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 MARSALISI’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
More Branford Marsalis Quotes
-
-
You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
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 -
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 -
Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
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 -
Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.
BRANFORD MARSALIS -
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