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"The piano is the X factor. People have a tough time following the structures when there's no piano there, spelling it out. It makes it more easily understood, particularly to people who don't know as much about music."
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"88% of what we call good songs aren't really good. They merely remind us of a good time we once had."
"Great songs don't grow on trees, yet lots of songs have been written on great trees."
Explore more quotes by Branford Marsalis
"I think that one of the problems that jazz has is that it's so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself."
"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."
"The whole point is, give me a break with the standards. You go to the average jazz label and suggest a record and they want to know which standards you're going to play. I'm saying let's break the formula."
"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."
"Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic."
"The lion's share of what I hear right now are people who, intentional or accidental, have avoided all jazz prior to 1960. And all the musicians who were successful in the '60s spent their entire lives, prior to 1960, listening to all the musicians these people avoid."
"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."
"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."
"If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?"
"That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you."
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