A lot of musicians have a tough time hearing what we're doing in a trio format.
Branford Marsalis

Coltrane came to New Orleans one day and he was talking about the jazz scene. And Coltrane mentions that the problem with jazz was that there were too few groups.
Branford Marsalis

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.
Branford Marsalis

I gave up my base in popular culture when I left the Tonight Show.
Branford Marsalis

I like to make records sound good. I'm more like a reducer than a producer. If an artist cannot produce themselves, what's the point?
Branford Marsalis

I suspect that we might actually start selling some records with these artists in about 10 years. Some the people who invested, they're a little tight-because it's a lot of money to start up a company.
Branford Marsalis

I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.
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.
Branford Marsalis

I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.
Branford Marsalis

If I were like a lot of other people, then it wouldn't be fun; but since I'm like me, it's okay.
Branford Marsalis

If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?
Branford Marsalis

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.
Branford Marsalis

If you're going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If you're going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation that's based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, you're down to about 10 people or so.
Branford Marsalis

It's hard to get into Newsweek because, as more of our former intellectual magazines take on a pop focus, if there's no buzz, there's no interest.
Branford Marsalis

It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.
Branford Marsalis

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.
Branford Marsalis

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.
Branford Marsalis

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.
Branford Marsalis

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.
Branford Marsalis

Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.
Branford Marsalis