I was listening to a lot of bebop. And to Miles Davis. Everyone thinks I was just in the folk world in 1966, but in 1963 and 1964, I was absorbing enormous amounts of music, from baroque to jazz to blues to Indian music.
I listen to somebody like Shawn Lane, and unfortunately he is no longer with us, but I hear him playing and I am like, 'That is just absolutely ridiculous.'
I find early jazz to be the most revolutionary music of its time.
What I believe to be jazz is constructed and improvised music which is in the air right now. But I don't think that's most people's definition of jazz, you know? We don't know what we're talking about, because we don't know the definition.
Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?
I've always loved the blues, John Lee Hooker, Janis Joplin, Hendrix.
You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.
Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.
I'm a child of the 70's; influenced mostly by albums that had a wide variety of style.
Be-bop wasn't developed in any deliberate way.
Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.
When I discovered Gil Scott-Heron, I discovered a musical hero, a man who spoke baritone truth to power over jazzy funk at a time when funky music was primarily about shake, shake, shaking your booty.
My dad was a big Frank Zappa fan, so I remember listening to a lot of Frank Zappa. Girls do not like Frank Zappa.
Back in the day, being a young, inspired bass player, I started to gravitate toward jazz fusion. I almost would have called myself an elitist. I got to the point where, for a little bit there, I was more interested in instrumental music.
See, we started out with a foundation of blues. But then we added people like Miles Davis and John Coltrane to the mix and gave rock n' roll a much more complex structure. It made it possible to play more than three chords.
When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.
The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.
Sometimes I practice to Allan Holdsworth or John McLaughlin, but I don't just practice to jazz and jazz-fusion albums. I'll practice to TV theme music - one of my favorites is 'M*A*S*H.' I'll just play along with anything on the TV.
Grover Washington was my main influence, and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.
I grew up listening to John Coltrane and jazz, so they were subtle influences. I sometimes think about doing some kind of weird jazz record, but I don't know... It's on my list of things to do. I don't want to have to then go promote it.
Blues is a very physical music.
Some songs are just going to be acoustic with just maybe some light background stuff going on and maybe violin or something like that. Or sax - I mean, I'm definitely having some sax. That's just what I love. It's going to be jazz-rock stuff. That's what I'm aiming for.
The first album I ever bought was Santana's 'Abraxas.' Obviously, I was a huge fan of Carlos because he had the unique guitar sound, and he had incorporated a lot of the percussion and really, really fun rhythmic bass lines in there, too.
I listen to a lot of Freddie Hubbard.
I personally think Miles Davis is a lot funnier than me. And he's working more.
