Branford Marsalis Quotes

I dread naming pieces of music because being instrumental, most of the time the songs that I write are instrumental, I want the listener to make up their own story as to what it is and get the emotion pure without using logic.

I dance. I don't really do anything else.

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

I think the world is very much embracing this whole concept of musicians going out and playing their instruments and playing music for music as opposed to music that has something to do with some form of image or imagery.

My music has always been sort of in between categories. Sometimes record stores - back when there were record stores - they'd put my records in the country music section, but other record stores would put my records in the pop or even the rock section. As long as it's in the store somewhere, I'm OK with it.

I never thought of having platinum albums and winning awards. I just wanted to write songs and sing when I started out in the music business.

If I could, I would not do anything else. I'd just be in the studio for my whole life. I would never go to parties, events, and red carpets. I would rather just be in the studio for the whole time. I don't even care. Nobody has to know what I look like. I just want to make music.

If I had to drop everything and just be a songwriter, I would be OK with that because that's the real joy.

I don't much like things to go by somebody's name, like the 'Bob Jones Group Jam Band.'

If it's a good song and it fits me, that's what I'm going to do, I'm not out there trying to change the world. I'm just out there trying to sing country music the best way I can.

I think this whole division between the genres has more to do with marketing than anything else. It's terrible for the culture of music.

I'd rather let the music speak for itself.

The character of instrumental music... lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations.

New Age is a very small box. It was a term that was brought in by the music industry to classify music that is neither jazz, classical, pop or rock. They didn't know what to call it or what to do with it. So they threw it all together under this one name.

I'm most comfortable when you just give me a guitar and I just sing.

I like the fact that music is more abstract.

There is no gender to my music. There's no male or female voice, no trite lyrics or poetry. It's much more abstract, so it lives with you longer.

A lot of people who have been perceiving my music have been trying to formulate a genre for it, and I think it's just a natural thing; it doesn't need to be categorized. It doesn't need to be sectioned, if you will.

The way we're going about things and what we want to do, we feel it has to be a really pure essence of music. That's where you get the most out of it.

Maybe if I knew music I couldn't do what I am doing.

Instrumental music is nonverbal and thus radically ambiguous. It doesn't lend itself to what might be called content-oriented analysis, though plenty of intellectuals have tried to analyze it in precisely that way.

A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

If I'm feeling like rock, we'll do some of that, and if I'm feeling some other way, we might do some of that. So, that's typically how I record and write and play music and anything else.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

Imagine if all those kings and dukes hadn't commissioned those crazy cathedrals, paintings and music... we'd still be living in sticks and mud. Because none of those things made any economic sense. Human beings' capacity to 'waste time' is a miracle - but that's exactly what art is for.