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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.

Branford Marsalis

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.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Dad House Taken
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

Culture Focus Intellectual
My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Jobs Music Song
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
If it’s not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what’s the point of playing Terrapin Station?
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Ifs Sound Stations
You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
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Brain Sometimes Song
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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Artist Records Sound
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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Identification Mean Titles
So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
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Jazz Music Students
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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Average Giving Play
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 MARSALIS

Doors Needs Thinking
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

Couple Sound Stupid Trails
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

Care Swings Use
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

Skills Successful Understanding
The 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.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

People Piano Times Tough
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

Cat Player Rip

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 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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