Song Quotes by Branford Marsalis

Jazz is so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.

— Branford Marsalis

I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

— Branford Marsalis

There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

— Branford Marsalis

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

— Branford Marsalis

So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.

— Branford Marsalis

Coltrane came to New Orleans one day and he was talking about the jazz scene. And Coltrane mentions that the problem with…

— Branford Marsalis

My dad was a musician, it was just what he did, like another guy's dad drives a meat truck. Our house was…

— Branford Marsalis

What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually…

— Branford Marsalis

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.

— Branford Marsalis

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

— Branford Marsalis

I think that one of the problems that jazz has is that it's so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.

— Branford Marsalis

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

— Branford Marsalis

I suspect that we might actually start selling some records with these artists in about 10 years. Some the people who invested,…

— Branford Marsalis

The piano is the X factor. People have a tough time following the structures when there's no piano there, spelling it out.…

— Branford Marsalis

There's a certain kind of motion and pacing that our music has, and this just doesn't have that. We just kind of…

— Branford Marsalis

If youre going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If youre going to use some sort…

— Branford Marsalis

We played it as long as we could play it on that CD and I think it might be 50 minutes, maybe.…

— Branford Marsalis

If you're going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If you're going to use some sort…

— Branford Marsalis

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians…

— Branford Marsalis

If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the…

— Branford Marsalis

The whole point is, give me a break with the standards. You go to the average jazz label and suggest a record…

— Branford Marsalis