If it’s not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what’s the point of playing Terrapin Station?
BRANFORD MARSALISThe 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.
More Branford Marsalis Quotes
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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.
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So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Walter Beasley is an anomaly: a successful performing musician who possesses the rare skill of understanding the musical process beyond the intuitive. T
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When people go to concerts, they say I’m going to see… not, I’m going to hear.
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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?
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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.
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Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.
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You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
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What you have to do is play a couple of songs and then get off the stage because everything that trails it sounds stupid.
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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?
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You don’t know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.
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You know, being America, being the land of “number ones”, everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.
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