Lenny White on musical sensitivity and artistic direction
In my interview with drummer Lenny White, Lenny said that he learned to create music before learning to play it. He used as an example the direction Miles Davis gave him in the Bitches Brew recording session when Miles simply told Lenny to "be salt."
Lenny understood what Miles meant because of Lenny's intuitive grasp of music. He didn't need Miles to hand him sheet music or tell him specifically the notes to play. "Salt" was the perfect direction for Lenny in understanding his role in the Bitches Brew recording session.
In this video, Lenny tells the story of this direction and of Miles' genius for knowing players who could take his direction and run with it.
Then I asked my AI - Jazz Master Chat - to translate Lenny's point into something that young music students could grasp and use in their performance of music. The result is something that I think young musicians can understand and implement.
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