You have to be committed to your own discovery of your journey. To uncover…to dis-cover…the discovery of who you are as person…as a musician…as an artist…as a creative being. And don’t feel that you have to do it based on anything that has come before, but take the information that was there before as inspiration.
My main inspiration comes from seeing people stretch themselves. Explore themselves, and allow themselves to have that experience of discovery. In this way that’s how you truly kind of find something original, and unique to only you. You have to be willing to remove that fear of “am i pleasing everyone?..does this work?..or does this fit in?”.
Mahavishnu was not trying to fit in with anything that was happening at that moment. It was so new, so fresh, and so different that he came up with a sound that nobody had heard before. Return To Forever was a sound that we had never heard before. It’s not to say it wasn’t inspired by what came before, but it was certainly unencumbered by the previous rules of what came before. Each era of the music, and of generations, and what young people bring when they are born, they are bringing an evolution of Spirit, of Soul, of Creativity and it is beautiful to witness that evolution. And also have the experience too of allowing yourself to be a fearless explorer of ideas.
~ Omar Hakim