![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/03\/branford-2-829873-wpkzmoeo-423951-q6wDOzlS.png\")
<\/a>And all the band members came from places where they played for others rather than just themselves, Marsalis said, including in a church and in rock, funk and R&B bands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I was 15 years old, I wasn\u2019t going to jazz camp,\u201d he said. \u201cI was playing R&B in bars. It gives you a different sensibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Striking chords of emotion in the audience is the most important thing in music, Marsalis said. His quartet likes to play with the \u201cbottom heavy\u201d feel of a dance beat rather than a \u201ctop heavy\u201d intellectual or mathematical approach sometimes found in contemporary jazz, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to write all this complicated music, then you have to deliver it in a way that has an emotion attached to it,\u201d Marsalis said. \u201cAnd if you don\u2019t, then it\u2019s just going to leave everybody flat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He likened how musicians need to master their technique to the way top athletes can make running look easy, even when it isn\u2019t. Audiences shouldn\u2019t have to \u201ctake a harmony class\u201d to get the music, he quipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur job is to deliver it to the audience in the simplest way possible, even when it\u2019s a complicated song,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s because most people who attend jazz concerts aren\u2019t versed in the language of jazz, Marsalis said, and may not even listen to jazz, but they can feel the music and that\u2019s what they come for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAudiences have always been the same since audiences have existed,\u201d he said, adding that they don\u2019t have to have \u201csophisticated\u201d knowledge to attend a jazz concert. Instead, Marsalis believes \u201call music sounds best when it\u2019s a collaborative effort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a different thing, sharing something with people as opposed to walking on stage and thinking \u2018I am superior and you should bow down to me,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThe music comes across very differently. At that point, you can\u2019t play with enough fragility to invoke any emotion at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s also less enjoyable for the performer to play in that more \u201ctop heavy\u201d way, Marsalis added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can be completely impressed by something and completely unmoved by it at the same time,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when I go to concerts, I would like to be moved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Chipping away at the edges\u2019<\/b><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The quartet also has a \u201cgreat time\u201d playing together, Marsalis said, and likes to improvise with their songs on stage in a way he calls \u201cchipping away at the edges\u201d \u2014 making the song not really new but building on what came before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMost [music] is neither innovative nor new,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just chip away at the edges. And in doing so, our music might be different or new, but at the bottom of the music is kind of like the gravitas that the old music had \u2014 the understanding of the relationship between the dance beat and the swing beat \u2014 so the music has a real punch when we play as opposed to being top heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n