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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.

Branford Marsalis

Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Findings Homework Voice
You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don’t.
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Brain Sometimes Song
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?
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Identification Mean Titles
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
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
Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.
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Looks Music Simplicity
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
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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Band Listening Musician
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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Fun Okay People
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
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
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
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

Care Swings Use
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
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
his special ability enables Walter to communicate with aspiring musicians in a way that removes the sense of mystery that sometimes enshrouds our profession.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Enshroud Profession Remove Special

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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