Branford Marsalis Quotes

There's a jazz influence in my music in general.

My music is jazz.

Jazz infers a style, but creative music has a wider field and wider specification about it. We know it from people like Scott Joplin and on through Bessie Smith.

Jazz is really 20th-century fusion music. You take West African harmony and rhythm, mix with European harmony, and boom!

Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

Jazz can be so serious, no sense of humor.

Jazz is progressive, and it's alive.

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.

Jazz, for me, is a closed circuit, like the term baroque in the world of classical music.

You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.

Jazz, and the history of jazz, is the history of America.

Jazz comes from a tradition where it swings. Swing was the main ingredient of jazz. And once it loses the swing...well, that's it.

Jazz, of course, is our heritage. Jazz is a culture, it's not a fad. It's up to us to see to it that it stays alive.

Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are.

For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.

Jazz music by its very nature is just a conglomerate of a lot of different kinds of music.

Jazz to me is a living music. It's a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people.

New Orleans jazz is a complex and embracing art form that began about the same time as the blues and encompassed many of its excellences.

Jazz is the American’s preferred music, and it is created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires ...

Jazz is not a 'form' but a collection of tags and tricks.