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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.

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

Average Giving Play
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
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
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
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.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Band Listening Musician
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
Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Looks Music Simplicity
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
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

Day New Country Talking
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
Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Findings Homework Voice
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
I’m not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Albums Jazz Play Sense
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
So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.
BRANFORD MARSALIS

Jazz Music Students

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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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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Popular Authors

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