It used to be that creative music was most of the music that you heard back in the '30s and '40s, and now it's like 3 percent. So, its kind of a struggle getttin' it out there.

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect.

You have to see your unimportance before you can see your importance and your significance to the world.

Before music there was silence and the duet format allows you to build from the silence in a very special way.

I always told the people at Cal Arts that if they wanted me to do Jazz studies, first of all, there couldn't be a big band within 500 miles and that I could do what I wanted to do. And they said I could.

I just try to play music from my heart and bring as much beauty as I can to as many people as I can. Just give them other alternatives, especially people who arent exposed to creative music.

In the midst of creating, a person is raised to another level of consciousness.