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 MARSALISColtrane 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.
More Branford Marsalis Quotes
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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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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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If it’s not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what’s the point of playing Terrapin Station?
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Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.
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My dad was a musician, it was just what he did, like another guy’s dad drives a meat truck. Our house was normal. We weren’t taken with the fact our dad was a musician.
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The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don’t listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don’t listen anyway.
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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.
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I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
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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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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.
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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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My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.
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Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.
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So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
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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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