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Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life QUOTES

Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life QUOTES

1 " I noticed that religion gave some people a way to escape dealing with the world: “Things will be better when you die,” the people of my grandma’s generation said as they worked themselves to death. “God wants you to forgive and love those who do you wrong,” some people said to shake off the shame of being unable to respond to the abuse they endured. The holier-than-thou faction found comfort in believing, “The rest of y’all are lost because you don’t have a personal relationship with God—our God.”

But art engages you in the world, not just the world around you but the big world, and not just the big world of Tokyo and Sydney and Johannesburg, but the bigger world of ideas and concepts and feelings of history and humanity. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

2 " Jazz shows us how to find a groove with other people, how to hold on to it, and how to develop it. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

3 " In learning about a person, you learn something about the world and about yourself, and if you can handle what you learn, you can get closer, much closer to them. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

4 " Because jazz musicians improvise under the pressure of time, what’s inside comes out pure. It’s like being pressed to answer a question before you have a chance to get your lie straight. The first thought is usually the truth. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

5 " In jazz, time is your friend, and when you find your own swing, or the swing time in any group activity, actual time flies, yes. But it’s flying to where you want to be. And when you get there, you realize the ride is the destination. That’s the joy of swinging. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

6 " Jazz is the art of timing. It teaches you when. When to start, when to wait, when to step it up, and when to take your time—indispensable tools for making someone else happy. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

7 " You are creative, whoever you are. Respect your own creativity and respect the creativity and creative space of other people. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

8 " The most prized possession in this music is your own unique sound. Through sound, jazz leads you to the core of yourself and says “Express that.” Through jazz, we learn that people are never all one way. Each musician has strengths and weaknesses. We enjoy hearing musicians struggle with their parts, and if we go one step further and learn to accept the strong and weak parts of people around us and of ourselves, life comes at us much more easily. A judge has a hard time out here. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

9 " Jazz also reminds you that you can work things out with other people. It’s hard, but it can be done. When a group of people try to invent something together, there’s bound to be a lot of conflict. Jazz urges you to accept the decisions of others. Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow—but you can’t give up, no matter what. It is the art of negotiating change with style. The aim of every performance is to make something out of whatever happens—to make something together and be together. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life

10 " Music was just one of the tools we employed to create excitement. The jazzman’s objective, however, was solely musical: Through his improvisation, he wanted to take people deep into his actual feelings and his world. "

― Wynton Marsalis , Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life