Quotes by Wynton Marsalis

About Wynton Marsalis:

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, teacher, music educator, and artistic director of jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, United States. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences. Marsalis has been awarded nine Grammys in both genres, and his Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Marsalis is the son of jazz musician Ellis Marsalis, Jr. (pianist), grandson of Ellis Marsalis, Sr., and brother of Branford (saxophonist), Delfeayo (trombonist), and Jason (drummer). He performed the national anthem of Super Bowl XX in 1986.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The heart of a music is its rhythm. The heart of rhythm section music is the rhythm.

Wynton Marsalis

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

Wynton Marsalis

I feel like a lot of the fundamental material, I've assimilated. So now the question is: Am I going to really get into my spiritual inheritance of music and really develop my abilities?

Wynton Marsalis

I never minded giving my opinions. They are just opinions, and I had studied music and I had strong feelings. I was happy for my opinions to join all the other opinions. But you have to be prepared for what comes back, especially if you don't agree w...

Wynton Marsalis

What I've learned how to do as I've gotten older is to take all of the information that I have, and push it aside, and try to distill each song into an emotional theme. The hardest thing that I've ever had to learn how to do in playing music is use t...

Wynton Marsalis

The majority of the high schools and the public schools in N.Y.C. don't even have band programs. Hip-hop in a lot of ways is an outgrowth of a lack of instruments and a desire to play music, so we can't really fault the kids for that.

Wynton Marsalis

I'm just lucky to have the type of friends and musicians and people dedicated to my music that I do.

Wynton Marsalis

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

Wynton Marsalis

My mother always took my brothers and me to music lessons. There were six children. Our parents attended our concerts and encouraged us to study and enjoy many different types of music.

Wynton Marsalis

In the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra we play such a diversity of music, with 10 arrangers in the band, we don't really worry about whether it's contemporary or not.

Wynton Marsalis

Generally, when I wake up in the morning I set out a series of problems for myself and I write them down, and when I'm sleeping, my mind solves the problems. When I wake up in the morning, I have more clarity on the issue.

Wynton Marsalis

I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown men. We never knew what he was talking about half the time.

Wynton Marsalis

The nerves are a problem on trumpet, because when you mess up everyone can hear it. Just remember most people are too polite to say anything about it. That should calm your nerves.

Wynton Marsalis

Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress.

Wynton Marsalis

Only a few act - the rest of us reap the benefits of their risk.

Wynton Marsalis

I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.

Wynton Marsalis

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

Wynton Marsalis

There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

Wynton Marsalis

What, other than injustice, could be the reason that the displaced citizens of New Orleans cannot be accommodated by the richest nation in the world?

Wynton Marsalis

I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play.

Wynton Marsalis

I didn't want to get that ring around my lips from practicing the trumpet, because I thought the girls wouldn't like me. So I never practiced.

Wynton Marsalis

Author Bio

  • NameWynton Marsalis
  • DescriptionAmerican musician
  • BornOctober 18, 1961
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionComposer; Trumpeter; Bandleader; Conductor; Jazz Musician