We are all on the same trip in the band. We all realize that people in the music business, and the audience have an eye on us because collectively our history is extensive.
We are all on the same trip in the band. We all realize that people in the music business, and the audience have an eye on us because collectively our history is extensive.
Most people think that classical music is a higher form than jazz only because it is from Europe, and we were taught in schools only about Western European history.
I was on tour with Miles Davis, and we had a gig to play at a theater in Los Angeles in 1965. And the opening act was the Aretha Franklin Jazz Trio. She was this young artist and she played sort of funky jazz piano with an upright bassist and a drummer. Then she sang, and she blew the roof off the place. The rest is history. I'd rate her up there with Zeus.
I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness.
© 2020 Inspirational Stories
© 2020 Inspirational Stories