Zitat des Tages von Wadada Leo Smith:
I always felt of myself as a composer, performer, improviser. I've never called myself a jazz man. I make art.
We have these old fashioned ideas. For instance, here in America, we talk about democracy - but we don't have a democracy. There are elements of a democracy.
Jazz infers a style, but creative music has a wider field and wider specification about it. We know it from people like Scott Joplin and on through Bessie Smith.
I have been in dialogue with my family about what can actually be done. We've come up with this philosophy that in a truly multicultural society, the only way to have liberty and justice for everybody is to have multiple parties. And by multiple parties, I mean 50 parties, not one or two.
The artist is the consciousness of society... but musicians' role is very special.
When I first started, I worked with my father, Alex 'Little Bill' Wallace; he was a guitarist like B.B. King. I was around 13 when I started, and I learned a lot by looking and listening. I learned how to be a bandleader from watching that band work.
Seeing the bigger picture opens your eyes to what is the truth.
Everything and anything is valuable.
The only thing that makes change possible is the idea of developing some kind of institution, because the institutions will survive individuals.
I've got that Beethoven energy, that Stravinsky energy. And it's all a gift from the Creator.
I wanted to identify that the black experience is American experience.
When you live in the South, you're constantly part of the civil rights movement.
I started composing when I was around 13, and back then, people used to say that I needed to be a composer or a performer, but I can't be good at both of them. I could never understand why anyone would say that. Jellyroll did both, Bessie Smith did both, and so did I.