If you say you have an empty mind and you don't have an empty mind, you only know later that you have an empty mind. Because if you say you have empty mind, you don't have empty mind, because you're already thinking about it.
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 DrakeThe place that I found where European musicians and American musicians come together is that odd middle world which is called uncertainty.
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 DrakeIf you're truly playing improvised music, I don't care who you are or where you come from, you don't know what's going to happen. I feel essentially we really don't know anything anyway, most of the times we're just guessing.
Hamid DrakeFemininity doesn't always relate to being a woman and masculinity doesn't always relate to being a man; it's a quality of being-ness. Women have to portray the quality of masculinity; society wants it to be like a man; not necessarily male, but like a man. If that makes sense...In nature itself, there's yin and yang, there's masculine and feminine.
Hamid Drake