Wynton Marsalis Jazz Quotations

Through improvisation, jazz teaches you about yourself. And through swing, it teaches you that other people are individuals too. It teaches you how to coordinate with them.

My father is a jazz musician, so I grew up hearing jazz. My parents loved it, but I didn't like it. It went on for too long. Yes, I had certain teachers that really inspired me, like Danny Barker, and John Longo. And I had no idea that I would have any impact on jazz.

There's so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz.

The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we've come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we'd know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad.

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.

Louis Armstrong is jazz. He represents what the music is all about.

Jazz is democracy in music.

Jazz music is the power of now.

Sustained intensity equals ecstacy.

Jazz is not just 'Well, man, this is what I feel like playing.' It's a very structured thing that comes down from a tradition and requires a lot of thought and study.

The bandstand is a sacred place.

Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz.

This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave.

Don't bullshit' just play.

Jazz music celebrates life! Human life; the range of it, the absurdity of it, the ignorance of it, the greatness of it, the intelligence of it, the sexuality of it, the profundity of it. And it deals with it. In all of its... It deals with it!

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

Trumpet players are just belligerant, and cocky, and you know, just hard-headed.