The piano is a European instrument. Theolonious Monk isn't European. The saxophone is European, too. Today the confidence that art can change society is dying all about us. But in the black American community it may still be alive.
Many black artists believe deeply that their art is part of the struggle.
Black people are most interested in changing where their heads are at. I don't think black artists think about art that way. James Baldwin said that social change in art has to do with a black kid looking at a black kid and thinking him beautiful. We're interested in a cultural cohesiveness, a sense of who we are as a people, what your image is, what is beautiful to you. Those are the changes black people are really interested in.