I feel like a lot of the fundamental material, I've assimilated. So now the question is: Am I going to really get into my spiritual inheritance of music and really develop my abilities?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of embracing and developing one's natural talents and spiritual connection to art, particularly music.
Wynton Marsalis reflects on the idea that while he has absorbed a lot of fundamental knowledge and skills in music, the true challenge lies in consciously engaging with his artistic heritage and dedicatedly developing his musical abilities. This highlights the journey of an artist who must decide to not only learn but also to deeply explore and express their unique artistic identity.
In practice
This quote can be used during a speech at a music school graduation to inspire students to pursue their artistic paths.
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.
If you talk to any filmmaker, and if you said to them, 'I guarantee you x amount of money per month for the rest of your life, and it's not a big amount of money, but I can also guarantee that you will work continually, you will get to make what you want to make,' any filmmaker on the planet will make that kind of deal. I would have made it.
When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
I call architecture frozen music.
Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone.
There aren't that many things left that haven't already been done, especially with music. I'm interested in ideas that can shake us all up.
I know my voice has a limited range of motion; I don't write dramatic monologues and pretend to be other people. But so far, my voice is broad enough to accommodate most of what I want to put into my poetry. I like my persona; I often wish I were him and not me.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.