Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture > Video Oral History Gallery

Video Gallery Clip Transcript: Larry Ridley

But all of that stuff grew out the blues and basically the spirituals and the gospel all of that was all a part of the same kind of mix. Because it was always very interesting to me like when I first started playing jazz, how some of the older people in the African American community they would be talking about, oh you're playing the devil's music and to me it's never been any different, I mean the text was the only thing that was different What you were talking about, you know the story line, where you'd be talking about Jesus, and stealing home or going back to Jesus or whatever you know, or whereas you'd be talking about My Baby Done Left, it's the same thing, I mean all the musical nuances were the same, the use of malisma, the harmonies and all that kind of stuff it was all still out of the same bag, it's still tied to that whole African thing. And that was another thing that I was very aware of from an early.