I imagine that the root instinct is protective, but why are people so hung up on policing the parameters of jazz?

The parameters are from the words, and the music is the music. I've always been puzzled by that: why do you care so much about this word having a specific definition? This music cannot be contained by one word, there's too much of it. Funk could very easily be called jazz, but you call it funk. Does that really matter? People dig that they associate themselves with certain genres, but the genres to me are made up things like an imaginary world. From the jump, I never really took it seriously. Like Radiohead: is that rock-n-roll or is that electronic? And I'm like, I don't care, call it whatever you want to call it. Why is what name I put on this important? Jazz is so wild, so vast. There's so much music in here and they call it "jazz." Over 100 years worth of it. Millions of songs. Thousands of albums. Thousands, and thousands of artists.



Why does it feel like there is so much important artistic work emerging from L.A. right now though?

L.A. has always been hated on so much. I remember the first time I went to New York, I was at jam sessions and people would hear me and come up to me and be like, ‘Oh wow, you’re from L.A.? Really!?’ L.A. has always had amazing music for the longest time, but a lot of it never left. So there are all these local heroes. What that did is create a nest from the pressures of popularity. L.A. has always been a place about "originality". You don't find a lot people playing the same way. The people who are dope, the people who can play all types of music play their music in a unique way. It’s nonconformist, do-your-own-thing. And it's kind of chill, so there's nothing to be upset about. All of a sudden there's attention around us, and people trying to figure out ‘how did you guys do that?’ There was no pressure to conform, so there's always original ideas floating around; and people have not only this sense of freedom, but also a lot of opportunity. It's a really big city, so you can do anything you want to do.

