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 MARSALISYou hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
More Branford Marsalis Quotes
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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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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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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?
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You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
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If I were like a lot of other people, then it wouldn’t be fun; but since I’m like me, it’s okay.
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One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.
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When people go to concerts, they say I’m going to see… not, I’m going to hear.
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So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
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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.
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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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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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I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
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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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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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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.
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