I think it's important for people to stay human and remember that genuine human connection is more fulfilling than anything that technology has to offer. We all have it within us, and music is something that can bring that out of us.
Jon BatisteRead
There's a tradition - in New Orleans it still exists - where people play in the street. People play outside of the venues. Food, music, and that cultural exchange, it happens anywhere.
Interpretation
New Orleans embodies a unique tradition of music and cultural exchange happening in public spaces.
Jon Batiste highlights the vibrant cultural tradition of New Orleans, where music and food are not confined to specific venues but are enjoyed openly in the streets. This practice fosters a sense of community and shared experience, celebrating the joy of life through cultural expression and involvement in public spaces.
In practice
During a community event, I shared a quote that captures the spirit of our local culture.
I think it's important for people to stay human and remember that genuine human connection is more fulfilling than anything that technology has to offer. We all have it within us, and music is something that can bring that out of us.
In a live performance, it's a collaboration with the audience; you ride the ebb and flow of the crowd's energy. On television, you don't have that.
The beauty of jazz is that it can accommodate all styles. You can take jazz and put rock in it, and it's still jazz.
The music is really about sharing an experience. That's why we call it Stay Human. It's like we're sharing this genuine human exchange.
I'm from Kenner, Louisiana, where music is played for every occasion in life. There's music for being born, there's music for dying... It's just natural. Families get really good because they play a lot together.
The subway in New York is a great social experiment; there are so many races and ways of life sitting together on each car.
Culture is the intersection of people and life itself. Its how we deal with life, love, death, birth, disappointment... all of that is expressed in culture.
Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?
Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life - its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness - conjoin to dull our sensory faculties
Africa is our center of gravity, our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart, no matter where we live on the face of this earth.
I love having different cultures around, but when the parent culture kind of dissipates, you're left thinking, 'Well, what's going on?'
I realized that you cannot think European and want to write or create something African. You have to think African in everything.
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