Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

Rap actually took root in the Negro community, and then in the Hispanic community, long before it impacted on the larger American community as a whole.

To some degree, yeah, because I have to play a certain number of originals that might be considered avant-garde material. I realize though, that only a few people in the audience actually know what that music is, or understand it.

So, I was just a young guy, maybe with an idea, and Cecil Taylor, himself a rebel, would take a chance on a guy like me. It turned out to be a very symbiotic partnership. I learned a lot from him.

I can't see any separation between my music and my life. I play pretty much race music: its about what happened to my father, to me, and what can happen to my kids.

Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

Music is a language, and it's like a dictionary that has a lot of words, but if you limited yourself to a couple of definitions you would be illiterate. If one limits oneself to a peculiar definition like 'new music,' 'avant-garde,' or something like that, I think it's like cutting out half the dictionary.