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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

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

Biggest Country Kids People
When people go to concerts, they say I’m going to see… not, I’m going to hear.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Concert Going People
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

Inspiring Men Perfect
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
You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Brain Sometimes Song
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

Community Halloween Successful
his 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

Enshroud Profession Remove Special
I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Albums Jazz Play Sense
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
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

Identification Mean Titles
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
You know, being America, being the land of “number ones”, everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Country Land Numbers
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

Day New Country Talking
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

Fun Okay People
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
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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