“You know, music is just not that important … I don’t enjoy messing up, but I accept that the only way to get better is to suck. And some people work really hard to circumvent that process by never playing a song that they haven’t immaculately prepared, and when you play like that and think like that, then nothing magical can happen on stage. You have to learn to leave some room to let things happen. But that requires risk. And if you’re risk averse, you shouldn’t be doing this. You should be an accountant.”

— Branford Marsalis, The San Antonio Current, February 18, 2015