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.
Interpretation
Younger generations are not effectively leading or inspiring older generations to improve.
This quote by Wynton Marsalis highlights a perceived disconnect between generations, suggesting that young people today are not taking the initiative to lead or challenge older generations. It implies that without this vital push from the youth, society may miss opportunities for growth and higher standards of excellence.
In practice
In a discussion about the influence of youth activism in the present day.
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.
Making good judgments when one has complete data, facts, and knowledge is not leadership - it's bookkeeping
I'm not sure that an athlete is prepared to be a role model. He has a lot of attention paid to him that he shouldn't have, and then the athletes tend to think of themselves as better than they are.
A great man left a watchword that we can well repeat: "There is no indispensable man"
I always tell people, good coaches are a dime a dozen. Good coaches that are good people, good husbands, good fathers, that love their players and are passionate about doing things in a way that I believe is important, that pool gets real small.
There is no parallel in the history of the world. This mighty subcontinent with all kinds of inhabitants has been brought under a plan which is titanic, unknown, unparalleled. And what is very important with regard to it is that we have achieved it peacefully and by means of an evolution of the greatest possible character.
My job as a leader is not to put more stress into a system that is already stressed.
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