When I play with people, one of the first rules is to listen. Just by the near fact that you listen and you're open to listening, or you're listening and you're open to what this other person is doing. Also you going to be open to what you're doing and you're not going to have it like 'planned out'.
Hamid DrakeWhen I started doing improvise music in Europe, in the beginning I thought the way that Europeans were interpreting the reconstruction of deconstruction of this thing that we call jazz - of course it's different than what Americans do, because Europeans have a different history, a different sensibility and so forth - the nature of the creative process itself it's the same; but what comes from that creative process is different, because you have a different history, you have a different society, different language.
Hamid DrakeI grew up in the funk, rock and roll, blues and r&b tradition, and I came to this thing we call jazz later. And I came to improvise music from the standpoint of jazz; I was improvising, but within these other genres of music.
Hamid DrakeMusicians are affected by the audience just as much as audiences are affected by the musicians. The only problem is that often times musicians won't allow themselves to admit to that fact.
Hamid Drake