Walter Beasley is an anomaly: a successful performing musician who possesses the rare skill of understanding the musical process beyond the intuitive. This special ability enables Walter to communicate with aspiring musicians in a way that removes the sense of mystery that sometimes enshrouds our profession.

Branford Marsalis

Categorized in : Successful Skills Understanding

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.

Branford Marsalis

musician song people

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.

Branford Marsalis

play average giving

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

Branford Marsalis

jazz kind believe

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

Branford Marsalis

simplicity music looks

You don't know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

Branford Marsalis

jazz music order

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.

Branford Marsalis

musical asking america

I don't care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would have never written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker never would have played anything but swing music. There comes a point at which you have to stand up and say, this is what I have to do.

Branford Marsalis

swings care use

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.

Branford Marsalis

perfect inspiring men

Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.

Branford Marsalis

homework findings voice

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.

Branford Marsalis

kids america people

You know, being America, being the land of "number ones", everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.

Branford Marsalis

land numbers america

Jazz is so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.

Branford Marsalis

starting jazz music

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.

Branford Marsalis

successful listening people

The way to learn the language is to rip off other players. As Benny Golson told me, "We all start off sounding like other cats. And gradually, a lick here or there,we start to sound like ourselves. But it takes a long time to do so..." That'swhat he told me, and it worked for me.

Branford Marsalis

rip cat player

So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.

Branford Marsalis

jazz music students

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.

Branford Marsalis

halloween community successful

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.

Branford Marsalis

new-orleans talking new-day

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

Branford Marsalis

hearing tough-times musician

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.

Branford Marsalis

focus intellectual culture

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

Branford Marsalis

gave-up tonight culture