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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

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

Ifs Sound Stations
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

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

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

Jazz Music Students
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
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
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
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
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

Average Giving Play
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
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
When people go to concerts, they say I’m going to see… not, I’m going to hear.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Concert Going People
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Branford Marsalis Quotes