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I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

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
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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
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.
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Day New Country Talking
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.
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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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Jazz Music Order
When people go to concerts, they say I’m going to see… not, I’m going to hear.
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Concert Going People
his special ability enables Walter to communicate with aspiring musicians in a way that removes the sense of mystery that sometimes enshrouds our profession.
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Enshroud Profession Remove Special
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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Care Swings Use
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.
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Asking Country Musical People
If it’s not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what’s the point of playing Terrapin Station?
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Ifs Sound Stations
I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
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Albums Jazz Play Sense
So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
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Jazz Music Students
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
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.
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Doors Needs Thinking
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.
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Cat Player Rip
Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.
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Looks Music Simplicity

I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

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I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

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