The '60s were a time of great change in American music.
Influences at home, including classical music, were not all specifically jazz, but the family radio was always on... So there was always some connection to American culture, to American music.
I grew up with the Blind Boys' music. My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center. I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.
I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.
It's amazing how English music manages to travel to America and obviously, American music in the U.K. is massive.
I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.
I think the women - Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu - are doing new conceptual things and using their voices to create new American music.
The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.
I started playing piano with a little band in high school. I was terrible. I thought I had absolutely no talent. I couldn't keep time. I only got into McGill, which was a lousy music school, because they were taking American music students.
Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.
