Branford Marsalis Quotes

Quotes about:

• If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.

  Branford Marsalis

  Song, People, Musician

  49 Copy quote

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

  Branford Marsalis

  Voice, Homework, Findings

  4 Copy quote

• 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, Play, Giving

  35 Copy quote

• That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

  Branford Marsalis

  Believe, Jazz, Kind

  28 Copy quote

• 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

  Swings, Use, Care

  25 Copy quote

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Music, Order, Jazz

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Doors, Needs

  "Branford Marsalis: It's All About The Band". Interview with Russ Musto, www.allaboutjazz.com. January 12, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• We all played bad before we played good.

  Branford Marsalis

  5 Copy quote

• The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.

  Branford Marsalis

  Kids, America, People

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Branford Marsalis

  America, Musical, Asking

  9 Copy quote

• You know, being America, being the land of "number ones", everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.

  Branford Marsalis

  Land, Numbers, America

  4 Copy quote

• The lion's share of what I hear right now are people who, intentional or accidental, have avoided all jazz prior to 1960. And all the musicians who were successful in the '60s spent their entire lives, prior to 1960, listening to all the musicians these people avoid.

  Branford Marsalis

  Successful, People, Listening

  7 Copy quote

• Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.

  Branford Marsalis

  Music, Simplicity, Looks

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Branford Marsalis

  Dad, Taken, House

  4 Copy quote

• 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, Sound, Records

  4 Copy quote

• There is not a sentence in the world that could respectfully do justice to the life and music of Jerry Garcia.

  Branford Marsalis

  Justice, World, Jerry

  "Garcia: An American Life". Book by Blair Jackson, 1999.

  5 Copy quote

• So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.

  Branford Marsalis

  Music, Jazz, Students

  7 Copy quote

• You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

  Branford Marsalis

  Song, Brain, Sometimes

  4 Copy quote

• 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 Marsalis

  Mean, Titles, Identification

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Listening, Musician, Band

  4 Copy quote

• My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

  Branford Marsalis

  Music, Song, Jobs

  4 Copy quote

• If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?

  Branford Marsalis

  Sound, Stations, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• Jazz is so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.

  Branford Marsalis

  Music, Jazz, Starting

  4 Copy quote

• 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. And gradually, a lick here or there,we start to sound like ourselves. But it takes a long time to do so..." That'swhat he told me, and it worked for me.

  Branford Marsalis

  Rip, Cat, Player

  5 Copy quote

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