#si

If you're going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If you're going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation that's based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, you're down to about 10 people or so. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#away #based #conceptual #criteria #down

I think a responsibility comes with notoriety, but I never think of it as power. It's more like something you hold, like grains of sand. If you keep your hand closed, you can have it and possess it, but if you open your fingers in any way, you can lose it just as quickly. ↗

— Diana Ross

#closed #comes #fingers #grains #hand

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#every #humans #imperfect #jazz #life

If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#because #elusive #hard #hold #how

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#fans #him #i #i love #jazz

My dad was a musician, it was just what he did, like another guy's dad drives a meat truck. Our house was normal. We weren't taken with the fact our dad was a musician. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#dad #did #drives #fact #guy

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#always #band #could #davis #else

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#audiences #beyond #clear #community #had

Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#look #makes #pop #really #simplicity

The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear. ↗

— Branford Marsalis

#american music #anyway #biggest #biggest problem #come