Quotes By Wynton Marsalis

I got my first trumpet when I was six years old, from Al Hirt. My father was playing in Al Hirt's band at that time.

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.

The rebuilding of New Orleans is an important point in the history of the United States.

It's important to address young people in the reopening of New Orleans. In rebuilding, let's revisit the potential of American democracy and American glory.

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?

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.

There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

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.

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.

Through first-class education, a generation marches down the long uncertain road of the future with confidence.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Thank the good Lord for a job.

I sounded like myself. People be saying I sound like Miles or Clifford Brown.

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.

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.

The best way to be, is to do.

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

My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians.

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?'