If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.
Carlos SantanaRead
First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.
Interpretation
The origins of Latin music are deeply rooted in African influences, and Black artists deserve recognition.
Carlos Santana emphasizes that what is often labeled as Latin or Spanish music actually has its foundations in African music, advocating for the acknowledgment of Black individuals and their contributions to this musical genre. By shedding light on these origins, Santana seeks to rectify historical oversights and honor the heritage that shapes contemporary Latin music.
In practice
Discussing the influence of African culture in a music class.
If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.
My dad's a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.
I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.
You can take things that Jimi Hendrix took, from Curtis Mayfield or from Buddy Guy for example, because we are all children of everything, even Picasso. But if you want to stand out, you have to learn to crystallize your existence and create your own fingerprints.
Ever since I was a child I've always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there's always a melody in there.
I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.
It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo.
In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can't replace the magic of four people in a room playing.
I had a vague idea of the song's impact in the '60s, but that was tempered by the hate mail and threats I was receiving. It was only about ten years ago, when I finally put it back in my show because so many people were asking for it, that I understood 'Society's Child' real impact.
When I die, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die.
I wasn't a jazz player, but a classical musician, and I improvised arrangements of popular songs using classical motifs.
In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems.
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