Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music, eventually I wanted to play an instrument.
My grandfather, Arthur Baskerville, he played and still plays a little bit piano and trombone, and so when I was a kid, I always heard jazz around the house, but I also went to his gigs, whether it be a Saturday brunch in my hometown Columbus, Ohio. We'd go and hear him play with some of the local musicians.
I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.
Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music.
I grew up in such a musical family, and my dad was the first chair in the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, and my mom was a piano teacher and a painter, so it was kind of a creative environment, and it was kind of in my DNA.
I didn't grow up with classical music. My father was a folk music singer.
I wanted to keep pushing the musical ideas I had about jazz, music from Africa and the Caribbean.
Growing up, I was very much interested in jazz music.
I've been around jazz and jazz musicians most of my life.
To this day, I adore classical music, and I'm very interested in opera, which I found out later my father was also extremely fond of.
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