Explore Quotes by Branford Marsalis

Coltrane came to New Orleans one day and he was talking about the jazz scene. And Coltrane mentions that the problem with jazz was that there were too few groups.

If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.

I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.

We have something that is unique. We have our craft. We have our art. We have our desire.

If I were like a lot of other people, then it wouldn't be fun; but since I'm like me, it's okay.

Walter Beasley is an anomaly: a successful performing musician who possesses the rare skill of understanding the musical process beyond the intuitive. This special ability enables Walter to communicate with aspiring musicians in a way that removes the sense of mystery that sometimes enshrouds our profession.

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

I like to make records sound good. I'm more like a reducer than a producer. If an artist cannot produce themselves, what's the point?

I gave up my base in popular culture when I left the Tonight Show.

A lot of musicians have a tough time hearing what we're doing in a trio format.

If youre going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If youre going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation thats based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, youre down to about 10 people or so.

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.

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

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

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

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

Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.

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