Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: evaluation

Transcript context

…Today, are jazz and rap merging into something useful, or is jazz just dead? Where is this all headed? I know for a fact that jazz isn’t dead because it has taken on around the world — so many people around the world want to play jazz. You see jazz musicians now coming from all kinds of places that you would not think of like Azerbaijan and Indonesia and people that can sit down and play all of Duke Ellington’s repertoire. There was an alto saxophonist from Azerbaijan that had all of Charlie Parker’s licks down — all of them. That’s all he had done. It’s incredible. I think the fact that jazz has affected music around the world and there are still people who enjoy classical jazz will make it survive. The whole idea of prophets being strangers in their own country, I think, is more or less what has happened to jazz, but I don’t think it’s dead. I wouldn’t use that term. You mentioned the Harlem Renaissance a moment ago. Of course, you’re from Harlem, and your father’s side originally from Trinidad. But if we think to the Harlem Renaissance, a lot of people know Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston but the lesser-known figures — you’ve written a great book on the Harlem Renaissance — as the years pass, of the lesser-known figures, who sticks with you as most underappreciated or passing a test of time or one that deserves and extra plug from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar today?…

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