers us. Wynton Marsalis war art moving We need more math classes, we need more science. It's the art of math and the art of science that creates all the innovation, and we have a tradition of great arts, great music. Wynton Marsalis math class art I think that when the education system started to be dismantled during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, we didn't recover from that. Wynton Marsalis great-depression firsts thinking You don't try to duplicate certain things that other cats do, because you could never do it as well as they do. Nobody can get on that tenor saxophone and play like Trane, because he's the only one who can spell out chords and sound good when he does it. Wynton Marsalis cat play trying The reason why the music [jazz] is important is because it's an art form-an ancient art form-that takes in the mythology of our people. Wynton Marsalis important people art Young kids are always singing and painting. When you get to that second and third grade level, you're supposed to put all that aside. Wynton Marsalis singing levels kids
