I've had experiences where people say, 'I hated jazz before I heard you guys!' I'm like, 'You didn't hate jazz before you heard us; you hated the idea of jazz.'
Interpretation
The quote illustrates that preconceived notions often cloud our appreciation of art forms like jazz.
Kamasi Washington's quote highlights a common phenomenon where individuals dismiss a genre of music, such as jazz, based on stereotypes or misconceptions. The statement underscores the transformative power of experiencing art firsthand, suggesting that the dislike was not for jazz itself, but for the preconceived notion surrounding it. This emphasizes the importance of open-mindedness and personal experience in shaping taste and appreciation in music and art.
In practice
In a discussion about music genres at a gathering.
We've now got a whole generation of jazz musicians who have been brought up with hip-hop. We've grown up alongside rappers and DJs; we've heard this music all our life. We are as fluent in J Dilla and Dr Dre as we are in Mingus and Coltrane.
I kept thinking about how ironic it is how people who live in places where there is diversity tend to love it - and the people that don't live in particularly diverse places tend to be the ones attacking it. In a way, that's similar to music, which is essentially the art of bringing things together.
My hope is that witnessing the beautiful harmony created by merging different musical melodies will help people realize the beauty in our own differences.
In general, in my life, one of the coolest things that I've been able to do is to go to different places and meet different people and see how they view the world and to learn what their music is and what their language is, and the food they eat and everything. That idea of the beauty of the vastness of the world has just been my life.
My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn't know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn't fail. It was all, 'Yeah baby, you sound real good' no matter what you play. It was a great way to learn.
Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help.
I didn't want to play it boring and safe. I also didn't want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they're even scarier than first ones.
My aim as a frontman is always to try and shrink the venue, if you can, to turn that football stadium into the world's smallest club. At least you have to try.
I wrote my first song at 12 and remember someone asking, 'What were you going through at 12 that you could write about?' I get what you're saying, but 11, 12, 13 were the hardest years of my life. You learn everything. You learn how horrible things feel.
I'm well past the age where I'm acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you're not going to get played on radio and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.
Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place, which is different than me singing the blues, where I can sing, 'Oh, baby,' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz, you better leave that space open, or put in something real cool.
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