Most of the people that I learned and experienced jazz with have been with foreign white people, mostly from France. Excluding my family.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In jazz, there is a lot of European influence harmonically.
You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that's it. No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa.
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
I've been around jazz and jazz musicians most of my life.
One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.
Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz.
So I went into jazz and performed in jazz clubs all over the country.
Jazz is really 20th-century fusion music. You take West African harmony and rhythm, mix with European harmony, and boom!
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.