Quotes from Wynton Marsalis

And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer it.

Jazz is democracy in music.

it ain't as hard as picking cotton

The best musicians know this music isn't about "schools" at all. Like my father says, "There's only one school, the school of 'Can you play?

Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician

My words are not that powerful. I started saying in 1985 I don't think we should have a music talking about ni**ers and b*tches and h*es. It had no impact. I've said it. I've repeated it. I still repeat it. To me, that's more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee.

It's hard to be prejudiced against someone you love.

Jazz shows us how to find a groove with other people, how to hold on to it, and how to develop it.

Rap Is More Damaging Than Confederate Statues

In learning about a person, you learn something about the world and about yourself, and if you can handle what you learn, you can get closer, much closer to them.

Because jazz musicians improvise under the pressure of time, what's inside comes out pure. It's like being pressed to answer a question before you have a chance to get your lie straight. The first thought is usually the truth.

In jazz, time is your friend, and when you find your own swing, or the swing time in any group activity, actual time flies, yes. But it's flying to where you want to be. And when you get there, you realize the ride is the destination. That's the joy of swinging.

Jazz is the art of timing. It teaches you when. When to start, when to wait, when to step it up, and when to take your time—indispensable tools for making someone else happy.

You are creative, whoever you are. Respect your own creativity and respect the creativity and creative space of other people.

The most prized possession in this music is your own unique sound. Through sound, jazz leads you to the core of yourself and says "Express that." Through jazz, we learn that people are never all one way. Each musician has strengths and weaknesses. We enjoy hearing musicians struggle with their parts, and if we go one step further and learn to accept the strong and weak parts of people around us and of ourselves, life comes at us much more easily. A judge has a hard time out here.

Music was just one of the tools we employed to create excitement. The jazzman's objective, however, was solely musical: Through his improvisation, he wanted to take people deep into his actual feelings and his world.

When you play, make sure you're honest enough to confront your own deficiencies. That's why practicing is a sign of morality in a musician. It means that you're willing to subject yourself to self-scrutiny of the highest order.

There are forces all around you who wish to exploit division, rob you of your freedom, and tell you what to think. But young folks can rekindle the weary spirit of a slumbering nation.

My thing is, once you start to put a backbeat on your music or something that has a machine in it, you have popularity, but you lose the flexibility. And you lose a richness.

I have friends who will critique me much harder than any review.

People have taken time out of their day and spent their money to come sit down at a concert. And it's jazz music-it's not easy for them to get to it. I don't want them ever to feel that I'm taking their presence lightly.

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.

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.

I feel that for years of teaching in the country and reading criticism in books, I feel like the things most needed in our culture are the understanding of the meanings of our music. We haven't done that good of job teaching our kids what our music means or how we developed our taste in music that reminds us and teaches us who we are.