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My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

Branford Marsalis

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
So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Jazz Music Students
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.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Asking Country Musical People
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 know, being America, being the land of “number ones”, everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.
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Country Land Numbers
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.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Jazz Music Order
I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
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Albums Jazz Play Sense
Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Findings Homework Voice
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
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
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
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
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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Dad House Taken
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
Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Looks Music Simplicity

My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

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My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

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