The whole underlying theme for the new music... is to communicate honest, human values, and in doing that to try to improve the quality of life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.