That is the question that no one has the real answer to. I guess jazz could be a state of mind. It could be a musical adjective. Or some may say it's a noun.
They think jazz is this thing. I don't know, I think it's like, I think jazz is kind of like hip-hop. I think jazz is a state of mind.
It's freedom, you know, it's freedom of music. I don't think necessarily you can define it by saying it's totally improvisational because... Then you have like, okay, what happens when you have a jazz singer and you just play the song and there's no solos, and you're just strictly playing the song and the jazz singer is just singing the lyrics.
Then if you just have that, is it not jazz because it's not a solo? you know and because you're just playing the changes there's not really much embellishment you know if you embellish the changes a little bit is it jazz because you can embellish the changes on the r&b tune a little bit so is it now not r&b is it jazz you know this so many different things, ways to look at it. Jazz is life. It's every day. It's everything that you do, everything that you wish to do, everything you dream, everything that you are, everything that you inspire to be, the people that you meet.
All of that is in jazz because that's what influences you and that's what influences the music. So jazz is never one thing. It's everything. If I had to describe to someone what is jazz, I would probably do it in the words that the great John Lewis once told me. You know...
in a conversation I had with him. He said, first of all, jazz has to always have the suggestion of swing in it, the swing rhythm. It doesn't have to exactly be swing all the time, but it has to have the suggestion of swing. Number two, it has to have the element of syncopation in it, the element of surprise. And thirdly, it has to always possess the element of the blues.
What is jazz? We say it's America's gift in the art form. but jazz is a you find jazz in in all music it's just improvisation it's creativity it's uh expression those things that's very important because it's not regimented you have the freedom to create what comes through you and and they're not many uh opportunities that we get that we can just express what we feel and jazz is not at all unlike america itself where you have different communities, you have many different people, and they all come together to make it what it is and to give it that unique flavor. And that's how jazz is.
We have different people from different areas, and they all bring something different and something special. And to me, the greatest jazz occurs when you have individuals who are very different and not at all similar, like, for example, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk and Max Roach. completely and Charles Mingus completely different egos attitudes and they come together they find the common ground and it's happening I will define jazz as the language of the spirit the closest thing To the heart, jazz.
Something that comes from inside you, but don't have any language, words, but connect all of us together in the world. Well, I don't call it anything, I just call it music. And so if I'm listening to Miles Davis, I'm listening to Miles Davis's music. It doesn't need another name other than that's Miles Davis's music.
And it comes right from Miles Davis. It's his concept. He's put the band together. You know what I'm saying?
And so, you know, that's why I have a problem with definition, you know, because it mixes people up. It just mixes them up so much. So I don't know how to...
answer that. If I'd have to call it anything, I'd call it the blues, because that's the essence of this music, is the blues. It's gospel.
You hear the blues in gospel, you hear the blues in everything. So that's the grandfather of all of this music. You know, there's so many people that I meet, they're like, oh, well, I'm not really into jazz because I don't really understand it. Or, you know, I was on a flight once. And it was a flight.
I think it was either a flight to L.A. or to Sydney. I was going to Sydney, but we were flying to L.A. first. And I sat down, she was like, so what do you do?
I'm like, well, because you look different. What do you do? I was like.
She's like, you look like a musician. I was like, yeah, I play music. So what do you play? I play a bunch of different styles. Jazz, etc.
So jazz, and she stopped on jazz. I don't really understand jazz. I said, what's not to understand?
She said, I don't know. I went to this show once, and these guys were there, and they were playing. And they played a song, kind of, and then they went on to do this thing, and then they didn't say anything.
We didn't know what was going on, and then they walked off the stage. I was like, well, that's not what jazz is. I was like, tell me your favorite song. I was like, sing me your favorite song. She started singing it to me.
I was like, okay. Now, just change it a little bit. Change the rhythm of it.
Change a couple of the notes of the melody. Embellish the song. And she started doing that.
And I would go back and forth with her on it. And she started smiling. And I was like, that's what jazz is.
Jazz is when you take the music and make it yours and then give it to someone. That's all jazz is.