Blues is like the roux in a gumbo. People ask me if jazz always has the blues in it. I say, if it sounds good it does.
Interpretation
Blues influences jazz, adding depth and emotion to its sound.
Wynton Marsalis highlights the integral role of blues in jazz music, suggesting that the emotional and expressive qualities of blues enhance the overall sound of jazz. He implies that the quality of music is more important than strict adherence to genre, as good music transcends traditional boundaries.
In practice
During a speech about musical influences, one could quote Wynton Marsalis to emphasize the emotional aspects of music.
Swing is extreme coordination. It's a maintaining balance, equilibrium. It's about executing very difficult rhythms with a panache and a feeling in the context of very strict time. So, everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid.
Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that.
Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.
The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel.
In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.
My daddy thought - no, he expected - that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He was correct in his belief because he had lived in an America of continual social progress, depression followed by prosperity, segregation by integration, and so on.
When my time is up in hip-hop, it's going to remain what Afrika Bambaataa thought it was supposed to be. It's going to remain what Kool Herc thought it was supposed to be; what Wu-Tang Clan sees it as; what Outkast sees it as; what Snoop Dogg sees it as. People are trying to forget that brand of hip-hop.
I've never missed a gig yet. Music makes people happy, and that's why I go on doing it - I like to see everybody smile.
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
People want to listen to a message, word from Jah. This could be passed through me or anybody. I am not a leader. Messenger. The words of the songs, not the person, is what attracts people.
I worked hard all my life as far as this music business. I dreamed of the day when I could go to New York and feel comfortable and they could come out here and be comfortable.
It's warts and all in my songs, and I think that's why people can relate to them.
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