Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
I always say that the problem with jazz accessibility is not the content of the music, it's people's ability to access it.
I used to be just a total jazz freak. People used to say, 'Where's the melody? Is there a melody in there anywhere?' Now I let the music follow the song.
As late as the early '50s, jazz was still, for the most part, a genuinely popular music, a utilitarian, song-based idiom to which ordinary people could dance if they felt like it.
Everybody's not going to like jazz, let's just be honest about it. Everybody doesn't like everything. There's a disconnect in generations and some people just aren't going to feel that music.
There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.
I want to expand jazz; I don't want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.
I always used to say I'm definitely not a straight-ahead jazz singer, because then there's people who would hear what I do and say, 'Is it jazz? I don't know...' Whatever it is, it really comes down to creating music that makes people feel something.
In the '60s, people were still very protective of each field that they belonged to. Avant-garde artists didn't know about rock or pop or jazz. And the jazz people of course didn't want to know about any other music. They were all just kind of protecting their territory.
People need to realize that even the greatest jazz musicians, when they listen to jazz, they're not like, analyzing it and deconstructing it - they're enjoying it. It's like listening to any other style of music. It's saying something to you, and you kind of just absorb it.
Growing up as a classical musician, you're taught a lot about outreach and about how people aren't being taught music in school. But you don't have to study music to like it. And a lot of the music that people like - be it jazz or rock or opera - is stuff they haven't studied.