When I was teaching [high
When I was teaching [high school], I used to see a lot of talent that didn’t particularly go anywhere, and at first it was really mysterious to me. I couldn’t really understand it–I mean, to see a seventeen-year-old kid who’s a natural bass. Those are born. You don’t learn to do that. And to hear coloratura sopranos who couldn’t care less. I was forced to reappraise what my understanding of talent is. Then I eventually began to discover that talent is like the battery in a car. It’ll get you started, but if the generator is bad, you don’t go very far.
Wynton Marsalis
That was a quote from the article, “Wynton’s Blues,” by David Hajdu, in the March 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.
