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.
BRANFORD MARSALISYou know, being America, being the land of “number ones”, everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.
More Branford Marsalis Quotes
-
-
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 -
So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don’t listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don’t listen anyway.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
When people go to concerts, they say I’m going to see… not, I’m going to hear.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
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 -
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.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
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 -
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?
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
What you have to do is play a couple of songs and then get off the stage because everything that trails it sounds stupid.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
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?
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
Walter Beasley is an anomaly: a successful performing musician who possesses the rare skill of understanding the musical process beyond the intuitive. T
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
If I were like a lot of other people, then it wouldn’t be fun; but since I’m like me, it’s okay.
BRANFORD MARSALIS