Quotes By Wynton Marsalis

The musicians I respected were much older than me. I expected them to cut my head, and they did.

Don't wish for someone else to do later what you can do now.

The nerves are a problem on trumpet, because when you mess up everyone can hear it. Just remember most people are too polite to say anything about it. That should calm your nerves.

I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play.

There's the tradition in jazz of having the Battle of the Bands, and you do not want to get your head cut when you're playing.

You need a team. You need people to push you. You need opponents.

What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out.

The young very seldom lead anything in our country today. It's been quite some time since a younger generation pushed an older one to a higher standard.

The bandstand is a sacred place.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.

Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.

We looked up to our father. He still is much greater than us.

I believed in studying just because I knew education was a privilege. It was the discipline of study, to get into the habit of doing something that you don't want to do.

What, other than injustice, could be the reason that the displaced citizens of New Orleans cannot be accommodated by the richest nation in the world?

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

Trumpet players see each other, and it's like we're getting ready to square off or get into a fight or something.

I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.

I didn't want to get that ring around my lips from practicing the trumpet, because I thought the girls wouldn't like me. So I never practiced.

Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress.

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.

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 daddy expected that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He had lived in an America of continual social progress.

Whenever you face a man who's playing your instrument, there's a competition.

It was Dr. King's tireless activism that fostered our modern way of relating to one another.

Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance.

When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change?

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

When I first came to New York everybody on the scene would treat me like I could play, but I couldn't.

Even in these times, there are still neighbors that will turn their backs on neighbors.

This rebuilding of New Orleans gives us the perfect opportunity to see if we're ready to extend the legacy of Dr. King.