There's like a special group of people that come from different parts of the planet to study with me. It's nice. I just gave a workshop in Boston at the New England Conservatory, which was really nice.

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

I just sit down at the piano and rattle it off.

The artist is very lucky, because in an art form that's spontaneous like jazz, that's when you really see your true self. And that's why, when I put down my instrument, that's when the challenge starts, because to learn how to be that kind of human being at that level that you are when you're playing - that's the key, that's the hard part.

I always felt that I was born in the wrong era. I wanted to be friends with John Garfield, for instance. He was one of the only actors that refused to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee back when the Hollywood Ten blacklist was happening in the McCarthy period. I wish I could've been friends with Charlie Parker and played with him. That's my period. I feel real close to the '40s - and actually I was born in '37, so I was a kid singing on the radio in the '40s. But I always dreamed of going to big cities.

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

Creative Arts raise a person to another level of consciousness as if you could imagine life before words.