70 Quotes by Branford Marsalis

You don’t know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

If it’s not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what’s the point of playing Terrapin Station?

I don’t care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would have never written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker never would have played anything but swing music. There comes a point at which you have to stand up and say, this is what I have to do.

The lion’s share of what I hear right now are people who, intentional or accidental, have avoided all jazz prior to 1960. And all the musicians who were successful in the ’60s spent their entire lives, prior to 1960, listening to all the musicians these people avoid.

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

Humans are imperfect. That’s one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We’re on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

You know, being America, being the land of “number ones”, everyone wants to be a leader before they follow.

What is jazz? It, It’s almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It’s a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.

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