The best part of touring, still, is touching people’s hearts and igniting my band and igniting the people into what you call a spiritual revelation is sound and emotion.
I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It’s not like I’m cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.
Ever since I was a child I’ve always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there’s always a melody in there.
If you stay in your heart you will always be inspired and if you are inspired you will always be enthusiastic. There is nothing more contagious on this planet as enthusiasm.
There’s a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.
I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.
Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.
Every day you wake up is an opportunity to go beyond, and that ‘s why I let my band go right now. For the first time in my life I’m just roaming around, vagabonding.
I know I’m not the kind of person who’s gonna wind up a walking jukebox, like many rock ‘n’ roll artists. They just play their hits and that’s it. That doesn’t appeal to me.
