I 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 DrakeThe place that I found where European musicians and American musicians come together is that odd middle world which is called uncertainty.
Hamid DrakeI think when we start to understand what masculinity and femininity is, then men won't fear so much the feminine side coming out. And the masculine side for women coming out won't be such a burden, in a way. Just be ourselves.
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 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 Drake