Wynton Marsalis

Don’t bullshit, just play.

Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.

Jazz music is the power of now.

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.

Jazz music can relax, soothe and uplift the mind when you absorb it.

The secret is keeping busy, and loving what you do.

You want the listener to find the song on their own, give too much away and it takes away from the imagination.

I’ve studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.

I’m just trying to create context for me to improve my musicianship.

Women bring something different to an instrument if they are respectful of their feminine aesthetic.

People love us when we play what we want to play but we’re starving.

Three months. I was playing the organ for three months. It was a challenge for me in the beginning.

It’s true I’ve always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

The time is now.

Jazz is a living music; since its beginning has expressed the feelings, dreams and hopes of the people.

As a little kid, blues meant hope, excitement, pure emotion. Blues were about feelings. They seem to bring out the feelings of the artist and they brought out my feelings as a kid. They made me wanna move, or sing, or pick up Reverend’s guitar and figure out how to make those wonderful sounds.

Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.

If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time!

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.