Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2009-11-19:

"It [Blues] is America. It's that combination, those tensions, the east-west tensions, the kind of tension of being a slave in the land of freedom, and the land of freedom itself, the Western mind, the concept of soloing across time, the call-and-response of democracy, direct call and response, the kind of optimism that is American in nature, is in the blues.

"There are elements in it that are African and there are elements of the American take on Europeanism. It's integrated, it's like a person whose DNA is integrated. You start to try to figure it out -- but you can't. That's how the blues is, that's why it fits with everything, country-western, bluegrass -- everybody's playing the same music."

-- Wynton Marsalis, from an interview on CNN.

[ http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/10/24/wynton.marsalis.blues.race/index.html ]

(submitted to the mailing list by Brian K. Read)