Blues is like the roux in a gumbo. People ask me if jazz always has the blues in it. I say, if… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
If you didn't have the amalgam of Blacks and African-type sensibility and European sensibility, you wouldn't have jazz. Even in the negative… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
The arts speak across epochs. If you think that people started to build a cathedral in 1315 and the people worked on… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave. — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
No particular music makes me feel nostalgic. If it's great, it just keeps me in the present moment. That level of music… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
We learn a language through its song, and even if you don't have music you have the song of people you love's… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
Even if nobody's singing, just when you talk, you're singing. I'll meet somebody and say, "Oh, I'm tone-deaf." I say, "You're not… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
As long as there is democracy, there will be people wanting to play jazz because nothing else will ever so perfectly capture… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
I never minded giving my opinions. They are just opinions, and I had studied music and I had strong feelings. I was happy for… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
“The best musicians know this music isn't about "schools" at all. Like my father says, "There's only one school, the school of 'Can you… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
Louis Armstrong is jazz. He represents what the music is all about. — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer it. — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
I'm not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique references. I look at abstraction like I look at condiments. Give me some… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
Many a revolution started with the actions of a few. Only 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. A few hanging together can lead… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
“Today you go into make a modern recording with all this technology. The bass plays first, then the drums come in later, then they… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
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… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
Commercialism that has absolutely no relationship to quality whatsoever, only quantitative assessment of a thing. — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
Instead of imposing your will on every situation...focus on including everyone else, and just that little adjustment of attitude gives you the space to… — Wynton Marsalis Copy Share Image
