David Sanborn Quotes
If you're playing with somebody from another idiom, you can't react to them in the same way that you react to somebody that is closer to your idiom. You don't fall into the same habits. You find a new way of communicating.
Sanborn, David. Interview by Dan Ouellette. DownBeat, Maher Publications, vol. 75, no. 10, Oct. 2008, p. 32.
The inscrutability of the “oriental” was not racial as Nicholson and many others thought as most Asians who became Westernized tend to behave and respond to the Western culture in which they were brought up. However, many of the “oriental” cultures place a premium on inscrutability and avoidance of candor. Therefore, often they interact with Westerners and are unsure of the certainty of what they hear and observe. Or they hear it in ways that in their culture would not indicate strong feeling when that was intended by the Westerner. For example, Arab oratory tends to repeat something intensely felt several if not many times. A Western Diplomat who thinks he “makes himself clear” might slow down and emphasize each word distinctly—a sign of strong emphasis in Western oratory—but if only stated once or twice might not be taken as seriously meant. So communicating between cultures has often caused difficulties which people have assumed were racial characteristics but were cultural.
The “different character” has local and national variations throughout the Middle East including Arabs and Persians. This affects speeches, public statements, and press releases. To Americans and Europeans it appears to be lying or self-delusion in the speakers part. And when this different character translates to the written word in newspapers or books, it is even more difficult to label and understand.
Lawrence of Arabia. It is amazing that this principle has been so ignored by otherwise very sophisticated countries trying to influence the third world.
David William Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school.
