Wynton Marsalis

Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.

In Jazz, improvisation isn’t a matter of just making any ol’ thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There’s no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

Music does not come to you. You have to come to it and you’ll walk away with something you didn’t have before.

Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz.

A beat is a moment in the life a groove.

Don’t bullshit, just play.

However it goes, I’ll just keep playing. That’s where the basic satisfaction is at.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

In my family on my mother’s side we’re all church musicians first so I don’t remember a time when we weren’t doing something musical. My brothers and I sang in a little quartet, my aunts and uncles sang and my grandfather was a minister of music in our church, so walking and talking was like doing music for us.

Risk is at the heart of Jazz. Every note we play is a risk.

I worked until I could play and do changes at any tempo in any key and said ‘What else is there?’ Now I’m finding out.

You know at an early age if you have a talent for music.

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room – proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

If there is no dance, there is not music.

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

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

In order to be honest with myself, I have to reveal more of who I am. This is a part of the improv process.

You explore beautiful songs and create your own interpretation of them.

Paint pictures with sound. First, find your white-the deepest, roundest sound you can play on the guitar. Then, find your black-which is the most extreme tonal difference from white you can play. Now, just pick the note where you’ve got white, pick it where you’ve got black, and then find all those colors in between. Get those colors down, and you’ll be able to express almost any emotion on the guitar.?

I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good – he’s rock’s #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us.