As time passed on, got to hear some players who were straight up funky, not just jazz. Nat Adderley, for instance - he's a funky trumpet player, so he was my man.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was coming up, a lot of serious jazz players couldn't stand funk.
As a kid, I used to go see all the jazz players, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespe.
My dad is a big jazz fan, and that was the reason I first got into jazz.
Actually, a lot of my influences were horn players. I really liked Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Miles Davis - people like that. My dad had a lot of those records. So when I started playing jazz primarily, it wasn't jazz guitar that I was listening to.
If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.
I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with.
I wouldn't really say I'm a jazz guy, which I'm not.
I wouldn't call myself a jazz player or a blues player.
I think 'Horace Silver' was actually the first live jazz group I ever heard back when I was a kid in St. Louis. So along with most players of my generation, I have a real affection for the music of 'Horace Silver.'
My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.
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