What I've learned how to do as I've gotten older is to take all of the information that I have, and push it aside, and try to distill each song into an emotional theme. The hardest thing that I've ever had to learn how to do in playing music is use the sound of my instrument to create an emotional effect.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of emotional expression in music over technical proficiency.
Wynton Marsalis reflects on his journey as a musician, highlighting how he has learned to set aside technical details and focus on conveying deep emotions through his music. He acknowledges that the challenge lies in harnessing the sound of his instrument to evoke feelings, underscoring the artist's role in connecting with their audience emotionally rather than merely showcasing skill.
In practice
In a speech at a music festival, you might inspire musicians to focus on emotional themes in their compositions.
Swing is extreme coordination. It's a maintaining balance, equilibrium. It's about executing very difficult rhythms with a panache and a feeling in the context of very strict time. So, everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid.
Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that.
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.
The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel.
In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.
My daddy thought - no, he expected - that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He was correct in his belief because he had lived in an America of continual social progress, depression followed by prosperity, segregation by integration, and so on.
When I look back and think how fortunate I've been to work with some wonderful people and had some marvelous experiences, then I can look at 'Star Trek' and think it's almost like the cream on the coffee. I don't approach it as anything but a magnificent plus.
I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
My mother is a great artist, but she always treated her paintings like minor postcards. Had she pursued it, she would have been a great artist. Instead, she looked down on her art.
A ballerina takes steps given to her and makes them her own. Each individual brings something different to the same role.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, thro' the wave that runs forever by the island in the river, flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls and four gray towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the Lady of Shalott.
When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.
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