Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician
Interpretation
This quote highlights the relationship between musicians and their audience, emphasizing that the musician is the first to experience their own music.
Wynton Marsalis's quote reflects the intrinsic bond between musicians and their art, suggesting that while music is ultimately created for an audience, the musician themselves engages with and appreciates the music first. This establishes a unique intimacy with the work, where the emotions and intentions of the musician profoundly shape the experience for future listeners.
In practice
During a music workshop, one could use this quote to inspire aspiring musicians to connect with their craft.
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.
If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.
I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those other great bands climbing those same stairs.
Every painting is a voyage into a sacred harbor.
I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art
Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.
Great innovations, powerful interactions and real art are often produced by someone in a state of wonder. Looking around with stars in your eyes and amazement at the tools that are available to you can inspire generosity and creativity and connection
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