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.
Interpretation
Jazz music embodies spontaneity and emotional connection through musical conversation.
In this quote, Wynton Marsalis emphasizes the essence of jazz music as an improvised form of art that thrives on the present moment. He suggests that, unlike scripted performances, jazz musicians engage in a dynamic dialogue that reflects their immediate feelings and experiences, creating powerful emotional moments for both the musicians and the audience.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of creativity in art, one might cite this quote to illustrate jazz's spontaneous nature.
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.
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.
New Orleans had a great tradition of celebration. Opera, military marching bands, folk music, the blues, different types of church music, ragtime, echoes of traditional African drumming, and all of the dance styles that went with this music could be heard and seen throughout the city. When all of these kinds of music blended into one, jazz was born.
My mom had early rap records, like Jimmy Spicer. In the middle of the records was a turntable and a receiver - I used to scratch records on it - and on top was a reel-to-reel. In front of that wall were more stacks of records. It was either Mom's record or Pop's record, and they had their names on each and every one.
I've been writing a lot of road songs. Writing a lot of homesick songs. But once you start playing them out, it all ain't no secret anymore. Everyone knows how you feel.
Rock 'n' roll is ridiculous. It's absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we're wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.
When I go to the Gate, I'll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we'll play 'Sleepy Time Down South' and 'Hello, Dolly!.' Then he can blow a couple that he's been playing up there all the time.
Endeavour to play easy pieces well and with elegance; that is better than to play difficult pieces badly.
If you come from Africa with your economic poverty and your cultural riches, and you meet someone like Peter Gabriel or a person from a big record company, and they tell you that what you are doing is marvelous, that makes you feel powerful.
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