Top 150 Wynton Marsalis Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Jazz is democracy in music.”

— Wynton Marsalis

2. “This music heals people because music is vibration, and the proper vibration heals.”

— Wynton Marsalis

Featured in: Carpe Diem Quotes

3. “I dress up a certain way because I respect the music.”

— Wynton Marsalis

Featured in: Respect Quotes

4. “The soul gives us resilience – an essential quality since we constantly have to rebound from hardship.”

— Wynton Marsalis

5. “Let the critics criticize and let the doers do.”

— Wynton Marsalis

6. “Ethics are more important than laws.”

— Wynton Marsalis

7. “Everything comes out in blues music: joy, pain, struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance.”

— Wynton Marsalis

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

— Wynton Marsalis

9. “We’re blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last word.”

— Wynton Marsalis

10. “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying.”

— Wynton Marsalis

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

— Wynton Marsalis

12. “If you want to be different, do something different.”

— Wynton Marsalis

13. “Jazz music is the power of now.”

— Wynton Marsalis

14. “Music is the art of all the invisible things that are real. Art, emotion, spiritual essence, consciousness – these things are hard to prove. Music helps you to focus on your sound. We understand that for very young kids.”

— Wynton Marsalis

15. “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.”

— Wynton Marsalis

16. “Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.”

— Wynton Marsalis

17. “We need more math classes, we need more science. It’s the art of math and the art of science that creates all the innovation, and we have a tradition of great arts, great music.”

— Wynton Marsalis

18. “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.”

— Wynton Marsalis

19. “There is an idea that a mind is wasted on the arts unless it makes you good in math or science. There is some evidence that the arts might help you in math and science.”

— Wynton Marsalis

20. “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.”

— Wynton Marsalis

21. “I’m just lucky to have the type of friends and musicians and people dedicated to my music that I do.”

— Wynton Marsalis

22. “Blues is like the roux in a gumbo. People ask me if jazz always has the blues in it. I say, if it sounds good it does.”

— Wynton Marsalis

23. “A beat is a moment in the life a groove.”

— Wynton Marsalis

24. “Ethics are more important than laws. Which means that the exact note is less important than the feeling of the note.”

— Wynton Marsalis

25. “I think that when the education system started to be dismantled during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, we didn’t recover from that.”

— Wynton Marsalis

26. “Art is a luxury. It’s not necessary for you to – you can work your job and you can make some money and never know who Walt Whitman was, and never read a poem.”

— Wynton Marsalis

27. “The first jazz musician was a trumpeter, Buddy Bolden, and the last will be a trumpeter, the archangel Gabriel.”

— Wynton Marsalis

28. “Love is the spiritual essence of what we do. Technique is the manifestation of the preparation and investment as a result of the love.”

— Wynton Marsalis

29. “Even if nobody’s singing, just when you talk, you’re singing. I’ll meet somebody and say, “Oh, I’m tone-deaf.” I say, “You’re not tone-deaf, because if you were tone-deaf you would speak like that. But you’re ‘Oh, I’m tone-deaf.’ You already sang a song to me.””

— Wynton Marsalis

30. “The only justification for looking down on anyone is that you’re going to stop and pick them up.”

— Wynton Marsalis

31. “Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” is still in print. They’re debating right now over Mark Twain. He’s still available. Winslow Homer can still be seen. Our arts are – they’re there. We got to go get them and understand that this is an important legacy for our country.”

— Wynton Marsalis

32. “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.”

— Wynton Marsalis

33. “Who creates a thing is not as important as what the thing is. Who created baseball? Who created basketball? Who created the space program? Who created – we could go on and on. We could argue about who created something. We all are participants in it.”

— Wynton Marsalis

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

— Wynton Marsalis

35. “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.”

— Wynton Marsalis

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

— Wynton Marsalis

37. “How great musicians demonstrate a mutual respect and trust on the bandstand can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life, understanding what it means to be a global citizen in the most modern sense.”

— Wynton Marsalis

38. “The fact that we are culturally ignorant and we don’t know what our heritage is, the price that we pay is that we act outside of ourselves almost all the time. We make very bad decisions how we deal with other people and their culture.”

— Wynton Marsalis

39. “Whenever you face a man who’s playing your instrument, there’s a competition.”

— Wynton Marsalis

40. “For Black people, we’re one of the only groups of people that for some reason to express love of yourself, in some ways, is misconstrued as a dislike for someone else.”

— Wynton Marsalis

41. “There’s so much spirit of integration and democracy in jazz.”

— Wynton Marsalis

42. “When did we begin to lose faith in our ability to effect change?”

— Wynton Marsalis

43. “The first time I ever played the trumpet in public, I played the Marine Hymn. I sounded terrible.”

— Wynton Marsalis

44. “Many a revolution started with the actions of a few. Only 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. A few hanging together can lead a nation to change.”

— Wynton Marsalis

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

— Wynton Marsalis

46. “There really have only ever been a few people in each generation who step out, are willing to put themselves on the line, and risk everything for their beliefs.”

— Wynton Marsalis

47. “We created the spirituals. We created so much great music, jazz chief amongst our innovations, teaching us how to prize ourselves and how to speak to one another, that our kids don’t know that achievement, there’s no way in the world that could be good for us.”

— Wynton Marsalis

48. “Only a few act – the rest of us reap the benefits of their risk.”

— Wynton Marsalis

49. “When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said ‘Are you sure you’re Ellis’s son?’”

— Wynton Marsalis

50. “Don’t wish for someone else to do later what you can do now.”

— Wynton Marsalis