Wynton Marsalis Quotes

Jazz is the music of unemployment.

Jazz is democracy in music.

Jazz voices that unvanquishable, natural will toward creaativity and self-expression, depite everything, in the here and now.

Music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential.

Jazz is the language of the emotions.

Jazz is my adventure.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

Saxophone is one thing, and music is another.

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.

There were no rules, other than that the song should sound good and be fun to play.

Jazz told people about the special music that came out of America and about America in general and this kind of liberty and freedom that we have.

Once we're inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

When you play a sax, that saxophone is irreverent. It's noisy; it's a trickster... you cannot hide the saxophone in your hands, so it's a good teacher.

There's so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz.

Poetry always, always, always is a key piece of democracy.

I never left jazz. The relationship between structure and improvisation - that constant conversation and tension - I've always wanted in every genre and song that I perform.

That's what it is-it's jazz. It's just jazz. That's what the whole thing is about to me. It's about what's happening right now in this context. This conversation is jazz to a certain extent. It's improvisation. What appeals to me about music is the improvization. That's what I don't like about the media-they're not living it.

Jazz music is the power of now.

Jazz is a beautiful woman whose older brother is a policeman.

Jazz is a democratic musical form. We take our respective instruments & collectively create a thing of beauty.

The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.

Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

Jazz has endured because it doesn't have a beginning or an ending. It's a moment.

Jazz stands for freedom.