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.
There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian [Epstein].
When I was young and very green, I worte that tune, Sister Kate, and someone said that's fine, let me publish it for you. I'll give you fifty dollars. I didn't know nothing about papers, and business, and I sold it outright.
I think I'm going to be making country records for as long as I can see into the future. It's much more down-home and real.
A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.
They're powerful, those songs. At times they've been my only way back, the only door out of the dark, bad places the black dog calls home.
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