Wynton Marsalis

Find the best teachers, listen to the finest playing and try to emulate that. Be true to the music.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel.

Jazz isn’t the kind of music you’re going to learn in 3 or 4 years or get because you have talent for music.

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

A beat is a moment in the life a groove.

Jazz music is the power of now.

I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That’s when I was born.

It’s like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the night, or you’re half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them…

After you’ve done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time.

I’m believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a ‘universal musical mind.’

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel… and that’s what I’ve been doing all my life.

Practice as if you are the worst, play as if you are the best!

The deeper you get into the music allows the ability to appreciate art and all other forms of expression.

An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.

Check out the albums, … Check out the live performances. That’s the reality of it all. Music is such an energizing thing.

If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

It’s the same for listeners. If you can’t stand your girlfriend, can’t take it anymore, put on your headphones and escape into another world.

The thing I always default to is that I’ll always be here to write songs.

A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.