There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.

Everybody talks about finding your voice. Do your homework and your voice will find you.

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.

The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.