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

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

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.

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

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 learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow — there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance.

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